Karen Elson - Career in Music

Career in Music

Elson is a founding member and performer with the New York City based political cabaret troupe The Citizens Band, appearing with them at various theatres as well as the downtown art gallery Deitch Projects since 2004. Critical response to Elson's performances have been unequivocally positive, with the press frequently commenting on her striking vocal skills. As one of the leaders of The Citizens Band she has performed a variety of songs including covers of The Velvet Underground, Kurt Weill, Elvis Presley, Mimi and Richard Fariña, Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Marlene Dietrich. She has also written and co-written songs for the troupe's performances. Her cover of The Velvet Underground's "Candy Says" is available on The Citizen Band's MySpace page. Short samples of her performances are available on the troupe's website as well.

Elson's musical career has been building slowly over the past several years. In 2003 she contributed backing vocals to a remix of Robert Plant's "Last Time I Saw Her" from Plant's album Dreamland. In 2005 a personal recording of Elson singing was made available on a CD accompanying the August 2005 issue of Uncut magazine (the song was titled "Coming Down"). The song was chosen by REM singer Michael Stipe. In 2006 she dueted with Cat Power on a provocative cover version of "I Love You (Me Either)" for Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited, a tribute album to French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.

Her first full length album was written, for the most part, in secret without letting her (then) husband Jack White hear what she was doing. “At home I would hide—I would play my songs really in isolation. I would lock the bathroom door and hide. Eventually he was like, ‘Why are you hiding this from me?’”. In February 2010, it was announced that Elson would be releasing her debut solo album The Ghost Who Walks, produced by Jack White. News of the album's release was made by a live acoustic performance video "The Ghost Who Walks (Acoustic)" posted on the internet. The album was released on Third Man Records via XL Recordings in May 2010. It received generally favorable reviews. Spin magazine gave it 7/10 and compared her voice to both Jenny Lewis and Loretta Lynn.

On September 2, 2010, Elson and her band performed on the Late Show with David Letterman. The fourth season of HBO TV series, True Blood, featured Elson's cover of "Season of the Witch" over the credits of the episode "If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'?". The thirteenth episode of Fringe Season 4, "A Better Human Being" featured Karen's song "The Ghost Who Walks".

Elson often contributes to Record Store Day. For Record Store Day 2011, she released a cover of Lou Reed's "Vicious" and released a cover of Jackson C. Frank's "Milk and Honey" for Record Store Day 2012. Elson contributed a version of "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" to the Buddy Holly tribute album Rave On Buddy Holly, released in June 2011. In 2012, she contributed a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" to Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac.

In September 2012, she will be featured in a campaign called "30 Songs / 30 Days" to support Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a multi-platform media project inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book.