Thanks to everyone who’s reminded me to tell you that Kate will be featured in next Saturday night’s “Top Ten Pop Princesses” programme on Channel 4 in the UK. The popular series has featured everyone from the Top Ten “one hit wonders” to the Top Ten “electronica” acts. The show will be presented by Cerys Matthews (of Welsh group Catatonia) and pop singer Betty Boo. It promises to “take a look at pop’s female icons” and will also feature Kim Wilde, Sade, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and Suzi Quatro among others. Don’t expect any new interview material from Kate, but there may be some clips of the rarer variety. It airs at 10.10pm on Saturday 14th April. (thanks to Phillip Lau, Big Stripey Brian, Tracy Story, Patricia Campbell, Jeanette Payne, Alex McLauchlin, Cheryl Simon, Jon Bishop…phew!)
Category: Other artists Page 9 of 11
Newsbits: American R&B singer Maxwell, who has been known as a Kate admirer and has a cover of This Woman’s Work in his “Unplugged” album, is going to release a new studio album (called “Now”) with a studio version of TWW in May (thanks to Sozo)….Greg Gilligan writes to tell us about “A Band Called bUrt” reviewed as follows at http://www.electromancer.com/ “With some songs, you have to listen twice to know if you like them. That’s always struck me as strange, but there are some songs that just grab you from the first few notes. “Home” is one such piece. “Home” could’ve been the lost track on album The Hounds of Love” (any Kate Bush fans out there)? This track has the slick yet understated/subtle groove that characterized an era when some of the best pop songs were made. Period. The combination of excellent production values, really wonderful vocals, and an engaging synthesizer line that will follow you around like the vision of a girl that you just can’t shake. This a must listen–for KB fans and non-fans alike.” Greg says Mark Wheadon from the band credits Kate as an influence….(thanks to Greg and Sozo)
Newsbits: Sozo has contacted the site to let us know that he has a listing of Kate-related news from Japan at his site here…Mark on the guestbook tells us that in a New Years message to her fans Chrissie Hynde says that she is listening to a lot of Kate Bush and Pearl Jam, but that they won’t be influencing her new record…Sky Movies used Wow recently in the trailer to their screening of Return to Oz (thanks to Jon Bishop)…Ofer Shinar from Israel writes: “Momus, the not so famous but very intelligent alternative musician, is now working on an album inspired, among other things, by Kate. Here’s what he writes on his website: “The theme for this record is ‘Kahimi goes Prog’. I have attempted to make a medieval-flavoured Prog Pop sound. My models are songs like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen and ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush.” Read more about Momus here
Herb Leonhard is exhibiting some of his Kate Bush-inspired art (such as “The Sensual World”, pictured) at his website here. UPDATE: Herb now has an excellent new gallery of oil paintings based on each song of The Ninth Wave cycle. (Which reminds me, a great new gallery of paintings will soon be debuting on the HomeGround Pages, watch this space).
Thanks to everyone who’s emailed to let me know that Channel 4 in the UK will be screening a programme presented by Graham Norton of the top 100 singles of all time, the TV trailer of which features Kate in the elusive “red dress” version of Wuthering Heights...which may well be shown on the night…VCRs set for stun! It will be shown at 8pm on Saturday 6th January. Update: Kate’s track was voted in at number 49 out of a possible 900 singles, Michael Leitz has a low quality video download of the Kate segment of the show here (1min 50 secs, heavily compressed, approx 500kb). (Thanks to Darren Brown, Talia Nix, Simon O’Donovan and Big Stripey Brian in Dublin)
Newsbits: Kate is currently Songwriter Of The Week on BBC Radio 2. Two tracks are being played each night at 11.50pm. Already played are Army Dreamers, Wuthering Heights, The Man With The Child In His Eyes and Moments Of Pleasure (thanks to Mark)….Michael Leitz reports that the new edition of the Prince fanzine “Uptown” features an article on Michael Koppelman’s experience engineering Prince’s contribution to Why Should I Love You on Kate’s The Red Shoes, read an extract here.
More newsbits:…large online shopping websites are listing a new deluxe 180g vinyl re-release of The Whole Story for 30th October on the Simply Vinyl label (Cat# SVLP268)….Kate is mentioned several times in the new autobiography by singer/actress/TV personality Toyah Willcox: “Living Out Loud”. Toyah, a big Kate fan, has previously told how she nearly crashed her car the first time she heard Moments Of Pleasure on the radio!….Mná na hÉireann is once again (!) featured on new sampler “Highlands – Impressions From The Islands and Highlands” (East West/Warner), which also features The Corrs, Clannad and Loreena McKennitt among others….In this month’s Q Magazine Sinead O’Connor is asked about her admiration for Kate, and says that her favourite track is Wuthering Heights….On the 22nd October in The Netherlands a theatre concert performance by four famous Dutch female singers included what was described as a breathtaking performance of “This Woman’s Work” by Lucretia van der Vloot….(newsbit thanks to Michael Leitz, Beate Meiswinkel, Dennis Simcott, Loek, Marinus de Goederen).
Toni Halliday from the band Curve has responded in an online chat on the band’s official website to a suggestion that they cover Kate’s work: “Dear Kate, how I miss her in my life, I wish she still made records because I think she can give most people a run for their money, as for Curve covering anything by Kate [that] is just a wee but scary, best left” Visit the site here: http://www.curve.co.uk/mail5.html (thanks to Mike Lewis)
As expected, HomeGround magazine’s latest issue has provided important updates on several interesting Kate news stories. The Summer 2000 edition reveals that “Kate is continuing to work steadily on a new album”. However they say that “the most realistic forecasts for a release date at this point is the latter part of next year”. The fact that Kate’s taking her own good time with the album will come as no surprise to seasoned fans, but as mentioned on this news page earlier there is something very special to look forward to in the meantime…
In April Kate gave the go-ahead to have the remaining six albums in her catalogue remastered and re-packaged as with the 1997 re-release of Hounds Of Love. Dave Cross of HomeGround and Steve Davis at EMI are working on the new digitally remastered and extended editions. HomeGround report that “each album is to be re-mastered at Abbey Road by Chris Blair, who cut the original Wuthering Heights single, and who re-mastered Hounds Of Love….the booklet of each CD is to retain the original artwork but will have additional photographs and new sleeve notes which will be written by the HomeGround editors.” Dave Cross says that “EMI are putting a lot of time and money into making sure that these re-issues look and sound great….Kate’s first four albums will especially benefit from the re-mastering.”
So, when are they coming out? The plan at the moment is to firstly release The Sensual World in September and then The Red Shoes in the early new year (Note: The Red Shoes will not be released in September also, as first reported), sleevenotes by HomeGround’s Peter and Dave respectively. The additional tracks for these first two releases will be contained on the second CD of a two-CD package.
Following that in the Spring of 2001 we’ll have The Dreaming (sleevenote by Krys) and Never For Ever (sleevenote by Dave). Late Spring/Summer 2001 will bring The Kick Inside (sleevenote by Krys) and Lionheart (sleevenote by Peter).
HomeGround also mention that the Dinosaur track that Kate originally recorded for the Disney animated film was not used because the “suits in charge of the film” didn’t like Kate’s words and asked her to first change them and failing that they then instead wanted a “song without words…emotional background”. The magazine states that “at that point Kate threw in the towel”.
As if all this news wasn’t enough the magazine also prints Paddy Bush’s excellent article on the making of Justin Vali’s The Sunshine Within (order your copy today!), an article by veteran US Kate fan Andrew Marvick on how he feels about Kate in 2000, an edited version of my interview with Brian Kennedy (which I have always promised Brian would be printed in HG, so there you go Brian!), and all the usual features such as Five Years Ago, reader’s letters, and more news gathering than this website could ever hope to do. You can order your copy from the HomeGround Pages.
Yet another international artist has re-interpreted Kate’s work. Taiwan Chinese artist Valen Hsu has covered at least two of Kate’s songs. Track 5 of the “Appease” album is The Man With The Child In His Eyes and also track 4 of the album “Tear Sea” is Hsu’s version of Moving. You can hear both at the Valen Hsu website. (thanks to PDFM at HomeGround)
As mentioned below (see March 12th) Norwegian band Velvet Belly have recorded a version of The Man With The Child In His Eyes for their latest album ‘Lucia’. Their publicist has let me know that the track will be serviced to radio internationally on 19th June. She says: “I know that Velvet Belly were very sceptical about even touching that song – they thought it was such a great song as it already was, but their record company persisted, and I think they’ve done the song justice. So, it would be interesting to see what you and the other Kate Bush fans think of their version.” Read more at the band’s website www.velvetbelly.com (thanks to Phillipa for the news & single cover)
The soundtrack CD to a new German two-part film “Meine Grüne Freiheit” features Kate’s recording of Mná na hÉireann. Set in Ireland this German/Irish co-production will be screened by RTL Television in Germany on Saturday and Sunday, May 20/21, 20.15h. The CD is entitled “Best Of Ireland” released by WEA/East-West (thanks to Michael Leitz)
Alan Barnes has launched a new website commemorating the life and work of Alan Murphy (pictured left), the hugely talented guitarist who worked with Kate consistently through her career up till his death in October 1989. You can visit the site at: www.almurphy.co.uk
Don’t forget to check out “The Sunshine Within” the latest album from Justin Vali (pictured). Produced by Paddy Bush, it has been highly acclaimed and made number 22 in the Tower Records critics chart of the 100 best World Music albums ever. Read more on my updated Madagascar page in Articles.As fans continue to wait for more word on the rumoured re-masters of Kate’s albums, the 1997 re-issued Hounds Of Love was released in Canada on March 28th (see this discography site for scans)….on her official website British singer Alison Moyet has mentioned Kate as one of her favourite female singers along with Janis Joplin and Billie Holiday….Top Of The Pops 2 on BBC TV in the UK have recently shown Kate’s performance of Babooshka originally from the Dr. Hook TV Special in 1980, complete with the bizarre double-sided costume she wore, a nice rarity from the BBC vaults….section from ‘Wow’ was used to soundtrack part of recent ITV doc on celebrity nudity (!)….(Newsbit thanks to Tristan Alzial, John Lang, Jon Bishop, Simon Clarke)
April 22nd: Following on from the story below a new book about Rolf Harris, also commemorating his seventieth birthday has just been released in the UK entilted “The Court Of King Rolf” edited by Mark Walker. Among its celebrity anecdotes and tributes it features a page long contribution from Kate and also a longer piece from her brother Paddy both of which praise Rolf’s musicianship and pioneering of World Music.
April 4th: March 30th marked the 70th birthday of Rolf Harris, the popular TV personality and artist. At the star-studded party Kate made an appearance and was photographed in OK! Magazine looking radiant as she chatted to the man who provided the all important digeridu on her 1982 single The Dreaming.
Some cover version news: The trailer for the new movie Love & Basketball features Maxwell’s version of This Woman’s Work. See earlier news for info on his MTV Unplugged session from which this track is taken, watch the movie trailer here)…Pat Benatar has released a new box set, she has this to say about the included recording of Wuthering Heights: “Oh how I loved this song! Kate Bush was and still is one of my favorite songwriters and singers. I loved the visual references and her quirky delivery on her original version of the song. I was always disappointed with my performance of our version. In my overzealousness I think I missed the target. I’ve always wanted to re-cut it, maybe one day I will.” (thanks to Bill Richotte, Craig Ducote and Eric on the Kashka mailing list).
Singer Colin Vearncombe (aka ‘Black’, who had hits with ‘Wonderful Life’ and “Sweetest Smile”) was on TV this week in Belgium (VRT), presenting his new CD The Accused. He revealed that the song ‘Storm Cloud Katherine‘ is about Kate. He said he’s always been a big fan and that he thinks that she is “very sexy” adding: ‘But I have to stop talking about Kate Bush now, because I still have to stand up and sing’!! Steady on there Colin! (thanks to Peter Sioen)