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[JONES%RPIECS.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu]

Kate Bush:
The Whole Story...Continued
===========================
===========================


Boy, have we missed her.  Four years is a long time to have to wait
for an old friend.

Oh sure, she's been around.  She's been keeping herself busy.  There
was the 1986 collaboration with Gabriel on "Don't Give Up."
Various charity venues at Amnesty International, Comic Relief, and
Ferry Aid.  And even a compilation video called The Whole Story thrown
in for good measure.

But four years is still a hell of a long time to wait for an old friend
to come back down the road with any fresh new surprises tucked under
her arm.

But now she's finally back.  And this time, she's brought the world
with her.

The Sensual World.

Such is the mystery and power and attraction of Kate Bush.  She can
virtually disappear from the music world for years at a time, and
then reappear just as quickly, and her fans receive her the world over
with open arms.  She's a novelty in that sense; most bands or artists
that go in hiding for more than a year are quickly forgotten or written
off by both the public and the radio stations.  But Kate is different.

And her story is amazing.

Story of the Student
--------------------

Catherine Bush was born to parents Robert and Hannah Bush on
July 30 in 1958; big brother John Carder Bush, known as Jay
to the family, was fourteen when Kate was born.  Another son, Patrick,
or "Paddy" as he was wont to be called, was born later.

Kate was brought up by her family in a rambling old
farmhouse in East Wickham, a 350-year-old place that was buried in
satisfying tangles of overgrown gardens and trees.  And although
the house was reputed to have been haunted by the ghost of a
Victorian serving maid, this bit of hearsay has been soundly snuffed
by the family.

As a little girl, Kate attended St. Joseph's Convent Grammar School,
where she spent just over six years.  St. Joseph's was an all-
girl school that was respectfully known as "the school on the hill";
Kate was one of five girls chosen to attend the prestigious school.

Kate's third year at St. Joseph's, 1972, saw her first public
appearance as a singer and dancer.  The occasion was the school's
production of the musical play "Amahl and the Night Visitors", and
during the performance, young Catherine Bush, then thirteen, along
with a classmate, gave a short dance routine that was
hailed as being "both pastorally graceful and imaginative".

Each form at St. Joseph's also had one music lesson a week, with each
student required to learn an instrument for the first two years; after
two years of learning an instrument, music became an optional course of
study.  Kate's instrument was the violin and she had private lessons,
a fact that her music teacher
was very jealous of.  However, Kate never felt
comfortable with the violin and tended to dislike her lessons, and
she therefore gave up the instrument as soon as her mother let her.

Kate also sang in the school choir at St. Joseph's.  One friend still
recalls:
"...she was always singing, just as everybody
sings, only everybody else was out of key and Kate used to get these
things right and she used to work out her own sort of arrangements with
records whereas everyone else would just sing the words.  I used to
think 'God, I wish I could do that...'"

Along with Kate's own slowly emerging talents in school, there was
another atmosphere at home that obviously played a large part in her
musical interests.  Kate's family was a very musical one -- both
brothers and her mother and father were accomplished amateur musicians,
and Kate herself says that she was "weaned" on the Irish fiddle.  Kate
also used to slip into Brother Paddy's room and pilfer records out of
his collection, only to return to her own "den", which was a
secret congregating place for Kate and her school chums.  Here the girls
would sit and chat, roasting marshmallows or brewing tea at the
fireplace, or reading magazines while listening to Paddy's records.

Kate also retreated to the den on her own to write poetry (taking after
big brother Jay) or to draw.  In fact, one of her songs, "The Man with
the Child in His Eyes," was composed when she was only fourteen, and
eventually appeared on her first album in 1978.

During this period of her life,
Kate was still undecided whether to train as a doctor
like her father, a veterinarian, or even as a social worker.  Singing
or writing songs professionally hardly seemed an option, although with
both Paddy's and Jay's encouragement she was considering both.  In fact,
she and Paddy had made a demo tape containing some thirty songs,
and it had been received favorably by those friends Kated played it for.

As the school year wore on,
Kate's mind was less and less on her studies, and more and more on
things beyond school; the notion of singing and writing music was
arousing more and more of her interest.  And then, suddenly, when the
first term of the upper sixth began, Kate left St. Joseph's.
Many were surprised, finding the first term of the last year an odd
time to leave.  Rumors began flying around:  Kate had left to make her
own pottery, she had gone to take up dance, she had gotten a recording
contract.  But Catherine Bush was soon forgotten at St. Joseph's as the
school once more picked up its routine...

Story of the Star
-----------------

You will remember that it was only a few months short of Kate's 18th
birthday when she left St. Joseph's; there was no real path laid out
for her, and her future was uncertain, but the unfavorable conditions
at school had left her no choice.  Perhaps it is this fact that makes
the next bit of Kate's story all the more incredible.

Kate recalls:
"...one day, along comes this friend of my brother's.
He worked in the record business himself and thought he might be able to
help make some contacts..."

The friend was a young long-haired man named Ricky Hopper, a
friend of Jay's who had known Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour from Cambridge.
In 1972, Hopper simply took Kate's first demo tape around to several
people in the music publishing and recording industries, but to no avail
The next year, Hopper then approached Gilmour himself, told him about
Kate, and arranged a recording session at his own home that summer.
At about the same time, with her brothers as directors, Kate's first
company, Noverica, started; shortly thereafter, thanks to Gilmour,
Kate's tape began to circulate.

BOB MERCER of EMI remembers:

"...I was in the Number 3 studio of Abbey Road.  Pink Floyd were
finishing off their WISH YOU WERE HERE album.  Dave Gilmour asked me
if I could nip down into one of the studios and listen to a tape he and
Andrew Powell (producer) had done of this girl.  There were three songs
on the tape.  They were well-produced.  I expressed a lot of interest
in it...."

Terry Slater, head of EMI publishing, had a similar experience:

"...I was just passing by Bob Mercer's office one day and I heard a
demo tape of "Man with the Child in His Eyes".  I said to Bob, 'Who's
that chick?'  I literally opened the door to the office and said that
to Bob.  He said, 'It's a girl called Kate Bush'.  I took it from there.
I said, 'That's *really* good..."

Despite the obvious interest in Kate's work, her contract with EMI was
talked about for a long time before it actually materialized.  Kate's
parents, while pleased yet not surprised, were a little apprehensive
about their young daughter's safety.  EMI Records eventually
offered Kate a 3000-pound advance, plus a 500-pound advance for
publishing.  Her contract stated that she could experiment without
obligation, but she was required to show her songs to EMI.

Why this waiting period?  Bob Mercer explains:

"On meeting her I realized how young she was mentally.  We gave her
some money to grow up with.  Over the next year I developed her --
got her to demo everything she'd done, talked to her about the way
she constructed her songs, and so on...we also got her a singing
tutor..."

After this came a period in which Kate simmered, ripening.
Every night, between the hours of 11pm and 3am, when Kate says she
is "most inspired", she would thrash away at an old honky-tonk piano,
playing in front of her big bedroom mirror and her two cats.  During
this time Kate learned rather a lot in the way of lyric-writing and
self-discipline; she learned to reject songs, and worked on improving
her voice quality and vocal range.

When the time finally came to launch Kate, Bob Mercer was a little
reluctant to release "Wuthering Heights" as the first single, thinking
it too eccentric a debut, but at Kate's insistence the record was
pressed and samples were sent out to the industry.  A DJ at Capitol
Records liked it and played it several times; soon there was much
public demand, and EMI had no choice but to put its release and
promotion plans in fast-forward.  Shortly after its release in January
of 1978, Kate Bush's first single, "Wuthering Heights", went to Number
One and stayed there for four weeks.  It also entered the Top 20 in
18 other countries, with five Number Ones, five golds and one platinum.
The album, The Kick Inside, went as far as Number 3 in the UK and
Number 1 in five other territories.

Kate's incredible story had begun.

Story of the Style
-------------------

Since Kate Bush first exploded onto the music scene and completely
caught the world off-guard in 1978, she has gone on to prove herself
again and again as one of the most innovative and refreshing performers
of our time.  In the past ten years, she has released six major albums,
with her sixth album, The Sensual World, just released in mid-October
of this year.

Let us look back now on Kate's incredible success story and follow
the path her music has taken since 1978 by briefly reviewing each of
the albums which have kept Bush fans everywhere enthralled.

The Kick Inside  (1978)
-----------------------

We mentioned before that no one ever quite expected the almost overnight
success of Kate Bush's first album.  Along with the hit "Wuthering
Heights" and "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", the song which caught
the attention of terry Slater, this album yielded many other soaring and
gorgeously vocalized pieces by Kate.  It was fairly obvious that Kate wa
still experimenting with her voice capabilities; her vocals ranged
from the deep soothing vocals of "Feel It" to the wonderful lofty notes of
of "L'Amour Looks Something Like You" and "Moving"
without batting an eye.  For a debut album, and indeed by any standards,
The Kick Inside was brilliant.

Lionheart  (1978)
-----------------

Kate's first album was found to be so promising that before the year
was out, the world saw the release of her second effort, entitled
Lionheart.  While this, like The Kick Inside, was still a "test"
effort by Kate, subtle changes in her style suggested
that she was starting to move away from simple vocal experimentation
in order to concentrate on rhythm as well.  Much of the
material, penned as early as 1977, included such
softer, sentimental songs like "Symphony in Blue" and
"Oh England My Lionheart", contrasting to the more upbeat
"Don't Push Your Foot on The Heartbrake" and "Hammer Horror".
In less than twelve months, Kate was branching out.

The amazing success of both of these albums prompted a demand for Kate
to tour, so a live concert was scheduled for London's Hammersmith Odeon
Theatre in April of 1978.  Since relatively little was known of Kate at
the time, the number of fans, while enough to fill the several-
thousand-seat theatre, was still comparatively small.  Those lucky
enough to get tickets, however, were astounded.  Kate became an
actress, a dancer, a mime...alive.
Her costuming and dance
routines gave her a progressive art/rock presence that very few
new artists have been able to have from the start, and in some ways
that presence has yet to be equalled.  Fortunately for the rest of
Kate's fans who were unable to see the live show, a video was made of
the performance; it's practically impossible not to get goosebumps
while watching the tape, and one can only imagine at what it must have
been like to see the live show.  Simply put, Kate is captivating.  And
all this before reaching the tender age of 21.

Never For Ever  (1980)
----------------------

The world waited impatiently for a year and a half
before it saw the release of Kate's third album, Never For Ever.
To date, this may prove to be Kate's most emotional album, touching on
such subjects as death, war, and nuclear holocaust.  This
last is dealt with in the haunting "Breathing", a song
about nuclear war as told from an unborn child's point of view.
A video was out out to accompany the song, and many fans still find it
one of Kate's most powerful work.  This album also included the
celebrated single "Babooshka", which tells the story of an old woman's
attempt to test her husband's faithfulness by disguising herself and
seducing him. The accompanying video, which features
Kate sporting an armor-plated bikini during the chorus, is a visual
romp, and is often highly favored by all red-blooded males!

Kate also got another big break in 1979, collaborating with ex-Genesis
frontman Peter Gabriel on his third album, which was released in early
1980.  Kate provided background vocals in "No Self Control",
and also lent her husky whisperings to the background vocals of
Gabriel's first major hit, "Games Without Frontiers".

Although Kate
got no extensive exposure as a result of working with Gabriel, her
seductive sighing on "Games" was enough to make some smart people sit
up and take notice, and pursue learning more about her.

To return the favor of being allowed to appear on Gabriel's album,
Kate had Peter as a guest on her 1979 Christmas special.  During the
show, Gabriel performed his own solo number of 1977's "Here Comes the
Flood", then later shared the spotlight with Kate for a hauntingly
sad rendition of Roy Harper's "Another Day". The resulting duet was
enthusiastically received by the general viewing audience, and it
became evident that the Gabriel/Bush duo had possibilities for the
future.

The Dreaming  (1982)
--------------------

With the spring of 1982 came Kate's fourth and most dramatic album,
The Dreaming.
Even today, some seven years after its initial release, Bush fans
world-wide still regard this album as Kate's best.  In many ways, it
was very similar to Gabriel's third album; through her work with
Gabriel, Kate learned the method of composing with a drum machine,
and so The Dreaming was packed with visual and emotional imagery and
rumbled thickly with drums and complex rhythms.
Often because of this album alone, many think of Kate Bush as being
"odd" or "weird"; admittedly, this album was
very different from its predecessors.  This difference, however, did not
serve to make The Dreaming any less amazing; fans still continue to
dig tirelessly into the album's lyrics in hopes of finding what Kate
was trying to put across.