No Subject

        Kate Bush was a wistful, wide-eyed 14 year-old schoolgirl when 
she first realised she was destined to become a star. 
        By the time she was 16, EMI Records had released it too and 
they advanced her L3,000 to live on while she developed her prodigious 
song-writing and singing talents.
        Now, at 19, her first record - a plaintive, tormented song, 
"Wuthering Heights" - has just been released.
        The record has jumped into the top twenty and I'll be 
astonished if it doesn't make No. 1 by the middle of next month. 
        Yet the song is merely the tip of a whole iceberg of talent.
        And, having listened to Kate's album, The Kick Inside, and been 
charmed by her company I'm convinced she is the most important girl 
singer to have emerged in Britain for at least ten years. 

SEXUAL 

        She's beautiful too and very sexy - al huge brown eyes and 
long, tangled auburn hair. 
        "But I'm not going to fall into the trap of doing the whole 
female thing, being a sex object," she says. 
        "I think a lot of woman are conditioned to want to look like 
that when they are young.
        "But it's so dangerous to come on all sexual because 
straightaway you are label as a woman instead of an artist."
        "I'm very interested, though, in people's emotions and their 
relationships.  I'm intrigued by the way women use their power over 
men.
        "They can use their bodies and they can use the obviously 
sexual way to get through but I just think that's wrong.
        "That's relying on something that is fading and something that 
is purely material anyway - it's not really anything."
        Kate's fascination with relationships prompted her to write 
"Wuthering Heights".
        It is a strange, almost mystical song which is based around the 
part of the novel by Emily Bronte where Cathy wants to take 
Heathcliffe's soul so they can be together in the spiritual world.
        "I developed a kind of fascination with Cathy after I saw the 
last 10 minutes of the television series where she was at the window 
and cutting herself with the glass.  It always stuck in my brain.
        "It was probably a lot to do with the fact that her name was 
Cathy - and I was always called that as a child.
        "My feeling about it was so strong that it kept coming back to 
me again and again.
        "Then I read the book and discovered that Emily Bronte had her 
birthday on the same day as me, July 30, and I really, really wanted to 
write a song about it all."
        She is the daughter of a general practitioner and was brought 
up in a middle-class home at Plumbstead, in Kent.
        "I have two older brothers and they were both very keen on 
musical instruments so I just grew up with music all around me," she 
says.
        "When I was about 11 I just started poking around at the piano 
and started making up little songs.
        "It was just an easy way to release all the energy I felt 
inside me.  I never played Beatle songs or anything like.  I was always 
just exploring the instrument.
        "Then, when I was 14, I started taking it seriously and i began 
to treat the words to the songs as poetry.  I'd always been keen on 
poetry at school and it was lovely to put the poems together with the 
music." 
        Her brothers were astute enough to realise that here's was a 
quite exceptional talent - but no record companies were interested when 
they were offered tapes of little Kate singing and playing the piano.
        Eventually, via a friend of a friend, Dave Gilmour, Pink 
Floyd's millionaire guitarist, came to hear about this strange little 
girl who sang like an angel.
        "I was really nervous about meeting Dave but he was so nice and 
kind," she says. 
        "He told me to go into a studio to make a finished demo tape 
and then to select the three best songs and to offer them to a record 
company.
        "Dave took me into AIR London studios and put up the money for 
everything.  It must have cost a fortune but he didn't want to get 
anything out of it.
        "He's done the same sort of things with a couple of bands.  He 
just discovers them and tries to help them.  Since then he's always 
kept in touch and made sure everything is going OK."
        EMI jumped at the chance of signing Kate up when they heard the 
tape.
        "But," she says, "I was only just 16 and then and - though 
everyone had been telling me for a couple of years I was going to be a 
star I wasn't really capable of handling it.  I needed time."

GIGGLES

        So, spared from the drudgery of having to work by EMI's 
generous advance, Kate first studied mime under Lindsay Kemp - David 
Bowie's old tutor, then moved on to work at the Dance Centre, in Covent 
Garden.
        "I couldn't believe how hopeless I was," she giggles. 
        "I went on thinking: 'Oh well I'll have this off in a week.'  
But after a year I realised that I didn't know anything - ten years and 
I might just be starting to get good.  It really is so very difficult."
        During this period she moved from her parents' home to a flat 
in a house owned by her father in Lewisham.
        "It was good for me to be independent," she says.
        "I didn't leave home because we were having home troubles.  I 
did it because I wanted to maybe grow up a bit, to find out about the 
world - to be myself and not have the influence of my parents all the 
time.
        "In fact my father owning the flat is a great situation because 
both my brothers have flats below me and they are always there when I 
need them."
        She composes now on a honky-tonk piano she bought from a 
second-hand show in Woolwich.
        "I feel as though I've built up a real relationship with the 
piano," she says.  "It's almost like a person.  Like, it's really 
comforting just to sit down and play it.
        "And the piano almost dictates what my songs will be about. 
        "If I haven't got a particular idea I just sit down and play 
chords and then the chords almost dictate what the song should be about 
because they have their own moods.
        "Like a minor chord is very likely to tell me something sad.  A 
major chord tells me something a little more up-tempo and, like, on a 
more positive level of thinking.
        "If I ever made enough money I'd like to get a piano that 
sings: a great big singing beast like a Steinway." 
        ON stage, though, Kate is very aware of the need to have a band 
with her and is busy lining one up.  One dead cert member will be her 
25-year-old brother Paddy - who plays mandolin on her album.
        Though her name is cause a huge stir in the music business 
-with such luminaries as Steve Harley and Dusty Springfield constantly 
singing her praises - she still has no manager. 
        "I know so many people who have almost been destroyed by having 
amateur managers chained around their necks.
        "I couldn't afford to have someone to tie me down like that.  
And not having a manager has been great because I have been able to 
personally deal with people and so I have learned a lot about the 
business side. 
        "I've had quite a few offers recently from people who want to 
manage me - but I'm thinking it all over very carefully before I make 
my decision. 
        Not merely a beautiful young lady, but a clever one too.  
Surely an unbeatable combination.

 



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rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill)
NetRunner's Paradise BBS, San Diego CA