Kate Bush

Kate Bush Bio

Catherine ‘Kate’ Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, dancer and record producer known for her eclectic art-pop, literary lyrics and theatrical performances. Discovered as a teenager with support from David Gilmour, she achieved breakthrough success in 1978 with the self-penned single Wuthering Heights and has released a string of critically acclaimed albums including The Kick Inside (1978), Hounds of Love (1985) and Aerial (2005). Noted for her soprano voice, pioneering use of sampling and expressive choreography, Bush has received major honours including an Ivor Novello Award and a CBE. She staged a celebrated 2014 residency and experienced a worldwide resurgence in 2022 when Running Up That Hill regained global chart prominence.

Early Life and Background

Bush was born on 30 July 1958 at a maternity hospital in Bexleyheath, Kent, to an English doctor, general practitioner Robert Bush (1920–2008), and Hannah Patricia (née Daly) (1918–1992), an Irish staff nurse. She grew up with her elder brothers, John and Paddy, in an over 350-year-old former farmhouse at East Wickham near Welling, which neighbours Bexleyheath. Bush came from an artistic background: her mother was an amateur traditional Irish dancer, her father was an amateur pianist, Paddy worked as a musical instrument maker, and John was a poet and photographer. Both brothers were involved in the local folk music scene. She was raised as a Roman Catholic.

Path to Music

Bush trained at Goldsmiths College karate club, where her brother John was a karate instructor. There, she became known as ‘Ee-ee’ because of her squeaky kiai. Her family’s musical influence inspired Bush to teach herself the piano at the age of 11. She also played the organ in a barn behind her parents’ house and studied the violin. She soon began composing songs, eventually adding her own lyrics. Bush attended St Joseph’s Convent Grammar School, a Catholic girls’ school in nearby Abbey Wood. During this time her family produced a demonstration tape with over 50 of her compositions, which was turned down by record labels. Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour received the demo from Ricky Hopper, a mutual friend of Gilmour and the Bush family. Impressed, Gilmour financed the 16-year-old Bush’s recording of a more professional demo tape.

Kate Bush Career

Early Career (1978-1979)

For her debut album, The Kick Inside (1978), Bush was persuaded to use established session musicians instead of the KT Bush Band. She retained some of these even after she had brought her bandmates back on board. Her brother Paddy played the harmonica and mandolin. Stuart Elliott played some of the drums and became her main drummer on subsequent albums. The Kick Inside was released when Bush was 19, and includes some songs written when she was as young as 13. EMI originally wanted the more rock-oriented track ‘James and the Cold Gun’ to be her debut single, but Bush, who already had a reputation for asserting herself in decisions about her work, insisted that it should be ‘Wuthering Heights.’ In the United Kingdom alone, The Kick Inside sold over a million copies. ‘Wuthering Heights’ topped the UK and Australian charts and became an international hit. Bush became the first British woman to reach number one on the UK charts with a self-written song. ‘The Man with the Child in His Eyes’ made it onto the US Billboard Hot 100 where it reached number 85 in early 1979, and went on to win her an Ivor Novello Award in 1979 for Outstanding British Lyric.

Breakthrough (1980-1985)

Released in September 1980, Never for Ever was Bush’s second foray into production, co-producing with Jon Kelly. The first two albums had resulted in a definitive sound evident in every track, with orchestral arrangements supporting the live band sound. The range of styles on Never for Ever is much more diverse, veering from the straightforward rocker ‘Violin’ to the wistful waltz of hit single ‘Army Dreamers.’ Never for Ever was her first album to feature synthesisers and drum machines, in particular the Fairlight CMI. It was her first record to reach the top position in the UK album charts, also making her the first female British artist to achieve that status, and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at No. 1. The top-selling single from the album was ‘Babooshka,’ which reached No. 5 in the UK singles chart. In November 1980, she released the standalone Christmas single ‘December Will Be Magic Again,’ which reached No. 29 in the UK charts. September 1982 saw the release of The Dreaming, the first album Bush produced by herself. With her new-found freedom, she experimented with production techniques, creating an album that features a diverse blend of musical styles and is known for its near-exhaustive use of the Fairlight CMI. Hounds of Love was released in 1985. Because of the high cost of hiring studio space for her previous album, she built a private studio near her home, where she could work at her own pace. Hounds of Love topped the charts in the UK, knocking Madonna’s Like a Virgin from the number-one position. The album takes advantage of the vinyl and cassette formats with two very different sides. The first side, Hounds of Love, contains five ‘accessible’ pop songs, including the four singles ‘Running Up That Hill,’ ‘Cloudbusting,’ ‘Hounds of Love’ and ‘The Big Sky.’

Notable Works and Milestones

Bush’s musical aesthetic is eclectic; she employs varied influences and melds disparate styles, often within a single song or over the course of an album. She has been described as art rock, baroque pop, avant-pop, progressive pop, and post-progressive. Bush has a soprano vocal range. Her vocals contain elements of British, Anglo-Irish and most prominently (southern) English accents and, in its use of musical instruments from various periods and cultures, her music has differed from American pop norms. Reviewers have used the term ‘surreal’ to describe her music. Her songs explore melodramatic emotional and musical surrealism that defies easy categorisation. It has been observed that even her more joyous pieces are often tinged with traces of melancholy and vice versa.

Kate Bush Award Nominations

Throughout her career, Kate Bush has received numerous nominations recognizing her exceptional contributions to music. She has been nominated 14 times for Brit Awards, including multiple nominations for Best British Female Solo Artist. Bush has also received seven nominations for Grammy Awards, highlighting her international appeal and critical acclaim. In 1986, she earned nominations for Best Female Solo Artist, Best Album, Best Single, and Best Producer at the Brit Awards for her album Hounds of Love and single ‘Running Up That Hill.’ She was nominated for Best Female Artist at the 2012 Brit Awards for her album 50 Words for Snow. Bush received a nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, 2021, and 2022 before being inducted in 2023. In 2024, she received two nominations at the 67th Grammy Awards for Best Recording Package and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package for the re-editions of Hounds of Love.

Kate Bush Awards Won

Kate Bush has been honored with numerous prestigious awards throughout her remarkable career, recognizing her innovation and influence in music. In 1979, she won an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding British Lyric for ‘The Man with the Child in His Eyes.’ At the 1987 Brit Awards, Bush won the award for Best British Female Solo Artist. In 2002, she received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. In 2011, her cover of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ was voted by readers of The Observer newspaper as the greatest ever cover version. In 2012, her album 50 Words for Snow won the Best Album at the South Bank Arts Awards. Bush was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to music. In 2020, she became a Fellow of The Ivors Academy. In 2023, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Big Boi of OutKast inducting her into the hall of fame.

Kate Bush Family

Bush and guitarist Danny McIntosh have been married since 1992 and have a son, Albert McIntosh, known as Bertie, born in 1998. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, Bush was in a relationship with bassist and sound engineer Del Palmer. Bush’s son, Bertie, featured in her 2014 residency Before the Dawn. Her nephew Raven Bush was a violinist in the English indie band Syd Arthur.

Personal Life

Bush is a former resident of Eltham in southeast London. In the 1990s she moved to a canalside residence in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, and bought a second home in Devon in 2004. Bush is a vegetarian. Bush was raised a Roman Catholic. In 1999, she said, ‘I would never say I was a strict follower of Roman Catholic belief, but a lot of images are in there; they have to be; they’re so strong. Such powerful, beautiful, passionate images! There’s a lot of suffering in Roman Catholicism. I think I’m looking for not necessarily religion, but ways of helping myself to become more understanding, more complete, a happier person … But I really don’t think I’ve found a niche.’ The length of time between albums has led to rumours concerning Bush’s health or appearance. In 2011, she told BBC Radio 4 that the amount of time between albums was stressful: ‘It’s very frustrating the albums take as long as they do… I wish there weren’t such big gaps between them’. In the same interview, she denied that she was a perfectionist, saying: ‘I think it’s important that things are flawed… That’s what makes a piece of art interesting sometimes—the bit that’s wrong or the mistake you’ve made that’s led onto an idea you wouldn’t have had otherwise.’ She reiterated her prioritisation of her family life.