Jack White’s latest venture is still mischievous

Jack White, who first shot to stardom in 2001 with his garage-rock duo the White Stripes, has always beaten an eccentric path. In the White Stripes, he stipulated that he and his drummer, Meg, would only wear red, white and black, to create the impression that they were just kids goofing around. He also perpetuated the untruth that Meg is his elder sister — she was actually his wife, long since divorced. Latterly, White has diversified, as singer/lead guitarist in the Raconteurs, as drummer in the Dead Weather — a bizarre move for such a fêted guitar hero — and most recently as a producer. So when he premiered his first solo album in the debating chamber at London’s County Hall on Tuesday night, one wondered if this might finally be his Mike Yarwood moment (you might remember that the impressionist would wind up his 1970s TV show with a song, saying: “And this is me!”). In fact, White was up to his usual mischief. He first appeared on a big screen above the speaker’s chair, plonking the needle on to a vinyl copy of the record, called Blunderbuss. The ensuing music departed from his usual garage rock, often centring around the grand piano, with dashes of viola, marimba and saxophone, and just the occasional eruption of electric guitar. The lyrics were torrid: though he recently parted from his second wife, Karen Elson (amicably — they even threw a divorce party), there was jealousy, anger and paranoia aplenty. When White appeared in person, he explained how his expanded palette of instrumentation on Blunderbuss evolved out of his production work for the early rock and roll heroine Wanda Jackson. Otherwise, he noted: “I’m still the same as when I was a teenager, just without the looting and pillaging.” Another likely story.