Boolbar writes: “Last night on BBC1 just before the News At 10, they had a few minutes to spare in the schedule so they stuck a 5 minute program about the Top Of The Pops albums that used to be around in the 70s (older UK people should remember those leggy models that adorned each cover). They mentioned that all the tracks on these albums were recorded with session musicians and showed a clip from the Wuthering Heights video followed by someone saying how completely unlike Kate the TOTP album version of Wuthering Heights was. They played a bit of the TOTP version saying that it sounds more like Olive Oyl from Popeye.” (thanks Boolbar)
The recent issue of “Stereo“, one of the leading German magazines that deals with testing audio equipment and reviewing music, comes with an extra booklet called “Stereo CD Guide: 100 Audiophile Pop, Jazz and Classic CDs” and features Kate’s The Whole Story, “…this compilation of Kate Bush’s most important hits and tracks is impressive because of great variety and musical quality. And its sound quality is smashing too…”. (thanks to Michael Leitz)…Kate was voted No. 45 in the 100 Best Voices Of The Century by BBC Radio2 in a programme presented by Paul Gambicini over Easter. Frank Sinatra topped the poll. Read the full results here (thanks to Jane Blackley, John Lang and Simon O’Donovan)….Carlton Home Entertainment will re-release “The Secret Policeman’s Third Ball” VHS video on June 11th (update: video release now brought forward to May 21st), (cat# 3037051653). The video has been out of print in Europe for a long time. It features Kate’s 1987 live performance of Running Up That Hill with David Gilmour on guitar. (thanks to Michael Leitz)….fan reaction to Channel 4’s “Pop Princesses” programme (see April 10th news) has been largely unfavourable. Kate was listed at number 4 in the Top Ten chart and comments about her veered wildly from “weird white witch” and “jug-eared” (!) to “the one great English female singer-songwriter”. You can download a clip here. Also, as a result of the show, the UK magazine What’s On TV had an article “Where Did Kate Go?”. You can see a scan of the article by Chris Twomey (no relation/connection to me) here….John Lang sends a link to a CD by the late guitarist Alan Murphy here.
Gered Mankowitz, the famous rock photographer is to exhibit some of his works around the UK in the near future (no dates yet sorry). It will feature Kate photographs from the Lionheart cover (thanks to Claire)…two unauthorised Kate Bush remixes on Napster Moments of Pleasure (Speedbliss mix) and also Candle In The Wind (Speedbliss mix)…a new cover version of “Don’t Give Up” by the Canadian band Saga on their brand new CD single “Money Talks/Don’t Give Up”. You can listen to a 30 sec long MP3 at the record label’s website here. Alannah Myles is doing Kate’s vocal part. (thanks to Michael Leitz)