that memory thing...

[seaweb@ix.netcom.com]

I just wandered into your group this week, and I'm glad to see we're 
all still here, this world of people who can't forget Kate when she 
goes missing.

I am 45.  Yes, way old.  And I first heard Kate after work one day in 
early 1978, the day the Capitol Records rep laid her album (on Harvest, 
it was) on my desk with all the others that week.  It wasn't anything 
Capitol was trying to push (dummies then, dummies now). I noted Dave 
Gilmour's name and the presence of much of the Alan Parsons Project, 
and I liked the cover.  

At home, I put it on and listened to it a couple of times, stunned as 
that whole wonderful, colorful, emotional program played through.  I 
thought I might have been hallucinating or something.  It was so 
unexpectedly beautiful.  I fell in love, with this kid piano player.  
She wrote the best love letters you could ever hope to read.  She sang 
like no one else.  

Kate's a phenomena, a comet, rare and bright.  And still, just a 
person, simple like all of us.  Sure, I'd part with a month's salary to 
sit in a club, anywhere in the world, to hear her play in a trio, solo, 
whatever.  Sitting in an airport coffee shop to listen to her tap her 
fingernails on the tabletop across from me would be a wild thrill.  
But, she makes great records, and she doesn't want to tour.  C'est la 
vie.

That rush from "Kick" up through "The Dreaming" was breathtaking, and 
like all truly fine things, she improves with age.  She's my favorite.  
I'll always be cheering for her, as she goes her own way.  Go, Kate!

Steven