Johnny Cash is especially key for Jack White because he demonstrated that it's possible to be a super-cool religiously devout party animal while appealing to country fans, hippies and punks alike. White works a similar set of borders, sometimes quite overtly. In 2010, he played guitar on the Americana duo Secret Sisters' fine cover of Cash's "Big River," which White's Third Man Records released – along with a proper seven-inch reissue of Cash's own Sun Records hit "Get Rhythm" in 2013.

Rita Hayworth became an all-encompassing metaphor for everything I was thinking about while making the album. There was an autograph of hers — she had kissed a piece of paper, left a lip print on it, and underneath it said, “My heart is in my mouth.” I loved that statement and wondered why she wrote that.

Do not trust people who call themselves musicians or record collectors who say they don't like Bob Dylan or the Beatles. They do not love music if those words come out of their mouths.

And he was downright effusive in the 2006 cult-classic Romweber documentary Two Headed Cow, calling Romweber "a huge influence on my music… one of the best-kept secrets of the rock & roll underground." In 2009 White recorded a seven-inch with Romweber, and in 2011 he reissued the Jets' long-out-of-print 1991 album Go Go Harlem Baby on his Third Man Records imprint.

There’s a framed picture of Slick Rick on his office wall, not far from shots of Loretta Lynn and Iggy Pop.

Captain Beefheart has always been one of his musical lodestones.