Louise Halliday lost out in the grand final of Stars In Their Eyes on ITV in the UK on Saturday 2nd. She performed Babooshka dressed as Kate in the video and told how she had received good luck wishes from Kate for the show, Kate making her a present of the actual cloak used in the 1980 video! The eventual winner on the night was a Maria Callas impersonator. (thanks to Simon O’Donovan)
Category: Television
Music Of The Millennium was a poll conducted throughout the UK & Ireland in association with Channel 4, HMV and Classic FM, and tonights live TV broadcast was the climax to “the biggest and most comprehensive survey on popular music ever undertaken”. Over the past 12 months, the public has taken part by calling special phone lines, visiting the Channel 4 and Classic FM websites and by filling out voting forms in HMV stores, being asked to make crucial decisions about the best music ever made across ten categories; Best Band Of All Time, Best Album, Best Female Singer, Best Male Singer, Best Song, Best Songwriter, Most Influential Musician Of The Millennium, Best Jazz Musician, Best Piece of Classical Music, Best Classical Composer. The poll revealed the results after over 600,000(!) votes had been counted.
In the Best Female Singer category Kate shot into the top ten of the millennium at Number 9. Other top ten females included Ella Fitzgerald, Alanis Morrisette, Aretha Franklin and Bjork. Madonna topped the female singer poll.
Kate’s influence was also felt in other categories; Best Album (Hounds Of Love – Number 47), Best Song (Wuthering Heights – Number 84), Best Songwriter (Number 66), and she was placed Number 61 in the Most Influential Musician Of The Millennium category. Wuthering Heights features on the tie-in double CD release. Read the complete poll results at the Music Of The Millennium web-site.
The soundtrack to the hit US TV series Felicity has just been released featuring tracks from Sarah McLachlan, Air, Heather Nova and Peter Gabriel. J.J. Abrams, the creator of the show and screenwriter of Armageddon and Regarding Henry, has this to say about Kate’s track on the official web-site for the show:
“We’ve gotten more response from this song [This Woman’s Work] than any other because it’s so heartbreaking. It’s heard after Julie has been date-raped and Ben comes to her with advice that he wouldn’t give to many people because he’s not a communicative person. The gesture and feelings Julie and Ben share are enormously enhanced by this song at an emotional point that requires you to cry.” [From the episode: “Drawing The Line Part II”]
Alan Partridge (comedian Steve Coogan) has been at it again! Friday night was Comic Relief night on the BBC and on his half hour special the “Radio Norwich DJ” announced that if £1 million was pledged he would fly in to BBC TV Centre and perform his Kate Bush Medley live before the viewing millions…and so he did, same tracklisting as on the live video (see below). Comic Relief host Lenny Henry (The Red Shoes) commented that Alan had proved that he couldn’t sing…earlier Alan made an “untoward” comment about Kate’s surname before playing Running Up That Hill and apologised to any of Kate’s friends watching!
Donations can be pledged to Comic Relief at its web-site here.
For those who’ve yet to see it, I hugely recommend the video of Steve Coogan Live (“The Man Who Thinks He’s It”), released before Christmas by VVL in the UK. The show (which had a record breaking run seen by over 350,000 people) culminates in the British comedian’s best known character, the smarmy TV presenter Alan Partridge, doing an hilariously over-the-top “Kate Bush Medley” including Wow, Babooshka, Running Up That Hill, The Man With The Child In His Eyes, Don’t Give Up, Them Heavy People and of course, Wuthering Heights. Painfully funny stuff.
The UK TV show, Stars In Their Eyes, in which contestants perform as famous artists featured a Kate impersonator in tonight’s programme. Tracey Maskell, a 35 year old from Kent, fulfilled a “lifetime ambition” when she performed Wuthering Heights (high-pitched of course!) before the viewing millions and managed to incorporate the original choreography as performed by Kate in the 1978 video. Tracey lost out in the competition to “Belinda Carlisle”. Matthew Kelly, the show’s presenter mentioned that David Gilmour had discovered Kate and described her as a “huge star” who had collaborated with Peter Gabriel and Larry Adler.