Longevity, it would seem, is elusive at best in the business of music. So many acts come and go, so many songs in our ears for just a day or a week, only to be shifted into obscurity to make room for the Next Big Thing. It's a phenomenon that's been around for a long time (think back to the first era of singles, via 45's & radio DJs), having at least somewhat recently resurfaced (think 99 cents at The iTunes Store). So what is it, then, about the ones that stick around? How is it even possible to exhibit any type of longevity in a market where consumers have the attention spans of mayflies and the Big Machine, so to speak, is chasing the long tail?

The answer, above and beyond simple merit, is reinvention. Variety in output so extensive that sometimes the only thing in common from product to product is a name - and sometimes, not even that. In the past it was Bowie. In the present it is Radiohead. And in the very near future (yet again) it will be Jack White.

There is at this point little doubting his status as an icon. Between the efforts of The White Stripes (whose 2005 Grammy winning release Get Behind Me Satan was mixed here at Ardent by John Hampton) and The Raconteurs (whose 2006 release Broken Boy Soldiers was nominated for a Grammy and received the same Hampton/Ardent treatment), White has released 8 full length records over the last 10 years. All this, mind you, while running his own record label (Third Man), producing records for acts as varied as Loretta Lynn (Van Lear Rose, 2004) and Dex Romweber (The Wind Did Move/Last Kind Words, 2009), and playing with everyone from Alicia Keys to The Rolling Stones.

You can't call him lazy.

White's third and most current band project is The Dead Weather, which is somewhat of a supergroup, if you'll forgive the term. The band features Alison Mossheart of The Kills on vocals, Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age on guitar, Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs and The Greenhornes on bass, and of course Jack White on drums and vocals. We are honored to say that when choosing a studio and engineer to mix a recent live set in anticipation of their debut release (Horehound, out July 14th on Third Man), Jack once again returned to Ardent and to John Hampton. The mixes are being finished up this week in Ardent's Studio B, with Adam Hill assisting.

There is more information on the new project at their Web site (http://www.thedeadweather.com), and Horehound is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.com.