Article written by Alice Smith.
Email: alicesmith83@live.co.uk

Fiery-haired supermodel Karen Elson is the most recent clotheshorse to dip her toes into musical waters; Kate Moss’ collaboration with ex Pete Doherty and Agyness Deyn’s vocals for Five O’clock Heroes being more forgettable examples of the model/singer trend. Oldham-born Elson has been honing her musical talents since she relocated to New York at the age of 19, where she performed in a Cabaret troupe. Yet her confidence to pursue a musical calling only really grew when she married White Stripes’ front man Jack White in 2005.
The couple now lives in Nashville with their two young children and it is here that Elson wrote and recorded her debut album, The Ghost Who Walks. Released on White’s label and produced by him, the record reeks of the creepy eccentricity and Southern Gothicism that is synonymous with White. The album is a songbook of murder ballads and jilted love stories and the dusty organs and steel guitars prop up the storytelling quality of the lyrics.
Whilst Elson’s relationship with White has ensured that she carries some musical pedigree it is also for this reason that The Ghost Who Walks has received much prejudice and dismissal as some kind of ‘vanity project’. Although Elson’s vocals are incorporeal, the songs themselves have an assured atmosphere about them and bear the traces of Jack White’s Midas touch. For these reasons, if not simply for the enthralling amalgamation of Karen Elson as both model and singer, The Ghost Who Walks deserves a listen.