To mark 40 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
Well known now for his work on albums by artists including Elton John, Roy Harper, Pete Townshend, Judie Tzuke, Clannad, Tracey Ullman, Gary Moore and Nik Kershaw, drummer Charlie Morgan‘s place in the Kate Bush musical “family tree” stretches right back to her pre-fame days, when he was part of the band Conkers along with Brian Bath, Del Palmer, Barry Sherlock and Ivan Penfold, in the mid 1970s. Later, when Kate needed a band to help with early promotional duties as she got ready to release her debut album, drummer Sergio Castillo was replaced by Charlie at the recommendation of his old pals, and thus it was Charlie who appeared on Kate’s very first TV performance with his old bandmates on the legendary Bio’s Bahnhof in February 1978, in Germany.
Other 1978 TV appearances featuring Charlie include Saturday Night At The Mill (25th February 1978) and Revolver (aired May 1978). Charlie performed drums on the Lionheart album, recorded in France in the summer of 1978 (Wow, Kashka from Baghdad) but by the time the 1979 tour swung around he had amicably moved on to other commitments. It wouldn’t be till Hounds of Love that Kate would once again work with one of her favourite drummers, or “Charlie Warlie”, as she affectionately called him!
Nearing the completion of the Hounds of Love album, Kate wrote in the Kate Bush Club Magazine of Charlie’s involvement on the album after Stuart Elliott had completed the bulk of his work on the record. “There were still a couple of tracks that needed drums to be sorted out, and Charlie Morgan was the man for the job. I last worked with him on the Lionheart album, and it was very exciting to work with him again. He is very open-minded and is well up to date on all the latest drum-sampling equipment, etc., and also happens to be a great drummer. We worked with Charlie for two full days, and had him pop in for half days to do some more overdubs at a later stage.” Charlie can be heard on Hounds of Love, Cloudbusting, The Big Sky (hand claps!), Waking the Witch and Jig of Life.
Charlie would go on to play on The Sensual World album (The Sensual World, Reaching Out, Deeper Understanding, Walk Straight Down The Middle) on Kate’s version of Rocket Man (spot him on the Wogan performance and in the music video!), and on The Red Shoes album (The Song of Solomon). Here’s a clip of Charlie, fondly talking about working with Kate:
Hounds of Love – happening of the day
On 7th September 1985, Kate appeared performing Running Up That Hill on Show Vor Acht in Germany. Just as with the Extratour performance, here we again just have Kate, Charlie Morgan and Del Palmer. It’s a treat to unearth all the performances of this classic song. Kate would also perform Cloudbusting on the show.
Hounds of Love – Artefact of the day
(Brought to you in association with katebushcollectibles.com)
Check out this lovely 1985 Canadian release of Hounds of Love on Pink/White marbled vinyl (Capitol Records/EMI Canada). I read that this release was ‘pulled’ due to the fact that the quality of the vinyl was poor, producing inferior sound quality, later re-pressed on black vinyl. Looks great though. Kate herself would finally embrace colour vinyl in a big way just recently with her Fish People indie editions released in 2023 – this time instead of pink/white she went for “Raspberry Beret” colour.
Hounds of Love – trivia of the day!
Cloudbusting was the first Kate Bush single to have a special extended version created for the music video. The Cloudbusting (Video Mix) was only ever released as a B-side on CD1 of The Red Shoes single in 1994, and was omitted from both the This Woman’s Work (1990) and The Other Sides (2018/2019) compilations. At 6 minutes 57 seconds, it’s considerably longer than the album version (5:08) and even longer than the Cloudbusting (Organon Remix) (6:34). Worth tracking down for the dreamlike “It’s you and me, Daddy” interlude!
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