FEATURE:
And How She Was Before the Year Flew By…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush looking glamorous in February 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Kate Bush and December 1980
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I am doing various Kate Bush feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980, signing copies of her third studio album, Never for Ever/PHOTO CREDIT: Chas Sime/Central Press/Getty Images/File
where I pick a particular period of career and focus in. A month where she was busy, or something particularly interesting happened. Because we are in December, I wanted to look at her December 1980. Thanks to this invaluable resource, which provides the important dates and happenings regarding Bush’s December 1980. It was a year when she released her third studio album, Never for Ever. Her music would take a new direction. Two years before she would release The Dreaming, the post-Never for Ever period was one of transformation and new ambition. Bush produced Never for Ever with Jon Kelly. She knew her next album was going to be her alone producing. Aged twenty-two, when December 1980 came around, Bush would have been in a position to explore new avenues and think how she wanted to take her next step. Never for Ever reached number one in the U.K., and with that feat, Kate Bush became the first British female solo artist to accomplish that. It was clear that she was a hugely popular artist that was also a massive commercial success. If many critics were still not behind her and were still insulting and stereotyping her, Bush was proving that she was a serious artist here for the long run!
I will bring in a bit of November 1980 before I skip to the following month. On 17th November, Bush released her first Christmas song, December Will Be Magic Again. Recorded at Abbey Road when she was working on The Dreaming – there was very little gap between the release of Never for Ever and Bush starting work on her fourth album -, she was also working with Peter Gabriel. The pair record a new version of Roy Harper's song Another Day (which appears in her Christmas special in 1979), for a projected single. There is an attempt to co-write a song for the B-side. The result is Ibiza. Sadly, they are not satisfied with it, so the project is shelved. One of the most interesting and curious interviews happened on 25th November, 1980. Kate Bush appeared on the BBC chat show, The Russell Harty Show. It was for an edition dedicated to the composer Frederick Delius (her song, Delius (Song of Summer) appeared on Never for Ever earlier that year). Bush is interviewed alongside cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and Delius's assistant and collaborator, Eric Fenby. It is one of these interviews you wish was more widely available and was remastered. You can see there was this promotion still for Never for Ever. Into December 1980, Bush was still keeping active and not looking too ahead to Christmas just yet.
One of the most notable things about December 1980 is how Babooshka (the second single from Never for Ever) became an international success now. It became a top ten hit in many countries, including Australia and Canada. This was important. The Kick Inside and Lionheart (both released in 1978) did not yield too many internationally successful singles. Wuthering Heights did well - though Babooshka seemed like the first single that was commercial and success enough to penetrate nations who were less receptive before. The U.S. were still relatively unaware. Her first two albums were not released their, yet there was a band of fans who imported them over and were determined that they got their fix of Kate Bush! More a month where she was winning over Europe and Australia. A terrific interview for Profiles in Rock was released in December. She spoke with Doug Pringle at her home. Aired on CITY-TV, Toronto, Bush was relaxed and open. It was interesting hearing her thoughts and reflections. A confident young artist who was ambitious but also realised that there were trappings to fame and she had work to do, I will include the first part of the interview below. Go and check it out. This would have been a great treat for her fans here and in Canada in December 1980. Alongside the album promotion, there were these moments where journalists and the media wanted to know more about Bush and her influences.
On 30th December, as a pre-New Year gem, the first of two special forty-five minute programmes was broadcast on BBC Radio 1. It was a duo of programmes where Bush played and discussed some of her favourite music and artists with DJ Paul Gambaccini. On 31st December, the second forty-five minute programme is aired on BBC Radio 1. This one including some of Kate's favourite tracks by popular artists. The first was by more traditional and Classical artists. It was a nice way of getting an insight into her influences and some of the artists who impacted her. Here is an extract of part of the second show she recorded with Gambaccini:
“Quiet Departures by Eberhard Weber, from the album Fluid Rustle. Kate, does music like that influence you as well as entertain you?
"Oh, absolutely. I really feel that anything that I see, read, listen to, feel, eat, etcetera, is an influence. Because anything you like you're going to have an automatic attraction and want for. And so even subconsciously you, um, you use it, somehow it gets in there."
Well if that's the case let's, uh, throw you a hard one here and ask you a question you haven't prepared for. What books have inspired you?
"What books? Well, my problem with books is that I used to read a lot more than I do now, and so I think my book inspiration is now coming from television, films, newspapers--you know, all the modern media. But I really do think that all the books I've read have had a tremendous influence on me because of their strong imagery. I think books really are a fantastic form of inspiration."
Well here's a man who grew popular with his images and his unusual voice, 'cause in the selections you played both last time and today I know you love the use of the human voice as an instrument. The man I'm talking about is Donovan.
"Yeah, Donovan has got the most beautiful voice--that very slow vibrato that people like Cliff Richard can put on; but [Donovan] has it very naturally. I mean he sings like this all the time. And again, he's an incredible songwriter, lyric writer, he can play the guitar and he has that fantastic voice. And it seemed that he'd got really caught up in the copying of Dylan when he first signed up and was singing. And he was wearing the hats and he was carrying the guitar and everyone thought he was just a Dylan copy. When in fact he wasn't at all. And it seems that he's just, um, been forgotten, he's gone under."
It's unbelievable. He was one of Britain's leading, hit-making solo stars of the Sixties and a great international artist. And now it's almost as though he'd never existed.
"It's ridiculous. I can't stand to see that happen to people, especially someone like him. Um, one of my favourite albums of his is H.M.S. Donovan-- which I think has been deleted now, which is even more ridiculous. And it's beautiful: fantastic illustrated cover; a double album, and each song is either a fairy story or something he's written to other people's words. He's used Blake's poems, he's used some Lewis Carroll--a big selection of fantasy stuff. And one of my favourite tracks from there, which he actually wrote himself to his own music, is Lord of the Reedy River.
[ The record is played. Donovan actually performed this song well before recording it for H.M.S. Donovan. He appears in the 1968 film If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, singing this song to his own guitar accompaniment. Of course, Kate herself recorded this song, and put it out as the b-side of the Sat In Your Lap single in 1981. A rumour persists that Donovan actually contributed a bit of backing vocal on Kate's track, though this has not been confirmed.]
Donovan, and Lord of the Reedy River. I suppose--
"...so beautiful..."
--all it would take would be one or two really good tracks and--
"Ah, but he's got them, you know, that's the silly thing, he's got so many good tracks. I think that song there too, is so essential and erotic. And you know no-one's even heard of it--incredible. I mean if you put a bit of film to that...what a fantastic..."
Most people don't realise that most of his hit records were produced by Mickie Most.
"I didn't realise that either, no."
There's another track of his that you like alot, a b-side.
"Yes. Uh, it was the b-side of [indecipherable], called Mr. Wind [I am unsure that this is what she says here]. What I liked about it was he was using 'Vari-Speed', Um, he was using very low voices and very high voices [Kate imitates these--precious audio unfortunately not transcribable] all mixed in together: Mr. Wind spoke like this! And all the people that he woke up in the morning spoke like this! [Laughs] And it was beautiful; it was just a really fun track putting a different speed to the voices of the various characters. And it was really fabulous for kids, uh, you know? I...I wish there had been more."
Let's come right up to date now, with an album currently in the charts: Steely Dan, Gaucho LP, and from it, Babylon Sisters.
[Part of this record is played. Then Kate comes back on, announcing in a surprising, very uncharacteristic imitation of an American accent (perhaps prompted by Steely Dan's music, which she has elsewhere described as quintessentially American):]
"Hi, everybody! This is Radio Fun, and I'm here with Paul Dictionary and with him, Miss Bush."
[Laughing] And--and we have just heard Steely Dan from their Gaucho LP, and Babylon Sisters. Now, Kate, this brings us right up to date, 'cause this is an album that's out right at the moment. And this is a, a funky little track by these two chaps, Becker and Fagin. And they're monstrous stars in America--not so here.
"No, that's uh, again why I played them. I think they're very underestimated. They're the most incredible musicians. This is it. They are here--a musician's band. I mean, all the musicians in this country just rave about them technically, and uh, as songwriters. But you know, they're not really played on the radio, but they're just incredible--really good jazz [indecipherable]."
Kate, if we go beyond the current charts and look beyond this program and beyond the parties we'll be attending tonight, into 1981, what are your immediate plans?
"Well, my immediate plans now are to make another album. That's what I've been doing the last couple of months: writing, too, and trying to demo. It's been a really good time for me, actually. I love writing. That's the thing I'd like to do all the time”.
Quite an interesting December 1980. By the end of the month (and year), she had done a lot of promotion for Never for Ever. Some awesome interviews where we learned more about Kate Bush’s musical tastes and some window into her creative and personal life, here was a more rounded and confident artist. Someone being taken to heart more, some two years after her debut album came out. Whilst not completely embraced, there was more respect and ‘patience’ for an artist many described as eccentric (and worse) not long before 1980. Things would change after that. Even though not a lot of music came out from her in 1981 – in fact, Sat in Your Lap, was the only single release -, she was building The Dreaming and immersed in her most intense recording and production process. Anyone who heard that two-part Paul Gambaccini interview or her chat with Doug Pringle must have been shocked when The Dreaming came out. I am not sure that…
ANYONE saw it coming!