To mark 4o years of Hounds of Love we’re putting together a time capsule each day for the month of September – a daily miscellany of the people, events and objects that relate to this momentous work, whether back in 1985 or right up to the present day…
Hounds of Love – person of the day
The brilliant drummer Stuart Elliott has put his unmistakable stamp all over Kate’s catalogue right from the very beginning, playing drums on eight studio albums from The Kick Inside through to Aerial. What a career! Playing drums on tracks like Wuthering Heights, Babooshka, Breathing, Army Dreamers, Love & Anger, Rubberband Girl and Sunset to name just a small handful of Kate’s songs that Stuart has played on. And Kate is just one of the many famous names Stuart lists on his dazzling CV. Stuart was the original drummer with Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, which lead to him being picked by producer Andrew Powell to play on Kate’s first album. Kate said about him: “He’s so easy to work with because he knows what I’m like. Occasionally I’ll even ask him to use cymbals on a track now! He’s been through that whole stage where I just couldn’t handle cymbals or hi-hats.“
It’s likely that of all Kate’s albums, Hounds of Love is the one he is now most frequently asked to talk about, having shared drumming duties on the album with the one and only Charlie Morgan. Stuart plays drums on Running Up That Hill, Hounds of Love, Mother Stands For Comfort, Cloudbusting, Watching You Without Me, Jig of Life and Hello Earth. Amazing. In 2018, Stuart spoke to Musicradar about how Kate’s approach to drum sounds in her production had changed. “Hounds of Love…it’s a different form of production, a one-man-at-a-time job. So you had to come in and play to Fairlight-sequenced parts. It was more bitty, not live at all. It’s a cracking album though. There are no hi-hats or cymbals. That was a challenge, I would look for things to play in the higher register that would give it motion – little hand drums, not shakers or anything too obvious. It’s all acoustic drums.”
By the time he was working on the Aerial album Kate had switched up her plans for drums on the record, with Stuart telling one interviewer her approach was then “not restricted by not using hi-hat and cymbals and not relying on all that massive gated reverb stuff. She has opted for a more sensitive, even jazzy approach which, as chance would have it, I have also gravitated back towards….I bought a Sonor Jungle snare for about $100.00. It is about ten inches in diameter and two inches deep. What a sound though! It’s Kate’s favourite at the moment…” Look out for Stuart in the video for The Big Sky!
Hounds of Love – happening of the day
Kate sometimes shows up at awards shows, and sometimes she doesn’t! In recent decades we saw her surprise everyone by attending the Q Awards in 2001, nervously pick up an award for 50 Words For Snow in 2011 at the South Bank Show Awards, and most recently she was memorably seen beaming at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards in 2014, where she won an award for Before The Dawn. If the ceremony is being held overseas though, it’s ….a little less likely she might attend (sorry Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 2023!).
So, while she didn’t attend the CMJ New Music Awards in the US in November 1986, when she won the award for Best Female Artist, she did send a very fun and silly taped acceptance speech, flanked by the two giraffes that had starred with her earlier that year in The Big Sky music video! Even a genius who produces a musical masterpiece sometimes just likes to hang out with her long-necked pals, hair in pigtails and wave a thank you to those “absolute dahlings” who threw her a nice gong to add to her collection. Spiffing!
Hounds of Love – artefact of the day
(Brought to you in association with katebushcollectibles.com)
This rather unique item was the very first release of Kate’s to mark Record Store Day, something she has continued to get involved with by issuing special vinyl releases occasionally. Only 1,000 copies were produced in the USA in 2011 by Audio Fidelity of this ‘Collector’s Edition’ 10″ Hounds of Love limited edition pink vinyl release in card sleeve with white paper inner sleeve and cream labels. It featured just two tracks from each side of the album. Tracklisting: Side A – 1) The Big Sky, 2) Cloudbusting and Side B – 1) Watching You Without Me and 2) Jig Of Life. It was very nice to see The Ninth Wave photograph by John Carder Bush used as the main front cover for an official Kate Bush release – so far the only time this has happened. A colour photograph from the same session did appear on the back sleeve of one of the exclusive vinyl albums in the 1990 This Woman’s Work box set.
Hounds of Love – trivia of the day!
The scenes in the Cloudbusting video featuring the men from the government in their suits and hats was filmed on the marble staircase at the Old Marylebone Town Hall – where a few members of The Beatles and many other famous (and regular) people have gotten married!
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