When Ben Blackwell got the call in 2009 from his uncle, Jack White, to leave Detroit and head to Nashville to help launch Third Man Records, it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. Six years later, Blackwell, White and the Third Man operation have come home.
“Part of you never leaves, right? I mean, not long after I left, someone started putting up bumper stickers around the neighborhood that said ‘Where is Ben Blackwell?’ I’m not known enough for that to be a thing,” joked Blackwell, co-founder and vinyl director of Third Man. “I can’t stress enough that this feels exciting.”
Third Man Records Cass Corridor opened its doors on Nov. 27, Black Friday, at 441 West Canfield Street in Detroit's historic Cass Corridor. The store is a spinoff of the black and yellow-themed Nashville headquarters White built after leaving Detroit in 2005. The building on Canfield that once housed the Willys-Overland Motor Company in the early 20th century has seen a resurgence in the last few years. It’s currently home to the Shinola flagship store, Jolly Pumpkin Brewery and RUNdetroit.
“We’d become introduced to the folks at Shinola and pretty quickly started looking at the building they already inhabited,” Blackwell said. “It instantly felt right. That’s the neighborhood we knew we needed to be in.”
Third Man’s spot near Wayne State’s campus can be considered a homecoming for Blackwell, whose connection to the area and the university is deep. He grew up on Detroit’s east side at Mack and Cadieux, coming from a lineage of Tartars/Warriors. His father, Morris, mother, Maureen, and brother, Stephen, all graduated from Wayne State. Blackwell and his sister, Angela, each attended but never finished their degrees. White, coincidentally, also attended some classes at Wayne State in the mid-1990s but also opted out to pursue his musical path.
Blackwell remembers driving down Warren Avenue from his home to come to campus. Despite not earning a bachelor’s in journalism — Blackwell attended from fall 2000 to spring 2003 — he looks back on his WSU days with reverence.
“Public affairs reporting with M.L. Elrick was a blast, as was feature writing with (Jack) Lessenberry. Everything I did in the journalism department was absolutely, 100 percent what I had hoped for,” Blackwell said. “I wrote a little for the South End and even won Rolling Stone’s College Journalism Competition in 2003. All memories are fond.”
But music was always (and still is) his main passion. Blackwell, drummer for legendary local band The Dirtbombs, had already established his own record label, Cass Records, by 2003. He was touring the world in addition to becoming the official archivist for all things White Stripes.
He was still in high school at Notre Dame in Harper Woods when he became a “roadie” for the White Stripes, carrying amps into bars at their earliest gigs. The White Stripes even played Wayne State’s Student Center in April 1999, something that still resonates with Blackwell.
“My first visit to the Student Center was my junior year of high school,” he said. “People just did not care about the White Stripes; they were laughing and kind of making jokes. It was probably one of those things that the university had to spend its budget for the year or get it taken away. I think the White Stripes got paid $500, which was pretty impressive for them at the time.”
Third Man’s second retail space has everything from vinyl pressings of White’s music (including artists he’s signed to the Third Man label), reissues from the Sun Records catalog, T-shirts, books, guitars, amps and anything else a music lover would appreciate. The space itself contains a bevy of interactive items such as a vintage jukebox, and listening, recording and photo booths.
In addition to retail, Third Man also will house a 10,000-square-foot record-pressing operation in back, featuring eight new presses built by a German company. The vinyl plant should be up and running by spring 2016, Blackwell said, and would be the first record pressing plant in Detroit since Archer Record Pressing opened on Davison half a century ago. Visitors will be able to watch vinyl being pressed through windows inside the back of the store.
Third Man plans to use the space for a variety of things. A stage is set up inside to showcase musical acts, and Third Man hopes to replicate a film series that is currently done in Nashville, along with possible art shows, poetry readings and more. When asked if there could be any collaboration with Wayne State, Blackwell said at this point they wouldn’t immediately shoot anything down. “We’re open and willing to consider just about anything,” he said.
Although Blackwell lives in Nashville to be closer to Third Man’s headquarters, he still has a home base of family and friends in Michigan, giving him an excuse to come back. It’s also been an eye-opener to the changes taking place downtown.
“For the past six years, it’s been a nice seat down in Nashville on the sidelines, getting up to Michigan for holidays, weddings, funerals and seeing things inching along,” Blackwell said. “It’s still early, but if anyone considers Third Man as doing something to help Detroit, I would just say I’d feel humbled to be part of it.”