The Blue Series: The Story Behind the Color: Includes 7" Vinyl Single: Vol 1

"I love great books about records: ripping yarns about everything that happened on the way to my stereo, with no minutiae too small to matter. The Blue Series: The Story Behind the Coloris the tale, in depth, behind every Blue single." – David Fricke, Rolling Stone
The Blue Series: The Story Behind the Color is 282 pages of behind-the-scenes stories, information, and interviews about the Jack White produced Blue Series singles. This hardcover book also includes a 7" single of unreleased Blue Series session songs by First Aid Kit and Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers) on black vinyl, a ten song sampler of Blue Series music curated by the book's editor Ben Blackwell, Foreword by award-winning Rolling Stone music journalist David Fricke, and exclusive interviews with Beck, Courtney Barnett, Stepehn Colbert, Insane Clown Posse, Wanda Jackson, Kate Pierson, Dexter Romweber, Jack White, Dwight Yoakam, and more. As the brainchild of Jack White, the Blue Series started in tandem with Third Man Records, White’s Nashville-based record label founded in 2009. Built on the simple premise of 7” 45rpm singles all recorded in the same studio, with the same producer (White), with photos taken in the same locale (Third Man Records’ onsite Blue Room) and manufactured at the same pressing plant (United Record Pressing), a stone’s throw from TMR’s offices) the resultant 40 singles impressively run the gamut of artists and styles. Whether it’s the wildly popular like Beck, the classic veteran Tom Jones, the character Stephen Colbert, the polarizing Insane Clown Posse, or previously unknown performers making their debut releases, the Blue Series is the perfect snapshot of what Third Man, and by extension Jack White, have focused on and championed for the past seven years.

Ben Blackwell is a drummer, journalist and record label executive. Originally from Detroit, Blackwell has been a member of the Dirtbombs since 1999, playing hundreds of live shows and on dozens of recordings. Blackwell's writing has been featured in numerous books and publications and won him the 2004 Rolling Stone college journalism award. As an executive at Third Man Records in Nashville, he's directly overseen the release of over 400 different titles and the pressing of over three million pieces of vinyl.

Jack White is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor.

Music journalist David Fricke is a senior writer at and former editor of Rolling Stone.

Jo McCaughey is a British born Photographer and film maker, based out of Nashville, Tennessee. Her work has been published in multiple publications such as Rolling Stone, Vogue, The New Yorker, The Guardian and Vice. She is predominantly best known for her music photography, of both portrait and journalist nature. She has worked for all major record labels and has documented and shot many varying artists such as Neil Young, Jack White, The Kings Of Leon, Willie Nelson, The Avett brothers, The Kills, to name but a few. She has had several solo exhibits in London and is currently in production of a movie called Horrors We Love.

Ben Swank was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio and has a life of toil behind him in the rock n roll salt mines. Formerly of Soledad Brothers now in residence composing panic beats and sweeping the floors at Third Man Records in Nashville, Tennessee.