timeline

Kate Bush

An English singer, songwriter and self-taught pianist who went from a teenage demo to a number one with her first single, then built her own studio and made some of the most singular records in British pop.

Origin
Bexleyheath, Kent, England
Years active
1973-present
Genres
art pop, art rock, progressive pop
Labels
EMI Records, Fish People
Also known as
Catherine Bush

Beginnings

Catherine Bush was born on 30 July 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent, and grew up in a farmhouse at East Wickham near Welling, the daughter of a GP and an Irish nurse, with two elder brothers, John and Paddy. She taught herself piano at eleven and recorded her first demo weeks after her fifteenth birthday. A tape of more than fifty compositions was turned down, but it reached David Gilmour through a mutual acquaintance, and Gilmour paid for a professional three-song demo produced by Andrew Powell.

That demo led to a contract with EMI, signed through the executive Terry Slater. Before she recorded, she took dance classes with Lindsay Kemp and played pub shows with the KT Bush Band from March to August 1977. Recording of her first album began that August.

Wuthering Heights and the early albums

EMI wanted a different song to open her career, but Bush insisted on Wuthering Heights. Released on 20 January 1978, it reached number one in the UK and stayed there for four weeks, the first self-written British number one by a woman. The Kick Inside followed on 17 February and went to number three, and Lionheart arrived in November 1978. Made quickly at Super Bear Studios on the French Riviera, her only album recorded outside Britain, Lionheart reached number six and went platinum. In April and May 1979 she toured for six weeks, with costume changes, a magician and dancers, in a show the Guardian later called an extraordinary mixture of music, dance, poetry and theatre.

Never for Ever, released on 8 September 1980 and co-produced with Jon Kelly, became the first album by a British female solo artist to top the UK chart. It was also the first to use the Fairlight CMI, the sampling synthesizer that would shape her next records. She had chosen to work without Andrew Powell, wanting to make more of the creative decisions herself.

Her own producer

The Dreaming (1982) was the first album she produced entirely herself, and she has produced every studio album since. Its crowded, abrasive arrangements, led off by Sat in Your Lap, made it her lowest-selling record, and she later called it her "She's gone mad" album. By 1984 she had a private studio at the family farm in Welling, and the work done there became Hounds of Love, released on 16 September 1985. It entered the UK chart at number one, with the singles Running Up That Hill and Cloudbusting on side one and the seven-part suite The Ninth Wave on side two.

A compilation, The Whole Story, also reached number one in 1986, the year she sang "Don't Give Up" with Peter Gabriel. She won the 1987 Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist. The Sensual World followed on 16 October 1989 and reached number two, with Trio Bulgarka singing on three tracks and This Woman's Work as its best-known ballad. The guitarist Alan Murphy died three days after it came out.

Silence and return

The Red Shoes appeared in November 1993 with a short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, and a planned tour was abandoned. Bush then withdrew from public life. Her son was born in 1998, and in 2002 she received the Ivor Novello award for outstanding contribution to British music. The double album Aerial ended the silence in November 2005 and went to number three.

In 2011 she released Director's Cut, which reworked songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, then 50 Words for Snow, her first releases on her own Fish People imprint. In 2014 she played 22 nights at the Hammersmith Apollo, her first live shows since 1979. In 2022 Stranger Things carried Running Up That Hill back to number one in the UK, 44 years after Wuthering Heights, and in 2023 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Records

Songs

David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel, Bjork, Steven Wilson

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Fan sites and communities

Sources

  1. Kate Bush, Wikipedia
  2. Kate Bush: release groups, MusicBrainz
  3. Kate Bush, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  4. Kate Bush, The Guardian
  5. Before the Dawn (Kate Bush album), Wikipedia
  6. Kate Bush official site, Kate Bush
  7. Discogs master search, Kate Bush, Discogs