Big Boi from OutKast has long made it clear that he is determined to work with Kate. While his recent solo album, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, didn’t ultimately include any work between the two, he remains optimistic. Here’s this excerpt from an interview on the Creative Loafing site:
Obviously a lot of rumored collaborators made the final record, but what happened with Kate Bush? Did anything ever come to light with that?
Actually, I sent Kate Bush “Tremendous Damage” and another song called “Green Grass,” which was probably going to be on my next album. She loves them, and we’re just waiting for a chance to go to London and have a sit down with her and have crumpets and tea so we can kind of get more familiar with each other. Hopefully in the near future that can happen — we’re just looking for that little tea date.
Are there any others artists out there that you still haven’t worked with that you would like to, besides Kate?
Shit, only Kate. Only Kate.
ARoseGrowingOld
I think you are being led a merry dance by a wiser soul than yourself, Mr Patton
Nanette
I can hear the influence of “This Woman’s Work” in a few bars of “Tremendous Damage”. Something about the cadence.
Nanette
I felt that “Fifty Words for Snow” was Kate’s way of returning to the music that was the starting point for other musicians of her generation. Other people started out with jazz, blues and other forms of American music. Kate, on the other hand, began with traditional Anglo-Irish music and moved on to so-called “world” music. Naturally, she’s listened to jazz and blues before. Now, however, she’s re-listening, and re-interpreting in her own particular way. She’s playing with, and experimenting with, her lower vocal range. I heard elements of Billie Holiday on the “Fifty Words for Snow” album, just as I could hear elements of Elvis’s diction in “King of the Mountain”. Unlike, say, the early Rolling Stones, she’s not trying to out-and-out copy Chess Records. Rather, I think she’s melding a lifetime of disparate influences.
Now, I’ve seen a lot of “Oh, he isn’t any good…hate Patton’s type of music,” etc., etc. But people have disparaged Rolf Harris too, although Kate seems to return to him. I don’t think she looks for what her listeners look for when she’s incorporating elements into her own work. It’s “hey–here’s a voice, or an idea that I can work into my tapestry.” Patton may be willing to be molded–which would make him a good “thread”, if you will. I’d suggest that her use of Robbie Coltrane and co. in her videos follows along those lines.
And if she doesn’t record with Patton, there’s nothing wrong with giving him bit of a a pat on the back. She means a lot to him because “Hounds of Love” encouraged him to have bigger and more expansive dreams–it showed him what was possible. An artist I know once went up to an 80’s Britpop sensation and said, “You’re music encouraged me to write songs when I was a kid.” the pop star said, “yeah, and I bet they were crap.” Some of the commentators here would agree with the pop star–but that says more about them, then it says about Kate…or Patton, for that matter.
Nanette
(Excuse me for the multiple posts) Jamie Cullen asked Kate if her relationship to rhythm had changed–a very prescient question, I think. If she’s using Steve Gadd on drums, it’s not impossible to think that she’d listen to any beats that Patton cooked up. Notably, Kate has used spoken word performances at least twice–with John Carder Bush on Hounds of Love and with Stephen Fry on Fifty Words for Snow. I can imagine Patton doing an impromptu rap version of “Fifty Words”, and I can imagine Kate turning it over in her mind–or even trying it! (It’s actually difficult to rap well, without pausing or stumbling). I’d love to be a fly on the wall, myself.