I remember buying a cardboard apple ring there (lord knows what it would fetch on eBay). In 1967, my father took to Europe, including London, where I begged to see Carnaby Street, then in all its paisley glory, and visit the real Apple store, the one the Beatles opened on Baker Street. Unlike Gabe, I had lousy taste: I knew the words to every Herman's Hermits song. Nevertheless, the sight of turntable- and-headphone "listening stations" in record store corners reminded me of my own teenage years in Highland Park, Illinois in the early 60s, when I would rush to Grant & Grant, the local record store, every week to listen to '45s and pick up the latest Silver Dollar Survey, a list - on actual paper - of the Top 40 hits on WLS Radio in Chicago. By the time we got to Goner Records in Memphis - aptly named, in my opinion - I began to identify with all the men who wait for hours outside the dressing rooms at Bloomingdales while their wives or girlfriends examine every ripple in the three-way mirror. In advance of our trip, he promptly drew up a list of every major record store within a 300-mile radius - each one a candidate for Clutterers Anonymous. It turns out that Vault members are excellent travel consultants: They urged us to get tickets to a concert at the historic Ryman Auditorium, a marvel of intimacy, and turned us on to Yazoo Pale Ale.Īs a musician, Gabe relishes the individuality of old-fashioned record stores, "by far more interesting than downloading MP3 albums off iTunes," he says. Though Jack (as he is known in our house) was on tour in Europe, we inhabited his life anyway, having lunch at Marché Artisan Foods in East Nashville, reportedly his favorite brunch place, and dinner - twice - at Burger Up, where I decided, after some debate, to let Gabe split a beer with me. "There are only 400 of these in the world!" "See that one on the right?" he said of a mini-turntable that plays 3-inch White Stripes records, as if referring to an exceptionally fine Egyptian scarab at the Metropolitan Museum. "Don't be weird, mom," he commanded as we approached Third Man's kitsch landmark, a stylized radio tower icon atop a fashionably black industrial building with De Stijl-like red and yellow doors.Īs a rock star, White tends his image - as music critic Adam Gold has observed - "with the care of a Japanese garden." Because so many promotional videos have been shot at Third Man, Gabe was already a connoisseur, pointing out rarities under glass. Gabe is a member of "The Vault," the record club for rabid Jack fans. For Gabe, Nashville means only one thing: Third Man Records, Jack White's record company and store (he of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather and most recently a solo career). The temperature was a peach-withering 104 degrees when we landed in Nashville, a fitting gateway for our 900-mile musical road trip, which would take us to Memphis, down Highway 61, the legendary blues route through the Mississippi Delta, and back. "I want my own beer when we go to a blues club. Mom," Gabe announced on the flight to Tennessee. It is to knowingly leap head-first down the rabbit hole of teenage passions, wherever they may lead. Nevertheless, inviting your 18-year-old son to follow his muse on a road trip - even though he refuses to let you friend him on Facebook - is to enter uncharted emotional terrain. Intellectually, every parent knows that letting go is part of the deal, be it a first solo drive on the Interstate or pulling away from that freshman college dorm.
So I wasn't sure exactly how he'd react when I suggested that it might be fun to take a trip, just the two of us, in honor of his recent high school graduation. For him, home has been the citadel of his enthusiasms, the place where he can let loose on his electric guitar and smother his walls with vinyl record covers, from Buddy Guy to the Black Keys. Our older son, now a college senior, seemed to emerge from the womb with a guidebook in his hand - preferably to some obscure location like Rarotonga or Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the pair of islands under French control off the Newfoundland coast where he still hankers to go.īut his younger brother, Gabe, has always cherished the nest. I've often wondered if there is a genetic predisposition for wanderlust.