Catherine (Kate), Bush, was born on July 30, 1958, in Bexleyheath, Kent, England. She Began violin lessons at the age of 9 but soon changed to the piano. She was discovered by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, who was so impressed by the imaginative quality of her songwriting that he financed some demo recordings and introduce Kate to EMI who sign her while she is still at school and encouraged her to develop her writing, dancing and singing.
After studying mime and dance with Lindsey Kemp and other teachers, Kate released first single "Wuthering Heights" in January, 1978. The single was inspired by Emily Bronte's novel and climbed to # 1 in the UK and getting the notice of Europe.
`The Kick Inside,' Bush's debut album was recorded over the previous three years was and was finally released in February 1978. It was a Top 3 success and sold over one million copies in the U.K. The romantic follow-up single- "The Man With The Child In His Eyes," made the Top 10.
`Lionheart,' released December 1978 was followed up by a 30-date European tour in 1979. The sell-out live shows were most notable for her characteristically extravagant mime work, dance and elaborate stage sets. The elaborate theatrical show at the Hammersmith Odeon was filmed (released on tape and laser disk). An EP from the show, `Kate Bush On Stage,' gave her another Top 10 hit.
After guesting on Peter Gabriel's- Games Without Frontiers, Kate 3rd studio album- `Never For Ever,' was released in September 1980, entering the UK album charts at # 1. Singles- "Breathing" and "Babooshka" were standouts of the album.
On September 1982- `The Dreaming,' entirely self-produced, becomes her fourth Top 10 album. Bush considered a tour, but changed her mind, not wishing to repeat what she perfected in the studio.
`Hounds Of Love,' had a darker tone, with a Kate Bush voice that was cooler and more controlled. Released in September 1985, the album soared to # 1 and included a massive hit single- "Running Up That Hill" and "Cloudbusting." The video for the later featured actor Donald Sutherland.
After singing with Peter Gabriel on the Top 10 single "Don`t Give Up" in 1986, Kate released her first retrospective `The Whole Story,' in November, a No.1 multi-platinum success.
`The Sensual World,' released in October 1989, featuring guest artists Nigel Kennedy and The Trio Bulgarka. The disk becomes her 7th Top 10 album.
A career-length boxed set, `This Woman`s Work' was released October 1990.
In December 1991, Kate` recorded a cover version of the Elton John/Bernie Taupin classic "Rocket Man." From the `Two Rooms,' tribute album, it reaches No.12 on the chart.
`The Red Shoes,' released in November 1993, featured artists such as: Eric Clapton, Prince, Jeff Beck and Gary Brooker. The album was produced and written by Kate as a follow-up to her single- "Rubberband Girl," which was released a month earlier. The album title is taken from the 1948 Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger film about a pair of magic dancing shoes. Kate directed, acted, sung and danced in a 50-minute film based on the album. Appearing in the film are Miranda Richardson ("The Crying Game", "Damage") and Kate's mime teacher- Lindsey Kemp. The film is called- "The Line, The Curve and The Cross," and was released in 1994.
Though Kate has expressed a wish that she could work at a faster pace, she says that much of her way of composing and work is formed by experimentation and takes time.
After a long hiatus, rumors have that Kate, who investing a great deal of her time in just living an ordinary life like anyone else, and began writing material for a new album in 1999 for her longtime label EMI.
Kate announced on 19th July 2000 that she is "very happy and proud to have such a beautiful son, Bertie - he is absolutely gorgeous...I am having great fun being a Mum as well as working on a new album." EMI has re-released (and re-mastered), `Hounds of Love,' and plan to do the same with her other albums and are hoping that the reissues will pave the way for the release of Kate's eighth studio album.
In late 2007, Bush composed and recorded a new song, "Lyra", for the soundtrack to the fantasy film The Golden Compass.
2011: Director's Cut and 50 Words for Snow
In May 2011, Bush released the album, Director's Cut. The album, which Bush has described as an entirely new project rather than a collection of mere remixes, contains 11 tracks of substantially reworked material from her earlier albums, The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, all of which have been recorded using analogue, rather than digital, equipment to create "a warmer sound". All the tracks have new lead vocals, new drums, and reworked instrumentation. Some of them have been transposed to a lower key to accommodate her lowering voice. Three of the songs, including "This Woman's Work", have been completely re-recorded, with lyrics often changed in places. This is the first album on her new label, Fish People, a division of EMI Records, with whom she's had a relationship since she started recording. In addition to Director's Cut in its single CD form, the album was released with a box-set that contains the albums The Sensual World and the analogue re-mastered The Red Shoes. It debuted at number-two on the United Kingdom chart.
The song "The Sensual World" has been renamed "Flower of the Mountain" and contains a passage of Molly Bloom's soliloquy from James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Bush said, "Originally when I wrote the song 'The Sensual World', I had used text from the end of Ulysses. When I asked for permission to use the text I was refused, which was disappointing. I then wrote my own lyrics for the song, although I felt that the original idea had been more interesting. Well, I'm not James Joyce am I? When I came to work on this project I thought I would ask for permission again and this time they said yes."[89]
The first single released from the album was "Deeper Understanding" and contains a new chorus featuring computerised vocals from Bush's son, Albert. A video for the song, directed by Bush, has been released through her channel on YouTube. It features Robbie Coltrane as a man consumed by his relationship with his computer (voiced by Bush's son). Frances Barber plays the man's wife, and Noel Fielding also appears.
Bush's next studio album, 50 Words for Snow, was released on 21 November 2011. The album contains seven new songs "set against a backdrop of falling snow", with a total running time of 65 minutes.[90][91] A radio edit of the first single, "Wild Man", was played on BBC Radio 2's The Ken Bruce Show on 10 October.[92] and was released as a digital download on 11 October.[93] The album is distributed in the United States by Anti-Records.
On 14 November 2011, NPR played 50 Words for Snow in its entirety for the first time.[94] Australia's ABC Radio National declared 50 Words for Snow album of the week of November12, 2011.
The album's songs are built around Bush's quietly jazzy piano and Steve Gadd's drums, and utilise both sung and spoken word vocals in what Classic Rock critic Stephen Dalton calls "a ... supple and experimental affair, with a contemporary chamber pop sound grounded in crisp piano, minimal percussion and light-touch electronics ... billowing jazz-rock soundscapes, interwoven with fragmentary narratives delivered in a range of voices from shrill to Laurie Anderson-style cooing."[96] Bassist Danny Thompson appears on the album, which also features performances by Elton John and actor Stephen Fry.
On the first track, "Snowflake", in a song written specifically to use his still high choir-boy voice, Bush's son Bertie sings the role of a falling snowflake in a song expressing the hope of a noisy world soon being hushed by snowfall. "Snowflake" drifts into "Lake Tahoe", where choral singer Stefan Roberts and Bush sing about a rarely seen ghost: a woman who appears in a Victorian gown to call to her dog, Snowflake. Bush said to fellow musician Jamie Cullum in an interview on Dutch Radio, that she wished to explore using high male voices in contrast to her own, deeper, voice. "Misty" is about a snowman lover who melts away after a night of passion, while "Wild Man" tells the story of a group of climbers in the Himalayas who, upon finding evidence of a nearby Yeti, erase all traces of it to protect it from discovery. Elton John and Bush as eternally divided lovers trade vocals on "Snowed in at Wheeler Street", while Stephen Fry recites the "50 Words for Snow". The quiet "Among Angels" finishes the album.
50 Words for Snow received general acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, based on 26 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". She was nominated for a Brit Award in the "Best Female Artist" category, and the album won the 2012 Best Album at the South Bank Arts Awards] and was also nominated for Best Album at the Ivor Novello Awards.
2012–present: Before The Dawn
Bush performing at Hammersmith Apollo (2014)
Bush turned down an invitation by the organisers of the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony to perform at the event; instead, a recording of a new remix of her 1985 hit "Running Up that Hill" was played at the end of the ceremony. Bush released an exclusive limited-edition 10" picture disc of the 2012 remix as part of Record Store Day on 20 April 2013. In the same year, Bush became the first (and to date, only) female artist to have top five albums in the UK charts in five successive decades.
In March 2014, Bush announced her first live concerts in several decades: a 22-night residency called Before the Dawn in London from 26 August to 1 October 2014 at the Hammersmith Apollo.] Tickets sold out in 15 minutes. The concerts received positive reviews. In August 2014, bolstered by the publicity around her upcoming performances, she became the first female performer to have eight albums in the Official UK Top 40 Albums Chart simultaneously, putting her at number three for simultaneous UK Top 40 albums (behind Elvis Presley with 12 albums in 1977, and The Beatles in 2009 with 11 albums. Note that in January 2016 following his death, David Bowie joined Elvis in the number one position with 12 albums); altogether she had 11 albums in the top 50. In November 2014, Bush was awarded with Editor's Award at the annual Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her theatrically performed live comeback. An eponymous three-disc album of recordings from Before the Dawn was released November 25, 2016.
In April 2017 Marc Geiger, the head of music at the agency William Morris Endeavour, claimed that Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett, main promoter of the US music festival Coachella, had declined to book Bush in the festival's lineup. This would have marked her first ever live shows in North America. Geiger claimed that Tollett had reasoned that "No one is going to understand it (her act, presumably a version of Before The Dawn)". Tollett responded to Geiger's claims, indicating that he had been after Bush for 25 years and would book her if she ever became available, while recognising that this is unlikely as she does not tour. Additionally, a spokesperson for Bush commented that she had no intention of performing in the US.
Upates courtesy of KB Wiki Page
Kate Bush Discography:
The Kick Inside (1978)
Lionheart (1978)
Never for Ever (1980)
The Dreaming (1982)
Hounds of Love (1985)
The Sensual World (1989)
The Red Shoes (1993)
Aerial (2005)
Director's Cut (2011)
50 Words for Snow (2011)
Before the Dawn (2016 (Live)
