Karen Elson performs work from her new album at Le Poisson Rouge in New York in March. Photograph: Rob Loud/Getty
While White has gone on to form two more groups, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, as well as continuing to work on his own influential label, Elson has been making music of her own. Her debut solo album,The Ghost Who Walks, features 11 of her original compositions and was produced by her husband, who plays the drums on it.
Perhaps largely as a result of White's involvement, Elson's album of folk-inspired ballads has generated quite a bit of excitement. In March, she performed gigs in Austin, Texas, and New York – the latter in front of an audience that included fellow British model Agyness Deyn and photographer Annie Leibovitz. Even Elson's bandmates are plucked from rock'n'roll royalty – her guitarist Jackson Smith is the son of punk poet/singer Patti and MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith, and is married to Meg White.
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She cites Nick Cave and PJ Harvey as inspirations, but perhaps the biggest influence has not been music so much as the vast and changing vista of America itself. Since moving "on a whim" to Nashville five years ago from New York, Elson has been immersing herself in American literature, including John Steinbeck and Willa Cather. Timothy Egan's dust bowl saga The Worst Hard Time directly influenced two of her more theatrical tracks: "Mouths to Feed" and the Peggy Lee-inspired "100 Years from Now". "I like those stories that capture the brutality of life but there's still some kind of melancholy romance," she explains.
Karen Elson’s The Ghost Who Walks marks the debut solo release from the British singer/songwriter. Her transformation from fashion’s favorite redheaded ingénue to beguiling chanteuse has been something of a slow burn. In 2003 she provided vocals for a version of Robert Plant’s “Last Time I Saw Her” and in 2006 she recorded an English language version of “Je T’Aime..Moi Non Plus” (“I Love You… Me Neither”) with Cat Power for a Serge Gainsbourg tribute album, but her main musical outlet has been as a founding member of New York City cabaret The Citizens Band, a downtown collective of musicians, performers, artists and acrobats whose lively Weimar-esque performances have enjoyed successful theatrical runs of their politically thematic shows.MORE
Karen Elson, Model Citizen - "Mouths To Feed
but then decided to chart another path. Here's Karen Elson:
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