Yale University welcomed rock-legend-in-the-making Jack White to their campus on Tuesday night.
And what happens when you invite Jack White to anything? He’s going to start talking about blues records from the 1920s, whether it’s applicable or not. Thankfully, this time it made sense.
Yale was hosting a panel about Paramount Records, a label incalculably influential in introducing the public to the work of blues and jazz artists like Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charley Patton in the late ’20s and early ’30s.
White’s label, Third Man Records, released a collection of vintage Paramount Records recordings in 2013, and on Nov. 18, they’re following it up with The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Vol. 2.
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“What’s beautiful about Paramount is … the accidental capturing of American culture for the sake of a dollar,” White said, according to the Yale Daily News.
During the conference, White drew attention to two classic tracks in particular: Patton’s “A Spoonful Blues” (a song about cocaine addiction) and Blind Blake‘s “Diddie Wa Diddie” (different from Bo Diddley‘s “Diddy Wah Diddy”) both from 1929.
Listen to those tracks below and read the full report from the Yale student newspaper here.