Kate Bush , byname of Catherine Bush , born July 30, , Bexleyheath, Kent , England , British singer and songwriter whose imaginative and inventive art rock —marked by theatrical sensuality, textural experimentation, and allusive subject matter—made her one of the most successful and influential female musicians in Britain in the late 20th century. Bush was the youngest child of an artistic family. Her father, who was a doctor, played the piano , and her mother, a nurse, had competed as a folk dancer in her native Ireland. As a child, Bush studied violin and piano and frequently joined her parents and older brothers in performing traditional English and Irish tunes at home. By age 14 she had begun writing her own musical compositions , and two years later a family friend introduced her to Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour , who helped her win a contract with EMI Records. For the next several years Bush took vocal lessons and studied dance and mime in London while preparing material for her first recording. She quickly capitalized on her early success with another album, Lionheart , after which she embarked on a European tour. The performance schedule exhausted Bush, however, and she subsequently focused primarily on recording.
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Kate Bush. Published: 5 Jun Lockdown listening KeiyaA's lockdown listening: 'Hope for black Americans lies in the art we make'. Published: 22 May Published: 19 May
In , aged 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single " Wuthering Heights ", becoming the first female artist to achieve a UK number one with a self-written song. She was the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist to enter the album chart at number one. Bush began writing songs at Her debut album, The Kick Inside , was released in Bush slowly gained artistic independence in album production and has produced all her studio albums since The Dreaming
We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy. One of the most successful and popular solo female performers to come out of England during the second half of the 20th century, Kate Bush was also one of the most unusual, with her keening vocals and unusually literate and complex body of songs. Bush's music was an ambitious and idiosyncratic melange of folk rock, art rock, prog, and pop, often performed with the bold brio of a West End stage production, and her lyrics were artful meditations full of drama, fantasy, danger, and a sense of wonder at the human and natural worlds. Bush became an immediate star in the U. While the crystal-clear high notes and lush melodrama of "Wuthering Heights" became her first calling card, it was with the albums The Dreaming and Hounds of Love , both of which Bush produced herself, that she developed a more mature and personal approach that embraced a unique approach to instrumentation and the use of the recording studio; those two albums also marked Bush's first real breakthrough in North America. Always working at her own deliberate pace, the reclusive Bush retired from music after 's The Red Shoes, not returning to the public eye until the release of 's Aerial, though her work in the 21st century confirmed that her time away from the studio had in no way blurred her creative vision or compromised her abilities. As a girl, Catherine Bush studied piano and violin while attending the St. She also amused herself playing an organ in the barn behind her parents' house.
