Article 5095 of rec.music.gaffa: Path: ut-emx!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!bloom-beacon!RPIECS.BITNET!JONES From: JONES@RPIECS.BITNET Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa Subject: (none) Message-ID: <9001300619.AA28407@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> Date: 29 Jan 90 18:27:00 GMT Article-I.D.: EDDIE.9001300619.AA28407 Posted: Mon Jan 29 12:27:00 1990 Sender: root@athena.mit.edu (Wizard A. Root) Organization: The Internet Lines: 528 Approved: love-hounds@eddie.mit.edu Kate Bush: The Whole Story...Continued =========================== =========================== Boy, have we missed her. Four years is a long time to have to wait for an old friend. Oh sure, she's been around. She's been keeping herself busy. There was the 1986 collaboration with Gabriel on "Don't Give Up." Various charity venues at Amnesty International, Comic Relief, and Ferry Aid. And even a compilation video called The Whole Story thrown in for good measure. But four years is still a hell of a long time to wait for an old friend to come back down the road with any fresh new surprises tucked under her arm. But now she's finally back. And this time, she's brought the world with her. The Sensual World. Such is the mystery and power and attraction of Kate Bush. She can virtually disappear from the music world for years at a time, and then reappear just as quickly, and her fans receive her the world over with open arms. She's a novelty in that sense; most bands or artists that go in hiding for more than a year are quickly forgotten or written off by both the public and the radio stations. But Kate is different. And her story is amazing. Story of the Student -------------------- Catherine Bush was born to parents Robert and Hannah Bush on July 30 in 1958; big brother John Carder Bush, known as Jay to the family, was fourteen when Kate was born. Another son, Patrick, or "Paddy" as he was wont to be called, was born later. Kate was brought up by her family in a rambling old farmhouse in East Wickham, a 350-year-old place that was buried in satisfying tangles of overgrown gardens and trees. And although the house was reputed to have been haunted by the ghost of a Victorian serving maid, this bit of hearsay has been soundly snuffed by the family. As a little girl, Kate attended St. Joseph's Convent Grammar School, where she spent just over six years. St. Joseph's was an all- girl school that was respectfully known as "the school on the hill"; Kate was one of five girls chosen to attend the prestigious school. Kate's third year at St. Joseph's, 1972, saw her first public appearance as a singer and dancer. The occasion was the school's production of the musical play "Amahl and the Night Visitors", and during the performance, young Catherine Bush, then thirteen, along with a classmate, gave a short dance routine that was hailed as being "both pastorally graceful and imaginative". Each form at St. Joseph's also had one music lesson a week, with each student required to learn an instrument for the first two years; after two years of learning an instrument, music became an optional course of study. Kate's instrument was the violin and she had private lessons, a fact that her music teacher was very jealous of. However, Kate never felt comfortable with the violin and tended to dislike her lessons, and she therefore gave up the instrument as soon as her mother let her. Kate also sang in the school choir at St. Joseph's. One friend still recalls: "...she was always singing, just as everybody sings, only everybody else was out of key and Kate used to get these things right and she used to work out her own sort of arrangements with records whereas everyone else would just sing the words. I used to think 'God, I wish I could do that...'" Along with Kate's own slowly emerging talents in school, there was another atmosphere at home that obviously played a large part in her musical interests. Kate's family was a very musical one -- both brothers and her mother and father were accomplished amateur musicians, and Kate herself says that she was "weaned" on the Irish fiddle. Kate also used to slip into Brother Paddy's room and pilfer records out of his collection, only to return to her own "den", which was a secret congregating place for Kate and her school chums. Here the girls would sit and chat, roasting marshmallows or brewing tea at the fireplace, or reading magazines while listening to Paddy's records. Kate also retreated to the den on her own to write poetry (taking after big brother Jay) or to draw. In fact, one of her songs, "The Man with the Child in His Eyes," was composed when she was only fourteen, and eventually appeared on her first album in 1978. During this period of her life, Kate was still undecided whether to train as a doctor like her father, a veterinarian, or even as a social worker. Singing or writing songs professionally hardly seemed an option, although with both Paddy's and Jay's encouragement she was considering both. In fact, she and Paddy had made a demo tape containing some thirty songs, and it had been received favorably by those friends Kated played it for. As the school year wore on, Kate's mind was less and less on her studies, and more and more on things beyond school; the notion of singing and writing music was arousing more and more of her interest. And then, suddenly, when the first term of the upper sixth began, Kate left St. Joseph's. Many were surprised, finding the first term of the last year an odd time to leave. Rumors began flying around: Kate had left to make her own pottery, she had gone to take up dance, she had gotten a recording contract. But Catherine Bush was soon forgotten at St. Joseph's as the school once more picked up its routine... Story of the Star ----------------- You will remember that it was only a few months short of Kate's 18th birthday when she left St. Joseph's; there was no real path laid out for her, and her future was uncertain, but the unfavorable conditions at school had left her no choice. Perhaps it is this fact that makes the next bit of Kate's story all the more incredible. Kate recalls: "...one day, along comes this friend of my brother's. He worked in the record business himself and thought he might be able to help make some contacts..." The friend was a young long-haired man named Ricky Hopper, a friend of Jay's who had known Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour from Cambridge. In 1972, Hopper simply took Kate's first demo tape around to several people in the music publishing and recording industries, but to no avail The next year, Hopper then approached Gilmour himself, told him about Kate, and arranged a recording session at his own home that summer. At about the same time, with her brothers as directors, Kate's first company, Noverica, started; shortly thereafter, thanks to Gilmour, Kate's tape began to circulate. BOB MERCER of EMI remembers: "...I was in the Number 3 studio of Abbey Road. Pink Floyd were finishing off their WISH YOU WERE HERE album. Dave Gilmour asked me if I could nip down into one of the studios and listen to a tape he and Andrew Powell (producer) had done of this girl. There were three songs on the tape. They were well-produced. I expressed a lot of interest in it...." Terry Slater, head of EMI publishing, had a similar experience: "...I was just passing by Bob Mercer's office one day and I heard a demo tape of "Man with the Child in His Eyes". I said to Bob, 'Who's that chick?' I literally opened the door to the office and said that to Bob. He said, 'It's a girl called Kate Bush'. I took it from there. I said, 'That's *really* good..." Despite the obvious interest in Kate's work, her contract with EMI was talked about for a long time before it actually materialized. Kate's parents, while pleased yet not surprised, were a little apprehensive about their young daughter's safety. EMI Records eventually offered Kate a 3000-pound advance, plus a 500-pound advance for publishing. Her contract stated that she could experiment without obligation, but she was required to show her songs to EMI. Why this waiting period? Bob Mercer explains: "On meeting her I realized how young she was mentally. We gave her some money to grow up with. Over the next year I developed her -- got her to demo everything she'd done, talked to her about the way she constructed her songs, and so on...we also got her a singing tutor..." After this came a period in which Kate simmered, ripening. Every night, between the hours of 11pm and 3am, when Kate says she is "most inspired", she would thrash away at an old honky-tonk piano, playing in front of her big bedroom mirror and her two cats. During this time Kate learned rather a lot in the way of lyric-writing and self-discipline; she learned to reject songs, and worked on improving her voice quality and vocal range. When the time finally came to launch Kate, Bob Mercer was a little reluctant to release "Wuthering Heights" as the first single, thinking it too eccentric a debut, but at Kate's insistence the record was pressed and samples were sent out to the industry. A DJ at Capitol Records liked it and played it several times; soon there was much public demand, and EMI had no choice but to put its release and promotion plans in fast-forward. Shortly after its release in January of 1978, Kate Bush's first single, "Wuthering Heights", went to Number One and stayed there for four weeks. It also entered the Top 20 in 18 other countries, with five Number Ones, five golds and one platinum. The album, The Kick Inside, went as far as Number 3 in the UK and Number 1 in five other territories. Kate's incredible story had begun. Story of the Style ------------------- Since Kate Bush first exploded onto the music scene and completely caught the world off-guard in 1978, she has gone on to prove herself again and again as one of the most innovative and refreshing performers of our time. In the past ten years, she has released six major albums, with her sixth album, The Sensual World, just released in mid-October of this year. Let us look back now on Kate's incredible success story and follow the path her music has taken since 1978 by briefly reviewing each of the albums which have kept Bush fans everywhere enthralled. The Kick Inside (1978) ----------------------- We mentioned before that no one ever quite expected the almost overnight success of Kate Bush's first album. Along with the hit "Wuthering Heights" and "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", the song which caught the attention of terry Slater, this album yielded many other soaring and gorgeously vocalized pieces by Kate. It was fairly obvious that Kate wa still experimenting with her voice capabilities; her vocals ranged from the deep soothing vocals of "Feel It" to the wonderful lofty notes of of "L'Amour Looks Something Like You" and "Moving" without batting an eye. For a debut album, and indeed by any standards, The Kick Inside was brilliant. Lionheart (1978) ----------------- Kate's first album was found to be so promising that before the year was out, the world saw the release of her second effort, entitled Lionheart. While this, like The Kick Inside, was still a "test" effort by Kate, subtle changes in her style suggested that she was starting to move away from simple vocal experimentation in order to concentrate on rhythm as well. Much of the material, penned as early as 1977, included such softer, sentimental songs like "Symphony in Blue" and "Oh England My Lionheart", contrasting to the more upbeat "Don't Push Your Foot on The Heartbrake" and "Hammer Horror". In less than twelve months, Kate was branching out. The amazing success of both of these albums prompted a demand for Kate to tour, so a live concert was scheduled for London's Hammersmith Odeon Theatre in April of 1978. Since relatively little was known of Kate at the time, the number of fans, while enough to fill the several- thousand-seat theatre, was still comparatively small. Those lucky enough to get tickets, however, were astounded. Kate became an actress, a dancer, a mime...alive. Her costuming and dance routines gave her a progressive art/rock presence that very few new artists have been able to have from the start, and in some ways that presence has yet to be equalled. Fortunately for the rest of Kate's fans who were unable to see the live show, a video was made of the performance; it's practically impossible not to get goosebumps while watching the tape, and one can only imagine at what it must have been like to see the live show. Simply put, Kate is captivating. And all this before reaching the tender age of 21. Never For Ever (1980) ---------------------- The world waited impatiently for a year and a half before it saw the release of Kate's third album, Never For Ever. To date, this may prove to be Kate's most emotional album, touching on such subjects as death, war, and nuclear holocaust. This last is dealt with in the haunting "Breathing", a song about nuclear war as told from an unborn child's point of view. A video was out out to accompany the song, and many fans still find it one of Kate's most powerful work. This album also included the celebrated single "Babooshka", which tells the story of an old woman's attempt to test her husband's faithfulness by disguising herself and seducing him. The accompanying video, which features Kate sporting an armor-plated bikini during the chorus, is a visual romp, and is often highly favored by all red-blooded males! Kate also got another big break in 1979, collaborating with ex-Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel on his third album, which was released in early 1980. Kate provided background vocals in "No Self Control", and also lent her husky whisperings to the background vocals of Gabriel's first major hit, "Games Without Frontiers". Although Kate got no extensive exposure as a result of working with Gabriel, her seductive sighing on "Games" was enough to make some smart people sit up and take notice, and pursue learning more about her. To return the favor of being allowed to appear on Gabriel's album, Kate had Peter as a guest on her 1979 Christmas special. During the show, Gabriel performed his own solo number of 1977's "Here Comes the Flood", then later shared the spotlight with Kate for a hauntingly sad rendition of Roy Harper's "Another Day". The resulting duet was enthusiastically received by the general viewing audience, and it became evident that the Gabriel/Bush duo had possibilities for the future. The Dreaming (1982) -------------------- With the spring of 1982 came Kate's fourth and most dramatic album, The Dreaming. Even today, some seven years after its initial release, Bush fans world-wide still regard this album as Kate's best. In many ways, it was very similar to Gabriel's third album; through her work with Gabriel, Kate learned the method of composing with a drum machine, and so The Dreaming was packed with visual and emotional imagery and rumbled thickly with drums and complex rhythms. Often because of this album alone, many think of Kate Bush as being "odd" or "weird"; admittedly, this album was very different from its predecessors. This difference, however, did not serve to make The Dreaming any less amazing; fans still continue to dig tirelessly into the album's lyrics in hopes of finding what Kate was trying to put across. From this album, the title track was the most celebrated; other chilling numbers included "All the Love", which states how people hide their emotions until a friend or loved one dies, and "Get Out of My House", which tells the rather tragic tale of a young woman's desperate attempt to keep the memory of a lost love from returning, that is, from entering her house. As Kate herself has said: "...this is not an album to hear while you're washing the dishes. It requires a willingness of the listener to be captivated...and you don't know what on Earth it's about 'til you start working with it..." Hounds of Love (1985) ---------------------- Fans waited an agonizing three years for Kate's next album to appear on the market, and when it finally did, it was obvious that Hounds of Love was as different from The Dreaming as The Dreaming had been from Never For Ever and Kate's first two albums. The first song on the album, "Running Up That Hill", was the album's first and only really celebrated single; although cuts such as "The Big Sky" and "Cloudbusting" were released as 12" singles and were included later in Kate's The Whole Story videocassette, none of them were received nearly as well commercially as "Running Up That Hill". The second side of Hounds was very much a concept thing, telling the story of an individual who falls through the ice while skating and spends the night in the icy water. Near death, the person is visited by three spirits who show them what life would be like for their loved ones if they were to die, and as a result the individual fights and eventually wins the battle to survive. This series contains some frightening and almost violent tracks --notably "Waking the Witch" -- but others, such as "Jig of Life", "Hello Earth", and the closing "The Morning Fog", are reassuring and optimistic. The Whole Story (1986) ----------------------- In early 1986, The Whole Story album and videocassette appeared on the market. Aside from the one previously unreleased single, "Experiment IV", the material on both the record and the video was a sort of "greatest hits" compilation, released seemingly as a means to satiate Kate's fans while they waited for her next album to arrive. While impossible to select Kate's best material to include on The Whole Story, most of her major works managed to get stuffed onto the hour's worth of play time. Appropriately, the work opens with Kate's anthem, "Wuthering Heights"; the remaining material was arranged by Kate herself so that the songs, rather than appearing in chronological order, "flowed" into one another well. Such classics as "Wow", "Breathing", "Army Dreamers", and "Sat in Your Lap" were included for the fans' listening and/or viewing pleasure. All in all, it was a rather nice sampler for the novice Kate Bush fan, and provided a good way to get acquanited with Kate's more celebrated material. Later the same year, Kate teamed up for a second duet with Peter Gabriel assisting him with vocals on Don't Give Up", and also appearing in both versions of the song's accompanying videos. In March of 1987, Kate performed "Running Up That Hill" and "Let It Be" at the Secret Policeman's Third Ball in England, and also contributed her positively lovely "This Woman's k" Work" to John Hughes' 1988 _She's Having A Baby_ soundtrack. The Sensual World ----------------- And so here we are in 1989, back to the year in which Kate finally released her sixth album, The Sensual World, to a breathless band of dedicated followers around the globe. Four years in the making, World is a definite reflection that Kate has done a great deal of expanding and growing in that time. Sure, the terrific voice is still there, but there are new rhythms and instruments that lend an entirely new sound to the Kate we know and love; Irish fiddles, Uillean pipes, and Greek bouzukies play side-by-side with the distinctive guitar of Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour. And as bizarre and unlikely as all that may sound, the result is spectacular, and one can see that Kate spent the last four years making sure that everything on the album blended and balanced to perfection. The album opens with the title track; bells ring in celebration, and the lyrics, derived from James Joyce's _Ulysses_ purr in satisfaction: "Mmmmm.....yes...". Ultimately, Kate was not able to quote Joyce's piece directly, so the song became a story of Molly Bloom stepping from the pages of the book and into the real world where she's free to touch and see and smell the world around her. Hence, the sensual world. The album's second track, "Love and Anger", was, according to Kate, one of the most difficult songs to put together and yet was the first one to be written. She had written bits and pieces of it, left them, and then came back to them about eighteen months later to piece them together. And although Kate says it "doesn't really have a story", the song is basically about the people you feel you can and cannot confide in. Kate fans seem to view the album's third cut, "The Fog", as the sort of Bush material they can't get enough of: kind of dark and murky and mysterious, with pipes and vocals that make the hair stir on the nape of the neck. Featuring Kate's father in a spoken bit, the song is about growing up, but more specifically, about placing trust in another person and being able to "let go" just enough to make it on your own in a relationship. Next on the album is "Reaching Out", another song which deals with children -- and people in general -- reaching out to experience the world around them. It's a rather moving piece, with Kate's voice passionate and at its powerful best. And so on to "Heads We're Dancing". The song, although it starts out interestingly enough with its neat little syntho-tech sounds and rhythms, has actually stirred up most of its attention due to the fact that it mentions Hitler. As Kate has explained, it was purely coincidental that the song should be released in the year of World War II's 50th anniversary; she claims to have written the song two years ago. She does apologize to any who may be offended by the mention of Hitler, but states that the reason for writing the song came innocently enough: "...it was all started by a family friend, years ago, who'd been to dinner and sat next to this guy who was really fascinating, so charming. They sat all night chatting and joking. And next day he found out it was Oppenheimer. And this friend was horrified because he really despised what the guy stood for..." And so, in the same way, Kate was fascinated with the whole idea of being a girl at a dance party and having this handsome, dark stranger come up to her and ask her to dance...and then the next morning, she looks at the daily paper and sees that it had been Hitler. As Kate admits, the song's subject is a little sensitive. But that still doesn't make the track any less audibly appealing. By the time you get to the sixth track on The Sensual World, you're into the album, sure. You can already appreciate all the stuff that Kate's etched on the vinyl so far. But then you get to this song, "Deeper Understanding." And there are these damned *voices*, see. The voices of the all-woman, Bulgarian 'a cappella' trio, Trio Bulgarka, that make you sit right up and take your feet off the coffee table. And when you juxtapose their somehow ancient voices beside the track's subject matter of computer technology, *and have it work*, you really have something special. For Kate, the process of working with the Trio was incredible and yet frightening, since she knew no Bulgarian and the Bulgarian women didn't know a word of English. But still, Kate says that "she wouldn't have missed it for the world." And she obviously did a good job at communicating somehow with these three older, amazing songstresses; the resulting harmonies in this track are beautiful. "Between A Man and A Woman" is the seventh track on World, and deals with the delicate balance that exists between two people in a relationship, and how such a balance can be disturbed by an interfering, if well-meaning, third person. Kate explains that the song emerged from a line from The Godfather, which says "...don't interfere, it's between a man and a woman." The following cut, "Never Be Mine", features another collaboration of Kate and the Trio, along with Davey Spillane's haunting Irish pipes. Kate explains the song: "...It's that whole thing of how, in some situations, it's the dream you want, not the real thing. It was pursuing a conscious realization that a person is really enjoying the fantasy and aware it won't become reality. So often you think it's the end you want, but this is actually looking at the process that will never get you there..." Well, if the subject matter of "Never Be Mine" was sentimental enough to bum you out a little bit, then the next cut, "Rocket's Tail",will certainly put the grin back on your face. Kate's strong foreground voice is there to tell the tale of a person nutsy enough to try and shoot themselves like a rocket off a bridge, while the extraordinary vocalizations of the Trio Bulgarka allow you to almost *picture* the ensuing fireworks. The entire first half of the piece is 'a cappella'. But as nice as that all is, you're suddenly brought to a anti-climax as Kate's voice is suspended for a second, and then Gilmour's distinctive guitar is there hitting you in the face, simply wailing a-la-Floyd. Great stuff. Spine-tingling. Worth playing loud on the Fourth of July. Whew! Now that you've gone flying around the night sky in "Tail," you're ready to come back down to Earth with the next track, the gorgeous "This Woman's Work." Written for the John Hughes film She's Having A Baby, the song is simple and emotional, with Kate basically sharing the spotlight only with her piano. And although the lyrics may be tender, Kate's voice is anything but; it's pure and it's powerful and it threatens to pull your heart right out your throat. And it's also a beautiful way to bring an equally wonderful album to a close. While the vinyl version of The Sensual World contained only ten tracks, the cassette and compact disc versions included an eleventh, entitled "Walk Straight Down the Middle", which also appeared as the B-side for the "Love and Anger" 7-inch single. As Kate explains: "...it's the idea of how our fears are sometimes holding us back, and yet there's really no need to be frightened...it's about following either of two extremes, when you really want to plough this path straight down the middle, rather than being thrown from one end of the spectrum to the other. I'd like to think of myself as holding the centre..." We'd like to think that she'll continue to hold the centre, and the spotlight, for at least a few more years. But, you know... we may have to wait another four years for the next bit of treasure and wisdom from the fair Ms. Kate. Another four years before we can add another chapter in the continuing success story of Kate Bush. But, somehow, Kate Bush fans everywhere know that the story is far from over...