Dutchman's allegations of Kate Bush "fraud"

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: Dutchman's allegations of Kate Bush "fraud"

     A recent Love-Hounds posting (IED is greatly indebted to
the transcriber, to Vickie Mapes--via Larry Hernandez--for calling
IED's attention to it, and to Michael Butler for reading it over
the phone to him), taken from an article printed in the Dutch
music journal _Ur_ (#21, October 21, 1989), has moved IED to
do a little research on his own, and he has a few observations
to make now.
     First, what exactly happened between Mr. Libbenga and Kate?
Mr. Libbenga more or less admits that he never actually had any personal
contact with Kate. In fact, it seems that whatever telephonic
communication he had with her was too "thin" to fill even the
brief kind of interview-article now considered adequate among
contemporary-music publications. Nevertheless, we are told,
Mr. Libbenga "sent Kate" a tape of folk music. It is not clear
to what address this tape was sent, but there can be no doubt
that Kate and her brothers are recipients of a vast number of
such tapes each year, and we cannot assume that Kate ever heard
Mr. Libbenga's tape, nor that, if she did hear it, she was aware
from whom the tape had come. Paddy Bush, we know, has an enormous
collection of tape-recordings of ethnic music, and presumably
Kate's exposure to these and other collections is casual, even
chaotic, at times.
     We also have the information that Kate called Mr. Libbenga
"collect". And why not? Mr. Libbenga had asked for an interview
with Kate Bush, and--almost certainly because he had associated himself
with a Dutch music journal--he was granted one. Perhaps his evident
pique at being asked to pay for the cost of the interview was a partial
cause of the succeeding interview's suspicious "thinness"? We cannot
know.
     What of the question of "fraud", then? There can be no question
that the recording heard on Kate's album is completely different from
the recording named by Mr. Libbenga. The choice of Uillean pipes, Greek
bouzouki and Irish fiddle as the instrumentation of the "air" in question
is surely original--particularly if, as Mr. Libbenga claims, the melody
is Macedonian. (Macedonia is a part of what is now Yugoslavia.)
     Whatever similarity does exist between Mr. Libbenga's Dutch tape
and Kate's _The_Sensual_World_ must, therefore, be strictly limited
to the melody itself. It would be unwise to take any stranger's word
for it that one melody is "the same" as another without hearing the
two recordings oneself; in this case it would be triply unwise, for
we know already that Mr. Libbenga apparently had some reason for
harboring a grudge against Kate (for calling "collect", and for failing
to oblige him with a "thick" enough interview to further his career),
and we also know that Mr. Libbenga has described his original tape
recording as sounding much like The Beatles' recording of _Mother_
_Nature's_Son_--a comparison which, in IED's opinion, puts in the gravest
doubt Mr. Libbenga's claims about the likeness of his tape to Kate's
recording!
     Two other points are in order. First, it will be remembered that
the author of the interview with Kate which was published recently
in _New_Musical_Express_ twice referred to Kate's instrumental material
from _The_Sensual_World_ as a "Macedonian air". We need not be in
any doubt that this knowledge was not the author's own, but was
transmitted to him by Kate Bush herself. (There is little likelihood that
a staff writer for _New_Musical_Express_ could distinguish a Macedonian
air from a plate of peas.) Therefore, assuming that the origin of the
melodic material is Macedonian, Kate has already proven herself perfectly
forthcoming on the issue.
     The second point is that, however Kate became acquainted with
the melody, its folk origins place it squarely in the public domain,
and therefore any question of "fraud" is moot.
     Despite this fact, it is significant that Kate has always been
perfectly willing to identify elements of her music which are borrowed
from traditional sources. In fact, Kate was openly apologetic when,
through a label typo by EMI, credit for the composition of _The_Handsome_
_Cabin_Boy_ was given to her (the song is traditional). Similarly when
_My_Lagan_Love_ was released Kate was very explicit about the
traditional origin of the music vs. the John Carder Bush-originated
lyrics she used for the song. And again when describing the use of
a traditional melody in _Hello_Earth_ Kate was admirably forthright
in ascribing its origins to the soundtrack of Werner Herzog's film
_Nosferatu_. (She also thanked Herzog and the film's soundtrack
supervisor Florian Fricke in the liner notes of _Hounds_of_Love_.)
And still another time, Kate went out of her way to identify a
rhythm she used in _Jig_of_Life_ as coming from Greek folk sources.
     Given this proven honesty on Kate's part in the past, IED
can see no reason for doubting her when she claims that her recording,
_The_Sensual_World_, is substantially her own work. IED thinks the most
likely explanation is that a minimum of melodic material was adapted--
with at least some changes and probably considerable variation and
development--by Kate from traditional Macedonian sources, possibly
but by no means certainly through exposure to Mr. Libbenga's homemade
compilation of public-domain traditional music; and that, following
its novel and radical re-instrumentation and arrangement by Kate with
the aid of Irish musicians, she rightly felt that such a natural
absorption of folk elements in her work did not jeopardize her
status as creator of the final recording. And despite this, she has
apparently been quite willing to identify the Macedonian roots of
a (no doubt small) part of her recording's elaborate counter-melody.
     All in all, IED can find no justification for Mr. Libbenga's quibble
with Kate; indeed, IED sees far more evidence to doubt both the
legitimacy of Mr. Libbenga's musical expertise and the honorability
of his motivation for making these dubious accusations.

-- Andrew Marvick