Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler will reconvene this fall — after a three-year break spent focused on other respective band and solo projects — to headline MI Fest, a new music festival that seeks to celebrate “the history of Michigan while bringing in national names as well,” reports the Detroit Free Press. While no other concerts (or recording plans) have been revealed for the Racs as of yet, the quartet will be joined at the September 17 event by “several artists from the Third Man Records roster” for performances. Also, TMR’s Rolling Record Store will be on-site.

“I’ve got three fathers: my biological dad, God, and Bob Dylan,” said Jack White once of the poet laureate of rock, with whom he has since shared the stage and collaborated on an album of music written for unreleased Hank Williams lyrics that has yet to surface. It’s fitting, then, that Dylan’s songs have been adapted by Jack White and his White Stripes, Dead Weather, and other Third Man bandmates so seamlessly — a near-hereditary passing of the torch, perhaps. Notably, Dylan played an important role in White’s early career as well: granting permission for the Stripes to cover Desire’s “One More Cup of Coffee” on their self-titled debut and inspiring Jack’s earliest shows, at which he performed Dylan’s entire first album for apathetic audiences in Detroit coffee houses.

There have been many Dylan covers unleashed by White live, in the studio, and on the radio since his salad days, of course. So, without further ado, enjoy our collection below:

**Update: This album is now set to be released in October. More details here.

Dead Weather and Raconteurs bassist “Little” Jack Lawrence has been Jack White’s right-hand man for the past half-decade, but LJ’s other band, Cincinnati’s the Greenhornes, are now regrouping for the release of their forthcoming fifth album, the trio’s first since the Raconteurs formed back in ‘05.

“It’s finished,” Lawrence told SF Weekly of the new record he made with frontman Craig Fox and (fellow Raconteur) drummer Patrick Keeler. “We’re trying to get it out this summer hopefully. We’re getting a couple shows lined up too. There’s already one that we’re going to do in New York.”

Meanwhile, Keeler and Brendan Benson, aka half of the Raconteurs, performed this weekend as the Racontwoers at Jack White’s Third Man headquarters to celebrate Record Store Day. LJ played a pretty cool gig over the weekend too.

Here are a few bits from the queue that we better post before they become olds…

• Adam Jones, Tool guitarist and former makeup artist/set designer for the likes of Jurassic Park and Terminator 2, has teamed up with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp for a collaborative album, which they originally initiated years ago. The project had gone stale, but now that Maynard James Keenan’s busy making wine and touring with his side project, Jones and Fripp are back in action.
• Regina Spektor performed “Left Hand Song” on PBS’ Live From Lincoln Center recently with violinist Joshua Bell—whose album At Home With Friends contains the original studio recording. The song’s quite good and we love Regina around here, of course, but we also must agree with Sarah Vowell when it comes to violins in pop music. Either way, watch it here and make up your own mind.
• Legendary folk singer Pete Seeger posted a charity auction on eBay recently for his famous banjo head, which flaunts the inscription, “This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It To Surrender.” The proceeds were supposed to go to a nonprofit in Haiti, but Seeger has since changed his mind, opting to donate the famous piece of memorabilia to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame instead.
• Finally, some guy named DJ Lobsterdust mashed up the Raconteurs’ “Steady As She Goes” with Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” and it just might be better than both of the originals.

That one-off recording session between the Raconteurs, Ricky Skaggs, and Ashley Monroe may have been more of an “event” than I gave it credit for when reporting on the CMA nomination it earned for Musical Event of the Year. Although country singer Ashley Monroe was originally there for a much-coveted Jack White collaboration (after running into the the Third Man man at an airport), Raconteur Brendan Benson and she hit it off so well that the pair are planning to release an album together.

“We’ve recorded a record and it’s about to be mixed so… I want to put that out and go on tour with her,” Benson told Glide Magazine (via the Refl’echo). “I’m really proud of the record we made.”

Monroe actually mentioned the project in her recent Q&A with The 9513 and I totally missed it at the time. “Brendan and I have recorded fourteen songs,” she said, adding that they probably won’t get around to finding a label and touring until after her next record comes out and Benson is done promoting his new solo album My Old, Familiar Friend.

The good news for us, however, is that Benson and Monroe have already put a bunch of demos up on their MySpace and ReverbNation pages to stream. Check out “Consider Me,” “Ballad of Pretty Baby,” “On The Fence,” and “Grey” thataway.

Jack White and the Raconteurs were nominated for a “Musical Event of the Year” Country Music Award recently for their filmed collaboration with Ricky Skaggs and Ashley Monroe at a Nashville recording studio. The reason this somewhat random group of musicians got together has always been a bit of a mystery (everything seems to be with Jack), but in a Q&A with 9513, Monroe has provided a few details about her first encounter with White and his band.

Long before Taylor Swift sold a gazillion records and Kanye West made her blush on MTV, helping her to sell another gazillion records, she was still somewhat under the radar, save for the country radio crowd. Well, she was with Ashley Monroe when they spotted White getting off his airplane and here’s how it went down, according to Monroe:

She says, “Hi I’m Taylor Swift.” Everyone recognizes her everywhere, you know. And he’s like, “Taylor…?” He wasn’t familiar with her. And then, I’m like, [sheepishly whispering] “Hi I’m Ashley Monroe.” He looked up and said, “Ashley Monroe the singer?” I thought he was making fun of my name, because it almost sounds like a stage name. It sounds a little fake. I said, “Yeah, I’m Ashley Monroe the singer.” And he says, “No really, did I hear you on the Opry?” And he named the song I sang. He says, “I was listening to the Opry the other day. Oh my gosh, I’ve just been raving about you.”

Years later, after Monroe had been kicking herself for not setting up a collaboration, Jack emailed her out of the blue to set up their CMA-nominated “event.”

I enjoy this story, but I do regret feeding the celeb news beast a “Jack White disses Taylor Swift?!” headline. Besides, Swift still wants to work with him and Jack definitely knows who she is by now.

Jack White may have ditched his hometown of Detroit to settle down more comfortably in Nashville, but he’s definitely not leaving behind his old stomping grounds to fester amid the recession. In fact, the White Stripes, Raconteurs, and Dead Weather rock star is trying his hand at philanthropy.

The Detroit News reports that White covertly donated $170,000 towards the restoration of Clark Park field, a baseball diamond where White played ball as a kid. “He was good,” said Mo Blackwell, former brother-in-law to White and father of Dirtbombs drummer, Cass Records founder, and Jack’s right-hand man at Third Man Records, Ben Blackwell. “Smooth left-handed swing.”

Jack has always kept in touch with the volunteers at the park, including Deb Sumner, who recalled meeting once-girlfriend “Rene Wellzinger, or however you say it.” Sumner had been imploring Jack to do a charity concert for years when an LA lawyer called on behalf of a then-anonymous donor. White’s donations paid for restorations that include new dugouts, grandstands, and a revamped infield.

Aww. I can tell that we’re going to be friends, Jack.

It isn’t the first time Jack White has been acknowledged by an award show for his country music skills (he won two Grammys for Loretta Lynn’s brilliant Van Lear Rose record for Best Country Album and Best Country Vocal Collaboration on the single “Portland Oregon”), but at this year’s Country Music Awards, Jack will be joined by his fellow Raconteurs and pitted against country giants Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, Lee Ann Womack, and Carrie Underwood for Musical Event of the Year.

So what “event” were Jack, Little Jack, Brendan Benson, and Patrick Keeler nominated for? Back in 2008, The Raconteurs were joined by country singer Ashley Monroe and multi-instrumentalist Ricky Skaggs for a special bluegrass-inspired version of Consolers of the Lonely standout track “Old Enough.” In one day, the group gathered in a Nashville studio, worked out the arrangement, and filmed the entire jam.

Check out Jack and company’s CMA-nominated “event” below or click here: