Podcast #77: Jack White on Music and Freedom

By Tracy O'Neill, Social Media Curator
September 8, 2015

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From The White Stripes to The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs to his solo albums, Jack White has proven himself time and again to be one of the most stylish guitarists and vocalists in American rock. Alongside Daphne Brooks, Greil Marcus, and Dean and Scott Blackwood, White joined us in 2013 to discuss the rich tapestry of talent recorded on Paramount Records, from Ma Rainey to Buddy Boy Hawkins. For this week's episode of the New York Public Library Podcast, we're pleased to present Jack White on music and freedom.

Jack White, Daphne A. Brooks, and Dean Blackwood

Jack White, Daphne A. Brooks, and Dean Blackwood LIVE from the NYPL

As he spoke of Paramount Records artists, one word that White returned to over and over again was freedom. He identified one song that particularly encapsulates this spirit of freedom, Jelly Roll Morton’s Steamboat Four's "Mr. Jelly Lord," both because it's structurally and lyrically unemcumbered:

"That track, 'Mr. Jelly Lord,' right there, you can see a moment in American history. This is post World War I, this is, this song just screams freedom to me. There’s not a word said in the entire song. Imagine to be able to impact people with an instrumental nowadays. In a way this is sort of the dubstep of its time, you can actually connect with people and play this instrumental where they’re ignoring time signatures, it’s completely free, this is not John Philip Sousa, or orchestral music, or opera. I can imagine parents not liking their kids listening to this for the freedom that’s displayed in the musicianship in it. It didn’t need to say a word. The title is arbitrary, you know, it’s just total freedom, I think."

White also noted Ethel Waters' "Ain't Gonna Marry," a song that embodies sexual freedom far beyond its time:

"That track is I think really important. Because again we have to remember this is a bold statement. This woman’s not going to marry or settle down. To put that on record and sing it out loud. That’s a lot of freedom. This is 1923 and I used to always say how important I always thought that Loretta Lynn’s 'Don’t Come Home Drinking with Loving on Your Mind' was in the sixties. This is forty years before that, singing basically the same things, she’s singing lines like, you know, 'caught you making love to my best friend.' These are pretty bold statements, a very feminist approach, and this was totally allowed to happen, this was allowed to be recorded, allowed to be put on record and sold by men. Whatever the purpose they had, to move units or whatever it is, a great bold feminist statement comes out of it, which is so beautiful."

Other Paramount tracks provide a vision of freedom in which the lyrics' insistence on the singer's purity supersede the actions and circumstances that might otherwise taint character. This is so in  "Mama's Angel Child" by Sweet Papa Stovepipe.

"I picked this one because this is sort of what I want to happen for you, if you listen to a pile of music, not just this grouping of music, whatever it is, but if it’s a set, if it’s an album, whatever, I’d hope for you to have this moment that I had with this song, because this sort of drew me in and said we have to do this because this is the diamond in the rough for me personally. It’s just one of those tracks that when you hear it I felt like I wish I had written that, I wish—or he’s speaking for me, or he’s speaking for everybody. And I think it’s because he—the song’s called 'Mama’s Angel Child,' but he keeps saying this phrase, 'I’m my mama’s baby child.' And just instantaneously, the fact that that’s the title, the title’s been changed, maybe it’s a misprint, I don’t know, but the fact that he keeps saying, 'I’m my mama’s baby child,' makes me feel like he’s about to break down crying every time he says that, and that ultimately he’s never going to get back to that moment when he was loved so purely as that. And everything else in this story, he can tell you anything—'I climbed this mountain or I dated this person, I killed this other man or whatever, say whatever you want, I’m still going to say the phrase, ‘I’m my mama’s baby child,’' and to me I think that’s probably the most beautiful thing I could find in all of these recordings, the hundreds and hundreds of recordings through Paramount, the novelty songs, the gospel songs, this track to me was the most beautiful."

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