Personalities | Kate Bush | Eighties | Rock

(Singer-songwriter, piano b. 1958)

Catherine ‘Kate’ Bush CBE was the first female singer to top the UK charts with a self-penned song (‘Wuthering Heights’, 1978). She is a versatile and sometimes surreal songwriter whose work involves adventurous sound experimentation. The subject matter of her songs has embraced everything from Emily Brontë’s characters to controversial psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (‘Cloudbusting’, 1985). Often perceived as a perfectionist (a charge she denies), she has frequently stood her ground against record-company influence and won. She rarely tours. Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has long championed her music – she sang the part of the doctor in a 2002 live performance of ‘Comfortably Numb’ – and collaborated with Peter Gabriel in the 1980s on two songs: ‘Games Without Frontiers’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’. Bush has been cited as a major influence by other female singer-songwriters including Björk, KT Tunstall, Lily Allen, Courtney Love and P.J. Harvey.

Styles & Forms | Eighties | Rock
Personalities | Cabaret Voltaire | Eighties | Rock

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

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