Kate Bush (born Catherine Bush on 30
July 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent (now part of
Greater London) is a British singer-songwriter
known for her expressive 3-octave voice,
idiosyncratic and literary lyrics, and eclectic
and meticulous musical and production style. She
has acquired a large number of extremely devoted
fans since her debut in 1978 with the surprise
hit "Wuthering Heights", which was number 1 in
the British music charts for 4 weeks.
While still attending St. Joseph's
convent school in Welling, South East London
where she studied the piano and violin, Kate
Bush caught the attention of David Gilmour of
Pink Floyd, who helped fund her first demo
sessions. She signed a contract with EMI when
she was 16. However, in the first two years of
her contract, Bush did not release an album, but
instead completed her time at school and had
lessons in dancing, mime, and music. During this
time, Bush wrote and made demos of close to 200
songs, which today can be found on bootleg
recordings (often known as the Phoenix
Recordings). She also performed at various small
venues in and near London under the name KT Bush
Band.
Her first album, The Kick Inside,
was released in 1978, and featured songs she had
written during the previous two years, including
the single Wuthering Heights, which topped the
UK charts and became an international hit. A
period of intense work followed. A second album,
Lionheart was quickly recorded; Bush has often
expressed disatisfaction with it, feeling she
needed more time to get it right. Then there was
the endless promotional work and an exhausting
tour, the only one of her career. Kate disliked
the exposure and the celebrity lifestyle,
feeling it was taking her away from her main
priority: making music. A slow and steady
withdrawal from public life began as she moved
into producing her own work with Never For Ever
and developed a perfectionistic, painstaking
approach to making music which would see her
ensconced in the studio for long periods and
only needing to face the glare of the press when
the subsequent albums were released. Wild
rumours would fly while she was engaged in her
work - usually that she had ballooned in weight
or had gone mad. Then she would re-emerge for a
brief period, slim and seemingly sane, before
retreating to the studio once more.
A
pattern began to form in the eighties where Kate
would disappear for up to four years while she
honed her new material until it was ready for
release. After the release of The Red Shoes in
1993 there was no reason to suppose that she
wouldn't reappear in three or four years with
another set of songs. But the period of silence
that followed her seventh studio album was much
longer than anyone had anticipated.
Bush
dropped out of the public eye for many years,
although her name occasionally cropped up in the
media in connection with rumours of a new album
release. There were also unconfirmed reports
that she had suffered a nervous breakdown. The
press continued to speculate wildly about what
she was up to and the usual scurrilous rumours
appeared. The press attempted to paint Kate as
an eccentric recluse, sometimes drawing a
cliched comparison with Miss Haversham, from
Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. In reality,
she was simply trying to give her young son a
normal, happy childhood, away from the world of
show business: Bush gave birth to Albert, known
as Bertie, fathered by her guitarist and current
partner Danny MacIntosh, in 1999. She didn't
release the news of his birth to the press and
it was over two years before the story broke.
Her quite normal decision to protect her son was
depicted as eccentric in the article that
reported the news. On the few occasions she has
spoken to the press since Kate has made it clear
how happy motherhood has made her.
On 31
August 2005, EMI put speculation to rest and
confirmed that Kate's eighth studio album Aerial
will be released on a double CD on 7 November
2005 internationally and 8th November in the
USA, after a single release "King of the
Mountain" on 24 October. The song will be
available for download on 27 September on all
major internet pay-for-download services
including Napster, Rhapsody, and iTunes.
Bio courtesy of wikipedia.org
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