What guitars does Jack White play? Every instrument you need to know
Jack White is one of the most innovative, influential and beloved guitarists of his generation – indeed you could argue that John Anthony Gillis is the one of the last true modern innovators of our instrument.
READ MORE: The Gear Used On The White Stripes’ Elephant
Because while White has always been someone whose tastes and style are heavily influenced by the past – this is a man who owns his own direct-to-vinyl recording booth after all – he has consistently embraced the weird, the under-appreciated and the cutting-edge when it comes to his guitar gear.
As he’s evolved as a player, his gear has changed dramatically too, but one thing has remained consistent – nobody does it quite like Jack White III.
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Guitars
The Airline
Photo by Bob King/Redferns
Perhaps Jack’s most iconic and notable guitar was the one that he used heavily in the early days of The White Stripes – a red 1964 Res-O-Glas Airline, which was made by a Chicago-based company called Valco. Valco made guitars under various brands from 1940 all the way up until 1968. As for the Airline brand, those were made from 1958 until 1968. Not all Airline guitars were Res-O-Glas, but the Res-O-Glas guitars were produced from 1962 to 1967. They didn’t really have a model name, but there was a blues guitarist named J.B. Hutto who played one, and the model was unofficially called the JB Hutto Model.
These guitars are pretty unique. The guitar features a fibreglass hollowbody with a piece of maple going down the centre for the neck, pickups, and bridge to mount to. It features two Valco single-coil pickups, which are often mistaken for humbuckers, and a non-adjustable steel-reinforced neck.
The enduring power of Jack’s undeniable cool can be seen by a quick dash around Reverb today. The original price of an Airline JB Hutto in 1964 was $99 and one of the reasons that Jack used them was that they were cheap ‘pawn shop’ guitars that didn’t cost as much as vintage Fenders or Gibsons.
Nowadays, thanks almost exclusively to Jack White, a Res-O-Glas that would have cost a few hundred bucks in the 90s will now set you back a few thousand – especially if it’s red. As a result of The White Stripes’ popularity, Eastwood guitars brought back the Airline name in the early 2000s, and it continues to produce Res-O-Glas-shaped instruments to this day – however they’re not fibreglass like their forebears, and are just made of wood.
In addition to the Res-O-Glass, White also used a short-scale model and a wood Airline Town & Country guitar in The White Stripes at various times.
Other Pawn Shop Guitars
The whole ‘Pawn Shop Guitar’ concept is another thing that primarily exists because players like Jack White (and later Dan Auerbach) began using unfashionable US-made instruments from catalogue brands to make wonderful music. These budget guitars were often left languishing in the back of pawn shops, but with some TLC, could make a wonderful noise. Over the course of his time with The White Stripes, Jack would use various other catalogue instruments to great effect.
Most notably, White used a 1950s Kay Archtop tuned to Open A as his main slide guitar on songs like Seven Nation Army and Death Letter. It is believed to be a stock Kay K6533 Value Leader which would have been originally a tobacco sunburst, and was used in the early days of The White Stripes before he got the Airline. In 2001 it was covered in Kraft paper – supposedly, this was to stop the feedback through the F-holes, though it may be just for aesthetic reasons. Jack has never stated why he did it and has shrugged off the question in multiple different interviews. As for the specs, it features a single DeArmond pickup with no controls but an on/off switch, a spruce top, maple sides and back, and a floating rosewood bridge. Unlike the Airline, these old archtops are readily available on the used vintage market as they made a LOT of them.
Jack also has a 1970s Crestwood Astral II which was the very first guitar he played in the White Stripes. He used it for very early stuff like Let’s Build A Home and I Fought Piranhas. He kept it tuned to open E for slide playing. This guitar is a cheap Japanese-made model featuring a plywood hollow body, two single-coil pickups, and a tremolo bridge.
Gretsch Guitars
Photo by Andy Paradise/WireImage
After the White Stripes era, White seemed to turn to vintage Gretsch and modern custom-made guitars, albeit with the throwback flair and strange quirks we have come to expect from him. He states,
“I sometimes play a special-edition Gretsch White Penguin Jupiter Thunderbird. They only made 12 of them, and I found one in Texas …around about 2007 I got a ’57 Gretsch White Penguin, which is really rare.”
The Thunderbird was used mainly when he stepped out from the drum stool with The Dead Weather. In The Raconteurs he also used a custom-built Gretsch that he dubbed The Green Machine, which was built by White’s go-to luthier Randy Parsons. The Green Machine was a Gretsch Anniversary Junior modified to a double cutaway and contained a built-in Shure Green Bullet microphone – these mods were highlighted in the documentary film, It Might Get Loud. The Green Machine also features a Bigsby tremolo with a mute system and a mini-Theremin, activated by lifting your wrist away from the bridge.
Parsons also built Jack a copper-topped guitar modelled after a Gretsch Double Jet, with an added third pickup, much like The Green Machine, so Jack dubbed it the “Triple Jet.” Parsons also installed an MXR Micro Amp into the guitar. The guitar features a real copper top and again was used heavily in The Raconteurs.
The good news on the Gretsch front is that it’s pretty easy to find modern and affordable equivalents – albeit not modded or customised to the level that Jacks have been. You can pick up a Thunderbird in the modern clothes, now dubbed the Billy-Bo – but it’ll cost you a pretty penny.
Thankfully there are much more affordable versions of the Double Jet and Anniversary kicking around in Gretsch’s Electromatic range.
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Fender Teles and Jazzmasters
Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for iHeartRadio
Over the last decade, Jack’s gear has taken another unexpected left turn – the man who pretty much invented the pawn shop fad has become almost exclusively a Fender electric guitar user. In typical White style, however, absolutely nothing about his guitars has been stock, and they’re as eccentric and unique as their owner.
His most notable instruments in the last few years have been customised Telecaster guitars – notably his highly modified “Three Wheel Motion” Telecaster, which features a B-Bender and a Hipshot tailpiece with a Drop D function and a G bender. That guitar is also fitted with a killswitch and three pickups – a Wide Range in the neck, a P-90 in the middle, and a single coil in the bridge. That guitar seems to be ever-changing as a canvas for his sonic experimentation. He has a Blue one as well with a FilterTron in the bridge and a Bigsby vibrato.
White was known to use a Fender Highway One Telecaster with a Bigsby vibrato on his earlier solo albums and has also regularly used a blue sparkle Jazzmaster on recent tours. This guitar is another custom instrument, loaded with Firebird-style mini-humbuckers and a full Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork assembly, and is used to perform Ball & Biscuit.
Most of Jack’s Fender instruments have been created bespoke for him, but there is an off the shelf option – Fender recently launched the Jack White Collection, which features a Telecaster inspired by the Three Wheel Motion guitar.
The Triplecaster Telecaster features a trio of pickups, a Bigsby, Hipshot Xtender, customised pickup switching and a killswitch – it’s not cheap, but it might very well be the ultimate Jack White guitar.
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Acoustics
Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images
When it comes to acoustic guitars, the most recognisable Jack White instruments are a trio of Gretsch Rancher Falcon guitars. These guitars started out life as stock Rancher Falcons, but were then customised with artwork of three iconic actresses – Rita Hayworth, Claudette Colbert and Veronica Lake – by artist Kore Flatmo. They were named after each actress and became known as the “Three Women” set.
White also owns an old 1911 Gibson L-1 Archtop, which he used in the film It Might Get Loud. Robert Johnson was famously photographed with this model and that is, in all likelihood, why White decided to buy one. Although Gibson still makes an L-1 model, it is now a flattop model.
In recent years however, most of White live acoustic sounds have come courtesy of something at the other end of the technology spectrum. Jack was one of the most high-profile early adopters of Fender’s hybrid Acoustasonic platform, and in the years since he’s regularly been seen on stage with a pair of customised models – a Jazzmaster and Telecaster – both in blue burst.
This is especially relevant to us because the Jack White Collection at Fender also saw the release of the Triplesonic Acoustasonic Telecaster – a US-made guitar that features custom electronics and locking tuners. It’s not cheap but again, it’s as close to Jack’s guitars as you’re likely to get. Alternatively, try one of the Mexico-made Player guitars – they’re very good.
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Amps
Unsurprisingly, White also turned to catalogue brands when it came to amplifying the sound of the early White Stripes – a Sears Silvertone 6×10 100-watt head and cab was basically the sound of the first three records. In recent years however he’s primarily leaned on Fender amps – including a Twin, a Vibrasonic, Vibraking and a Vibroverb.
Most recently, he’s been using a brand new and quite remarkable signature amp called the Pano Verb. This 70-watt monster combo contains one 15” Jensen C15N and one 10” Jensen P10R speaker and combines Jack’s favourite elements of the Vibroverb, Vibrasonic, and Vibro-King amps. You can run it in stereo or mono, choose to run the verb into both speakers or just one, and it’s basically a massive, loud, wonderful testament to five years of R&D between White and Fender.
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Pedals
White has always been an innovative and considered user of effects – Seven Nation Army is a Big Muff running into a Digitech Whammy – and it’s here that we find the most accessible if not entirely affordable route to White’s tone. With his company Third Man Hardware, White has collaborated with everyone from MXR and Donner to Gamechanger Audio and Anasounds.
There’s a truly unique and expansive range of pedals (and even pedalboards) available through TMR now, but if you really want to get to the nub of what Jack’s sound is, we’d say the Triple Threat is a great place to start. A $99 three-effects unit, it sounds great and gives you everything you need for the basic White sound. If you want to get a little more expensive, well his Plasma Coil distortion is an absolute monster, while his La Grotte spring reverb is wild and fun.
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