Kate Bush

Kate Bush

Catherine "Kate" Bush (born 30 July, 1958, Bexleyheath, Kent, now part of Greater London), is an English singer-songwriter with an expressive three-octave vocal range.[1] She was born to an English father and an Irish mother.[2] Bush is known for her eccentric, idiosyncratic, literary lyrics; and eclectic and meticulous musical and production style. She debuted in 1978 with the surprise hit "Wuthering Heights", which was number one in the UK music charts for four weeks. While this was the height of her UK singles chart success, she has achieved considerable album sales throughout her career.

Biography

Overview

While still attending St. Joseph's Convent Grammar school in Abbey Wood, South East London where she studied the piano and violin, Bush caught the attention of David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, who helped fund her first demo sessions. She signed a contract with EMI when she was 16. However, in the first two years of her contract, Bush did not release an album, but instead completed her time at school through to her mock A-Levels and took lessons in dancing, mime, and music. She left school with 10 O-Level qualifications.

In 2005, Bush stated in an interview with Mark Radcliffe on BBC Radio Two that she felt that EMI did not let her release an album until later not so that she could hone her talents, as they would later state, but rather in order that no other record company could offer her a contract. Nonetheless, EMI did forward her a sizeable amount of start-up money which she used to enroll in Lindsey Kemp's interpretive dance classes.

During this time, Bush wrote and made demos of close to 200 songs, which today can be found on bootleg recordings (some of the demos are often known as the Phoenix Recordings). She also performed at various small venues in and near London under the name KT Bush Band.

Her first album, The Kick Inside, was released in 1978, and featured songs she had written during the previous several years, including the single "Wuthering Heights", which topped the UK and Australian charts and became an international hit. In doing so, Bush became the first woman to reach Number 1 in the UK with a self-penned song. A period of intense work followed. A second album, Lionheart was quickly recorded; Bush has often expressed dissatisfaction with it, feeling she needed more time to get it right. Following its release, she was required to undertake heavy promotional work and an exhausting tour, the only one of her career. Bush revolutionized on-stage music performances by being the first ever singer to use a wireless radio microphone on stage, which allowed her to incorporate extensive dance routines into her live shows. However, Bush disliked the exposure and the celebrity lifestyle associated with promotional work, feeling it was taking her away from her main priority: making music. A slow and steady withdrawal from public life began as she moved into producing her own work with Never for Ever and developed a perfectionist, painstaking approach to making music which would see her ensconced in the studio for long periods and only needing to face the glare of the press when the subsequent albums were released. Wild rumours would fly while she was engaged in her work — usually that she had ballooned in weight or had gone mad. Then she would re-emerge for a brief period, slim and seemingly sane, before retreating to the studio once more.

File:Kateivy.jpg

Bush during the promotion of album The Single File (1983)

A pattern began to form in the 1980s, in which Bush would disappear for up to four years while she honed her new material until it was ready for release. After the release of The Red Shoes in 1993 there was no reason to suppose that she would not reappear in three or four years with another set of songs. But the period of silence that followed her seventh studio album was much longer than anyone had anticipated.

Bush dropped out of the public eye for many years, although her name occasionally cropped up in the media in connection with rumours of a new album release. The press continued to speculate wildly about what she was up to; they viewed her as an eccentric recluse, sometimes drawing a comparison with Miss Havisham, from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. In fact she was trying to give her young son a normal childhood, away from the world of show business. Bush gave birth to Albert, known as Bertie, fathered by her guitarist and current partner Danny McIntosh, in 1998. She did not release the news of his birth to the press and it was over two years before the story broke. On the few occasions she has spoken to the press since, she has made it clear that motherhood has made her very happy. The couple and their son live on a £1.5million island on the Kennet and Avon canal in Berkshire.

Bush's eighth studio album, Aerial, was released on double CD and vinyl on 7 November, 2005 internationally (8 November in the USA), following the release of the single "King of the Mountain" on 24 October.

In an interview with Weekend Australian published in December 2005, Bush stated that Aerial was not meant to be her last work and that she wished to continue writing and recording music. In 2006, viewers of BBC Two television's The Culture Show voted Bush one of the UK's top ten "Living Icons".

The studio albums

The Kick Inside (1978)

File:The Kick Inside UK cover.jpg

U.K. Cover of 1978's The Kick Inside

Bush's debut album was released when she was 19 years old; she had written some of the songs when she was only 15. The album opens with whale song, which leads into the first track, "Moving", inspired by her dance teacher, Lindsey Kemp. The album contains her biggest hit to date, Wuthering Heights, which went to number one in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere and became a Top 10 hit in many other territories.

Bush's work would mature and develop, but The Kick Inside remains a startlingly precocious debut and many of her trademark qualities were already firmly in place. Her cinematic and literary influences were most obvious in "Wuthering Heights". The song was not initially inspired by Emily Brontë's novel, but by a television adaptation, although she did read the novel later to, in her own words, "get the research right". She namechecks Gurdjieff in "Them Heavy People", acknowledges David Gilmour's support in 'Strange Phenomena", while the title song is based on the ballad of Lizzie Wan, the story of a girl who kills herself after being impregnated by her brother. The album is also very open about sexual matters, particularly on the erotic "Feel It" and "L'Amour Looks Something Like You". A second single, "The Man With The Child In His Eyes", was released to another warm reception, and even made it onto the American Hot 100 Billboard Charts, Bush's only single to do so until 1985.

As part of her preparation for entering the studio, Bush toured pubs with the KT Bush Band, supported by her brother Paddy and close friends, but for the album she was persuaded to use established session musicians, some of whom she would retain even after she had brought her band mates back on board. Paddy Bush was the only member of the KT Bush Band to play on The Kick Inside. Unlike on later albums where he would play more exotic instruments such as balalaika and didgeridoo, here he played the more standard harmonica and mandolin. Stuart Elliot played some of the drums and would become her main percussionist on subsequent albums, along with session drummer Charlie Morgan, who later went on to be a regular with Elton John. Preston Heyman was credited with some subsequent studio work but mostly performed on the live tour of 1979.

The album was produced by Bush's mentor David Gilmour and Andrew Powell.

The Kick Inside is Bush's only album to have a different cover in the U.K., the U.S., Canada and Japan.

Lionheart (1978)

File:Kate Bush Lionheart.jpg

Cover of 1978's Lionheart

Lionheart was rushed out of the studio (in Nice on the French Riviera), making this Bush's only album to be wholly recorded outside the UK. While it has its share of hits, most notably "Wow", it did not receive the same reception as her first album, reaching number six in the UK album charts.

The album takes its title from the track, "Oh, England, My Lionheart", in which a pilot who has been shot down contemplates his homeland as his plane hurtles towards the ground, and to his death. It is a song that Bush has disparaged in later years despite it being a firm favourite with many listeners. Literary references include J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in In Search of Peter Pan (a song which also quotes When You Wish Upon A Star from the classic Disney film, Pinocchio), as well as a nod towards Arsenic and Old Lace in the song "Coffee Homeground", which despite being similar in plot to the play, was reportedly inspired by a taxi driver who drove Bush once. Film references include "Hammer Horror", inspired by the Hammer Film studio, known for their gothic horror films. The British television show The Sweeney, a popular police drama, was mentioned in the lyrics of the song "Wow".

Notable for his work on all subsequent recordings by Bush, Lionheart is the first record on which Del Palmer worked as a bassist. Palmer went on to play bass, or to engineer and record every album since.

Lionheart was produced by Andrew Powell, assisted by Bush.

Never For Ever (1980)

File:Kate Bush Never Forever.jpg

Cover of 1980's Never for Ever

Never for Ever saw Bush's second foray into production (her first was for the Live On Stage EP earlier in the year), aided by the engineer of Lionheart, Jon Kelly. The first two albums had resulted in a definite sound which was evident in every track, with lush orchestral arrangements supporting the live band sound. The range of styles on Never for Ever is much more diverse, veering from the straightforward rocker, "The Wedding List", to the sad, wistful waltz of hit single, "Army Dreamers". Never for Ever was the first Kate Bush album to be composed on synthesizers and drum machines (in particular, the Fairlight CMI which was programmed by Richard James Burgess and John L. Walters), her earlier albums being composed on the piano.

Never for Ever proved to be Bush's first record to reach the top position in the UK album charts, also making her the first female Briton ever to achieve that status.

Bush's literary and cinematic influences were at work once more. "The Infant Kiss" was inspired by the 1961 film The Innocents, starring Deborah Kerr and Michael Redgrave, which in turn had been inspired by The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, while "The Wedding List" drew from François Truffaut's 1968 film La mariée était en noir.

Never for Ever is, to date, the only album by Bush not to share a title with one of its own tracks.

The Dreaming (1982)

File:Kate Bush The Dreaming Cover.jpg

Cover of 1982's The Dreaming

The Dreaming was the first album Bush produced herself. With her newfound freedom, she experimented with production techniques, creating an album that features a very diverse blend of musical styles and that is known for its near-exhaustive usage of the Fairlight CMI.

The Dreaming met with a mixed critical reception at first. Many were baffled by the dense soundscapes she had created. The album was not considered to be a financial success, although it still reached number three in the UK album charts. “Sat In Your Lap” was the first track released. It predated the album by nearly a year and peaked at #11. The following singles fared even worse. "The Dreaming", the album's title track featuring the talents of Rolf Harris and Percy Edwards, stalled at number 48, whilst the next single, "There Goes A Tenner", failed to chart at all, despite promotion from EMI and Bush.

Bush was in her early twenties when making the album and tended to look outside herself for sources of inspiration. She drew on old crime films ("There Goes A Tenner"), a documentary about the war in Vietnam ("Pull Out The Pin"), the plight of Indigenous Australians ("The Dreaming"), the life of Houdini ("Houdini") and Stanley Kubrick's film of Stephen King's novel The Shining ("Get Out Of My House"). There are a few more personal tracks, though: the lead single, "Sat In Your Lap", examines feelings of self-doubt versus burning self-confidence and the search for a balance between the two, while "Leave It Open" speaks of the need to acknowledge and express the darker sides of one's personality (within the greater context of maintaining an open mind).

In recent years, the album has come to be regarded as an overlooked masterpiece, which was ahead of its time.

Hounds of Love (1985)

File:Hounds of love.jpg

Cover of 1985's Hounds of Love

Considered by many reviewers as her masterpiece, 1985's Hounds of Love is no less experimental from a production standpoint. Not only did she produce it herself, but for this album, stung by the huge costs she had run up hiring studio space for The Dreaming, she built a private 48 track studio near her home where she could work at her own pace.

In August of 1985, England's most popular music magazine, NME, featured Bush in a "Where Are They Now" article. Two days later, on The Wogan Show, the single "Running Up That Hill" was played for the first time. The single, and indeed the album, were showcases of a newfound mastery of production. Hounds of Love ultimately topped the charts in the UK, knocking Madonna's Like A Virgin from the number one position.

The album is split into two sides, with the first side, Hounds of Love, containing five "accessible" pop songs, including the four singles: "Running Up That Hill," "Cloudbusting," "Hounds of Love," and "The Big Sky." "Running Up That Hill" re-introduced Kate to American airwaves, and received considerable airplay at the time of its release. "The Big Sky" can be viewed as a creative manifesto issued by Kate in response to criticisms of "The Dreaming" (for which she had been crticized for being too obtuse). The second side is entitled "The Ninth Wave", whose title is taken from a poem by Tennyson. As part of a song cycle, each track helps to convey the story of a woman who is lost at sea, facing death by drowning, and the tortured night she spends in the water. Bush's technical wizardry is shown to full effect, using samples and vocals played in reverse to synthesized sounds and folk instrumentation.

A 1997 re-release of the album included 6 bonus tracks: 12" mixes of "The Big Sky" and "Running Up That Hill", and the B-sides "Be Kind To My Mistakes" (which featured on the opening to the film Castaway starring Oliver Reed and Amanda Donohoe), "Under The Ivy", "Burning Bridge" and "My Lagan Love".

The Sensual World (1989)

File:Kate Bush The Sensual World.jpg

Cover of 1989's The Sensual World

The increasingly personal tone of her writing continued on The Sensual World, with songs about unexpressed and unrequited love ("Love And Anger" and "Never Be Mine", respectively), the pressures on modern relationships ("Between A Man And A Woman"), and self-doubt ("The Fog"). "Deeper Understanding" showed a remarkable prescience in its portrait of a lonely person who finds solace in the company of a computer (predicting the internet addiction that would surface at the end of the decade). "Rocket's Tail" (dedicated to her pet cat, Rocket) invoked the joys of indulging in another's fantasy. The quirkiest track on the album, touched by Bush's trademark black humour, was "Heads We're Dancing", about a woman who dances all night with a charming stranger only to find out that he is Adolf Hitler.

The title track drew its inspiration from Ulysses by James Joyce. Bush realised that the closing passage of the novel, a monologue by Molly Bloom, fitted the music she had created. When the Joyce estate refused to release the text, Bush wrote original lyrics that echo the original passage, as Molly steps from the pages of the book and revels in the real world. She also alluded to Jerusalem by William Blake in a reference to the song's gestation ("And my arrows of desire rewrite the speech"). "The Sensual World" contains extensive analogue overdubbing, as evidenced by a notable lack of clarity to the recording. The songs "Deeper Understanding", "Never Be Mine" and "Rocket's Tail" all feature backing vocals by the Bulgarian vocal ensemble the Trio Bulgarka. The Sensual World went on to become her biggest-selling album in the U.S., receiving a Gold award four years after its release for 500,000 copies sold.

The song "This Woman's Work," from the movie She's Having a Baby (1988), was re-edited for this album. On November 27, 2005, it was featured in the British TV drama Walk Away and I Stumble. Due to that broadcast, the song reached the number three position on the UK download chart. This song has also used in a long-running UK television advert for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, broadcast in 2005-2006.

The Red Shoes (1993)

File:Kate Bush The Red Shoes.jpg

Cover of 1993's The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes takes its title from the film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; the story of the film, and the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen which in turn inspired it, concerns a dancer possessed by her art who cannot shake off the eponymous shoes and find peace. The album sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

The musical style was far more simple and direct than on any album since Never For Ever. The initial plan had been to take the songs out on the road and so Bush deliberately aimed for a live band feel, with less of the studio trickery that had typified her last three albums and which would be difficult to recreate on stage. The result alienated some of her fan base who enjoyed the intricacy of her earlier compositions, but others found a new complexity in the lyrics and the emotions they expressed. Gone were the stories and character pieces of her earlier work to be replaced by a set of songs that are almost like a diary. This was a troubled time for Bush. She had suffered a series of bereavements, including the loss of her favoured guitarist, Alan Murphy, and, most painfully, her mother, Hannah. Many of the people she lost are honoured on the ballad, "Moments Of Pleasure", as well as Michael Powell, whom she had discussed working with shortly before his death. Her long-term relationship with Del Palmer had also broken down, although the pair continued to work together. Composer and conductor Michael Kamen contributed a score for the song which considerably heightened the impact of Bush's vocal and piano rendition.

Most notably, The Red Shoes featured many more high profile cameo appearances than her previous efforts. Comedian Lenny Henry provided guest vocals on "Why Should I Love You?," a track that featured significant contributions from Prince. "And So Is Love" features guitar work by Eric Clapton. Gary Brooker, from the band Procol Harum, and Jeff Beck also donated their talents to the recording.

A film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, written and directed by Bush, and starring Bush and Irish actress Miranda Richardson, was released the same year, featuring six of the songs on the album.

Aerial (2005)

File:Aerial sm.jpg

Cover of 2005's Aerial

Bush's eighth studio album, Aerial, is a two-disc set released in November 2005, after a twelve year gap since her last album, in which Bush devoted her time to raising a family. The anticipation leading up to the albums release was immense, with press articles devoted to Bush being printed months before the album's release. The first single from the album was "King of the Mountain". The song makes references to Elvis Presley and the film Citizen Kane, and can be seen as a contemplation on the excesses of fame, some of which are alluded to in the lyrics. The track was played for the first time on BBC Radio 2 on September 21 2005, and was made available for download as of September 27.

Aerial is one of Bush's most critically acclaimed albums.[3] Musically, the album is an ambitious and multi-layered work, incorporating elements of folk, Renaissance, classical, reggae, and samba into an adventurous pop style. As on 1985's Hounds of Love, the double album is split into two sections. The first disc, subtitled A Sea of Honey, features a set of seemingly unrelated (in theme) songs including the first single "King of the Mountain", a Renaissance-style ode to her son "Bertie", and "Joanni", based on the story of Joan of Arc. In the song "π", Bush sings the number to its 137th decimal place (though she omits, for an unknown reason, the 79th to 100th decimal places). In the simple piano and vocal piece "A Coral Room", which deals with the loss of Kate's mother and the passage of time, there appear to be allusions to Atlantis, Shakespeare's "Tempest" and to themes of drowning, which apparently interested Bush in the 1980s on "Hounds of Love/The Ninth Wave". "A Coral Room" has been hailed by commercial media reviewers as "stunning" in its simplicity, "profoundly moving" and the "one of the most beautiful" pieces Bush has ever recorded. The second disc, subtitled A Sky of Honey, features thematically related songs linked by the presence of birdsong, (the album's cover art, which seems to show a mountain range at sunset over a sea is in fact a waveform which represents birdsong). All of the pieces in this suite refer or allude to air or sky in their lyrical content. The song "Nocturn", which starts with a soft rhythm not unlike the sound of waves at seaside, stands as a metaphorical reference to lovemaking, particularly in its climactic ending bars. "A Sky of Honey" features Rolf Harris playing the didgeridoo on a couple of tracks as he had done on her earlier single "The Dreaming" and its instrumental version, "Dreamtime" (Harris also provides vocals as "The Artist" on the disc). Other artists guesting on the album include Peter Erskine, Eberhard Weber, Lol Creme and Procol Harum's Gary Brooker. Two tracks feature string arrangements by the late Michael Kamen, performed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra. As Ms. Bush had been working long on this effort, Kamen's charts had been completed before his passing in 2003.

On October 17, 2005, "King of the Mountain" entered the UK Downloads Chart at number six and by 30 October, it became her third highest charting single ever in the UK, peaking at number four on the full chart.

On November 13, 2005, Aerial entered the UK Albums Chart at number three, selling more than 90,000 copies in its first week on release. On the same day in Australia, Aerial entered the Australian ARIA Album chart at number twenty-five. Within five months of its release, the album had sold more than 1.1 million copies worldwide, despite very little publicity by Bush herself (she conducted only a handfull of magazine and radio interviews). The success of the album can be put down to Bush's reputation, ecstatic reviews, and an immense curiosity by the general public that had built up before the album's release.

Aerial earned Bush two nominations at the 2006 Brit Awards, in the Best British Female Solo Artist and Best British Album categories.

On March 13, 2006, EMI released all of Bush's previous catalogue through The Red Shoes, including The Whole Story, on compact disc with cardboard cases made to look like the original vinyl prints.

Musical style

In terms of genre, Bush is clearly part of the same British progressive rock movement that also gave rise to Genesis and Pink Floyd, although her musical style is a later manifestation of this school. Even in her earliest works where the piano was a primary instrument, Bush wove together many diverse influences, melding classical music, rock, and a wide range of ethnic and folk sources, to produce a uniquely impressive amalgam, and this has continued throughout her career. More than one reviewer has used the term "surreal" to describe much of her music, for many of the songs have a melodramatic emotional and musical surrealism that defies easy categorization. It has been observed that even the more joyous pieces are often tinged with traces of melancholy, and even the most sorrowful have elements of a unique vitality struggling against all that would oppress it. The unapologetic use of her voice as an instrument to convey a broad range of emotional intensity and subtlety is one thing that characterizes nearly all that she does. Also of note is Bush's insistent use of acoustic drum and percussion textures (even when sampled, these instruments are organically based) throughout the years that electronic drum machines became common place in popular recordings.

Bush tackled sensitive and taboo subjects long before it became fashionable to do so; "Kashka From Baghdad" is a song about a gay male couple; "Breathing" explores the results of nuclear fallout. Her lyrics are highly literate and reference a wide array of subject-matter, often relatively obscure, such as Wilhelm Reich in "Cloudbusting", or G. I. Gurdjieff in "Them Heavy People" while 'Deeper Understanding' from The Sensual World portrays a near-future world where people stay indoors, talking to their computers to the point of obsession.

The lush arrangements, complex production and intelligent, thoughtful lyrics can sometimes mask the fact that Bush is a peculiarly witty writer and that comedy is not only a big influence on her — she has cited Monty Python, Woody Allen, Fawlty Towers and The Young Ones as particular favourites — but also a significant component of her work.

Live performances

Bush's only tour took place in early 1979 (3 April–13 May see details below), after which she gave only the occasional live performance. A number of reasons have been suggested as to why she abandoned touring, among them her reputed need to be in total control of the final product, which is incompatible with live stage performance, a rumour of a crippling fear of flying, and the suggestion that the death of 21 year old Bill Duffield severely affected her. Duffield, her lighting director, was killed in an accident during her 2 April concert at Poole Arts Centre, when he fell twenty feet through an open trap door on the stage. Bush held a benefit concert on 12 May, with Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley at London's Hammersmith Odeon for his family. Bill would be honoured in two later songs: "Blow Away" on Never for Ever and "Moments Of Pleasure" on The Red Shoes. Bush explained in a BBC Radio 2 interview with Mark Radcliffe that she actually enjoyed the tour, but was consumed with producing her subsequent records (being more involved with the recording process than most artists).

During the same period as her tour, she made numerous television appearances around the world. She appeared in Germany: Bio's Bahnhof on 9 February, 1978; in the United Kingdom: Top of the Pops on 16 February, 1978; in the United States: Saturday Night Live on 9 December, 1978 (with Paul Shaffer on piano). She also made appearances on Japanese television.

In March 1987, Bush sang "Running Up That Hill" at The Secret Policeman's Third Ball, with David Gilmour on guitar.

In January 2002, Bush appeared with David Gilmour singing "Comfortably Numb" at Festival Hall in London, England.

Video projects

Bush was one of the first musicians to utilise the burgeoning music video industry, creating videos for many of her singles, and even some album tracks that were not issued as singles. EMI Records has released a few collections of Bush's videos, including, Live at Hammersmith Odeon, The Single File, Hair of the Hound, The Whole Story, and The Sensual World.

Bush appeared in many innovative music videos, designed to accompany her singles releases. Among the best known are those for "Cloudbusting" (featuring actor Donald Sutherland, who made time during the filming of another project to take part in the video), "Running Up That Hill", "Babooshka", "Breathing", and "Wuthering Heights".

In 1993, Bush directed and starred in the short film, The Line, The Cross and The Curve, a musical co-starring Miranda Richardson featuring music from Bush's album The Red Shoes which was inspired by the classic movie of the same name. It was released in 1994 to limited screenings. In recent interviews, Bush has said that she considers it a failure, and is "happy with about five minutes of it."

In 1994, Bush provided the music used in series of psychedelic-themed television commercials for the soft drink Fruitopia that appeared in the United States. The same company aired the ads in the United Kingdom, but the British version featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins instead of Bush.

Movie projects

Bush starred in a programme called Les Dogs, produced by Comic Strip for BBC television. She also wrote the original music score for another Comic Strip production, called GLC: The Carnage Continues....

Beginning in 1982 on the UK's Channel 4, Comic Strip Presents offered a series of half-hour comedy films featuring comedians including Rik Mayall, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Robbie Coltrane, and others. The movies are usually written and produced by Peter Richardson, who also usually stars.

In Les Dogs, which aired on 8 March, 1990, Bush plays the bride Angela at a wedding set in a post-apocalyptic version of Britain. Whilst Bush's is a silent presence in a wedding dress throughout most of the film, she does have several lines of dialogue with Peter Richardson in two dream sequences.

For GLC, she produced the theme song "Ken" which includes a vocal performance by Bush. She also produced all the incidental music, which is synthesizer based.

In 1985 Bush contributed a darkly melancholic version of the song "Brazil" to the soundtrack of the Terry Gilliam film of the same name. The track was scored and arranged by Michael Kamen.

In 1986, she wrote and recorded "Be Kind To My Mistakes" for the Nicholas Roeg film, Castaway. Subsequently, in 1990, a remixed version was included in an album of B-sides in her box set "This Woman's Work".

In 1988, the song "This Woman's Work" featured in the film She's Having A Baby, a year before a re-edited version appeared on Bush's album, The Sensual World.

In 1999, Bush wrote and recorded a song for the Disney film, Dinosaur, but due to complications the track was ultimately not included on the soundtrack. According to HomeGround, a Kate Bush fanzine, it was scrapped when Disney asked Bush to rewrite the song and Bush refused; however, according to Disney, the song was cut from the film when preview audiences did not respond well to the track.

Impact

Collaborations

A wide diversity of respected artists have worked with Bush on some of her more recent albums ranging from the rock guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour and Ian Bairnson, bassists Mick Karn and John Giblin, jazz/rock drummer Stuart Elliot, jazz bassist Eberhard Weber, violinist Nigel Kennedy, the classical guitarist John Williams, folk artists The Trio Bulgarka, Gary Brooker, Prince as well as numerous Irish trad/folk musicians such as various members of Planxty.

Bush provided vocals on two of Peter Gabriel's albums, most notably on the hits "Games Without Frontiers" and "Don't Give Up" (the latter a duet). He also appeared on her 1979 television special. Their duet of Roy Harper's "Another Day" was discussed for release as a single, but this never came to pass.

Harper is another frequent collaborator, appearing on her song "Breathing" and she on his albums HQ, Once (both also featuring David Gilmour) and The Unknown Soldier.

In 1986, Bush provided backing vocals for the title track of the Big Country album "The Seer".

In 1987, Bush sang a verse on the charity single "Let it be" by Ferry Aid.

In 1988, Bush sang on the Midge Ure song "Sister and brother" on his album "Answers to nothing".

In 1989, Bush sang a line on the charity single "Spirit of the forest" by Spirit of the forest.

In 1987, Bush sang on the Go West single "The King is Dead."

In 1990, Loopzone sampled "Night scented stock" for their track "Les enfants du paradis."

In 1992, the British dance act Utah Saints sampled a line from "Cloudbusting" for their hit single "Something Good."

In 1996, Bush contributed a version of "Mná na hÉireann (Women of Ireland)," singing in Irish, which she learned phonetically for the compilation, "Common Ground."

In 1996, Bush provided backing vocals for the song "My Computer" of the Prince album "Emancipation."

In 2003, Ayla presents Yel sampled "Cloudbusting" for their track "Sun is Coming Out."

Kate Bush as an inspiration for other artists

Bush has been noted as an influence and inspiration by artists as diverse as Tori Amos (who has covered "Running up that Hill" and "And Dream Of Sheep" in live performances), Antony and the Johnsons, Lily Allen, Fiona Apple, Pat Benatar (who covered "Wuthering Heights), Björk (who, in 2005 wrote an article for fashion magazine I.D. about Bush as an influence), Charlotte Hatherley, Coldplay (who claimed their track "Speed of sound" was originally an attempt to re-create Bush's "Running up that hill"), Natalie Cole, The Decemberists, Mylène Farmer, The Futureheads (who cover "Hounds of Love"), Goldfrapp, Polly Jean Harvey , Utada Hikaru, Jewel, Milla Jovovich, Liv Kristine, Nolwenn Leroy, Madonna, Charlotte Martin (who has covered "This Woman's Work," "Cloudbusting," and "Running Up That Hill"), Maxwell (who covered "This woman's work"), Sarah McLachlan, George Michael (who chose '"Army Dreamers" for his iTunes playlist), Sinéad O'Connor (who covered "Don't Give Up" with Willie Nelson), Kele Okereke (of Bloc Party), Andre 3000 and Big Boi of OutKast, Ariel Pink (who wrote a tribute song for Kate titled "For Kate I Wait" on the album The Doldrums), Placebo (who have covered Running Up That Hill), Prince, Happy Rhodes (who covered "And Dream Of Sheep" in live performances), Tupac Shakur, Jane Siberry, Emilie Simon, Suede, Terry Taylor, Within Temptation (who covered "Running up that hill"), KT Tunstall, The Utah Saints, Will Young and others. In the 1980s and 1990s it became almost standard for individualistic female singer-songwriters to be compared to Bush by the media. The trip hop artist Tricky has stated her work has been a significant influence on him and that she should be treasured more than the Beatles, at the same time stating "I'm not religious, but if I were, her music would be my bible". Though many outside Europe remain unfamiliar with her work and its profound intensity others in her profession are willing to declare her works as those of great genius. Even the iconoclastic punk rocker (Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) has declared her work to be "fucking brilliant" and has labelled her "a true original." Suede front-man Brett Anderson has stated that "Wuthering Heights" was the first single he ever bought and mentioned "And dream of Sheep" in Suede's song "These are the sad songs". Paula Cole, accepting the "Best New Artist" Grammy in 1996, named Bush as an influence (as well as Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin).

In November 2006, the singer Rufus Wainwright named Bush as one of his top ten gay icons.[4]

Outside of music, Bush has been an inspiration to several fashion designers, most notably Hussein Chalayan.[5]

Kate Bush covered by other artists

Main article: List of cover versions of Kate Bush songs

Many artists around the world have recorded cover versions of Bush songs, including Pat Benatar, Charlotte Church, The Decemberists, The Futureheads, Placebo, Hayley Westenra, Christine Collister, and other musicians ranging from pop and rock to dance and metal versions.

Discography

For a full list of Kate Bush releases, see Kate Bush discography.

The Tour of Life 1979

• Arts Centre, Poole, UK (2 April)
• Empire, Liverpool, UK (3 April)
• Hippodrome, Birmingham, UK (4 April)
• Hippodrome, Birmingham, UK (5 April)
• New Theatre, Oxford, UK (6 April)
• Gaumont, Southampton, UK (7 April)
• Hippodrome, Bristol, UK (9 April)
• Apollo Theatre, Manchester, UK (10 April)
• Apollo Theatre, Manchester, UK (11 April)
• Empire Theatre, Sunderland, UK (12 April)
• Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK (13 April)
• The Palladium, London, UK (16 April – 20 April)
• Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden (24 April)
• Falkoneer Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark (26 April)
• Congress Centrum, Hamburg, Germany (28 April)
• Carré Theatre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (29 April)
• Liederhalle, Stuttgart, Germany (2 May)
• Circus Krone, Munich, Germany (3 May)
• Gürzenich, Cologne, Germany (4 May)
• Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, France (6 May)
• Rosengarten, Mannheim, Germany (8 May)
• Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt, Germany (10 May)
• Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK (May 12) Benefit concert. Recorded with filmed footage included in Live at the Hammersmith Odeon.
• Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK (May 13) Recorded with filmed footage included in Live at the Hammersmith Odeon.

References

• Kevin Cann and Sean Mayes, Kate Bush: A Visual Documentary

External links

• Official site
• Gaffaweb — an extensive online resource of Kate Bush-related information, including reviews and interviews
• "Cathy" — online version of the book by Kate Bush's brother, John Carder Bush
• Kate Bush in MP3 — early studio demos by Kate Bush, plus other rare recordings
• The Homeground and Kate Bush News & Information forum
• 'I'm not some weirdo recluse' (The Guardian 28 October 2005)
• This Bush's mission finally gets accomplished (National Post 22 December 2005)