Another entrant in the current crop of talent shows reaches for the Kate Bush Songbook:
Never for Ever are a four piece band based in the North West who share a love of Kate Bush and “a passion for recreating the music and visual experience of this iconic performer”. The set list will include Wuthering Heights, Babooshka, Running up that Hill and Cloudbusting, as well as many ‘lesser known tracks’.
Never for Ever will perform on May 5 at 7.30pm. Details and tickets from the Lichfield Garrick.
Following one contestant chosing Wuthering Heights as her blind audition song, and the re-entry of Kate’s original version of that track into the Australian Top 40, another contestant in ‘The Voice Australia’, Russian born Viktoria Bolonia appeared on the show performing Babooshka, and also got through, and is now on Delta Goodrem’s team.
In 1980 Babooshka was a no.1 single in Australia so we await next week’s chart with interest.
As a consequence of Laura Bunting performing Wuthering Heights on ‘The Voice Australia’, Kate’s original recording of the track has re-entered the Australian Top 40 singles chart at no.39.
Edit: Chart Commentary from Noise11: “Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ classic re-entering at 39, presumably due to a whole generation who had never heard it until it was performed by a contestant on the show.”
On today’s UK singles chart the Maxwell version of This Woman’s Work is at 41 and Kate’s original version at 63, shame neither made the 40 but it does mean several thousand people have downloaded the song this week and all from one TV performance of half the song.
Edit: Music Week chart commentary … Also benefitting from being covered on The Voice UK, This Woman’s Work debuts at number 41 (7,072 sales) for Maxwell, 11 years after it reached number 58 in America. The original recording of the song, by Kate Bush – a number 25 hit here in 1989 – re-enters the chart at number 63 (4,813 sales).
Article by Graeme Thompson in Friday’s Guardian:
“The veteran risk-taker’s Ivor Novello-listed album maps out a future for female musicians, according to one of her famous fans …
The nomination this week of Kate Bush‘s latest album, 50 Words for Snow, for an Ivor Novello award is an acknowledgement of the profound influence she continues to exert …
Anna Calvi, whose eponymous debut album was nominated for the Mercury music prize 
and a 2012 Brit award, believes that Bush, with her 2005 album Aerial and 50 Words For Snow … is mapping out a new future for female musicians. “I like the fact that she’s embracing her age, her family and her life, and that it doesn’t mean that you still can’t be a really amazing artist,” she says. “That’s what I’d like to imagine myself being like in 20 years’ time. I love how unafraid she is of taking risks. She does some crazy things on her records, especially with her voice. It sounds like there is a complete surrender to her art, and I find that really inspiring.”
Amanda Palmer, of acclaimed punk cabaret duo the Dresden Dolls, believes one of the reasons that Bush remains so important is that “she’s a creator, not a reactor”. Palmer says: “You can tell that she explores and translates the muses inside, as opposed to pleasing the worlds outside. Artists like this – the ones who don’t muddy the connection – should be revered like gods.“
Don’t forget folks tomorrow (Sat 21st April) is Record Store Day and Kate’s very limited 10″ Pic Disc of Lake Tahoe / Among Angels will be available for sale…there are 1000 for the UK and 1000 for the rest of the world (not USA sadly) as we have said before the shops themselves won’t know what they are getting until the day itself even if they ordered 20 copies they may only get 1 or none, so please bare this in mind. We suggest that you get to your local store as early as possible and maybe have a back up shop in mind. Good luck to everyone and lets hope all 2000 end up in the hands of actual fans rather than people who just want to resell for a profit. Happy hunting. Dave, Krys, Seán and Peter.
PS. Dave will be up and about early in central London tomorrow morning if any of you guys are in Soho etc.
In the midweek UK Singles chart both versions of ‘This Woman’s Work’ are in the top 40! Maxwell is at 28 and Kate at 38. Following the performance of the song on Saturday’s Britian’s Got Talent on Saturday night.
This Chart is sales from Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, so both will probably drop on the final chart released on Sunday afternoon but this is still great news and we welcome this increased exposure for one of Kate’s most popular songs.
Neil McCormick in the Daily Telegraph:
“In the Ivor Novello award nominations announced yesterday, the Best Album category was a women’s only event. It is the first time this has happened in the award’s 68 year history. As I have suggested before, women are taking over popular music. And what women they are. You cannot argue with these nominations: three pop generations of bold and brilliant singer-songwriters, each carving their own unique path through what has been a male dominated industry.
The extraordinary sonic adventuress Kate Bush is 53, and has been making unique, almost wilfully eccentric yet open and accessible music since 1978. Over decades in which the vast majority of female pop role models were expected to be little more than eye and ear candy, she was a beacon for high-minded female pop, forging a body of work that, in it’s interior psychology and ornate beauty, was somehow inherently feminine.
She spent most of two decades in maternal semi-retirement, but with last year’s 50 Words For Snow she demonstrated that she has lost none of her uniqueness of vision or magical touch. Popular music can be a cruel forum for aging but, like the greatest of artists, Bush has held her position with originality and maturity, and deserves to be lauded again …”
NME: “Adele, Kate Bush and PJ Harvey have landed nominations for best album at next month’s Ivor Novello awards, the first time that all the nods in the Best Album category are for women …
Album Award
’21’ by Adele
’50 Words For Snow’ by Kate Bush
‘Let England Shake’ by PJ Harvey.
The Ivor Novello Awards celebrate, honour and reward excellence in songwriting and composing. They are presented and judged by the writing community.
Whilst we’re on the subject of talent shows, New Zealander Laura passed her “blind 
audition” on Oz Nine Network’s ‘The Voice’ with a rendition of Wuthering Heights which went down very well.
“Close your eyes and open your ears, The Voice Australia is set to be the musical and social media phenomenon of 2012. On The Voice the four superstar musician coaches begin to select teams of twelve based solely on an artist’s voice. Seal, Joel Madden, Delta Goodrem and Keith Urban, are competing as coaches – each one hoping to discover, and nurture Australia’s next great voice. During the blind auditions, if a coach is impressed, they push a button to select the artist for their team of competitors, (they’ll need to select 12 acts in total). At this point, the coach’s chair will swivel so that they can face the artists they have selected. If more than one coach selects the artist, the power shifts to the artist who may choose which coach they want to work with throughout the competition. An artist is eliminated when they have not been chosen by one of our coaches who are superstar music talents themselves… ”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS35_sUUtg0[/youtube]
Laura is now part of coach Joel Madden’s team.
Somewhere the shade of Hughie Green must be very pleased that anyone should think Kate was the product of his ‘Opportunity Knocks’ …
Kate’s Wuthering Heights has been shortlisted in the 1970s section for ITVs “The Nation’s Favourite Number One Single”:
“2012 sees the 60th anniversary of the first ever UK singles chart. That’s 60 years of 
songs that have defined our lives, reflecting the rich history of a nation. And we’re searching for The Nation’s Favourite Number One Single. In three primetime shows on ITV1, we’ll tell the stories of 60 unforgettable Number One singles. We’ll also talk to chart-topping artists to find out their favourite Number Ones across the generations – and find out from the hit makers what makes a great single. Plus we’ll reveal the results of an ITV viewers’ vote to determine which song can truly be called our greatest number one ever…”
Kate’s nomination for 1978 appears on the the 1970s shortlist page:
“Kate Bush’s record company didn’t want to release this take on Emily Bronte’s gothic novel as her debut single – but Kate, who had written the song when she was just eighteen, dug her heels in. In so doing, ‘Wuthering Heights’ made her the first female to get to number one with her own composition.”
You can add your vote here.
Although she appeared to believe that the song was by Maxwell, and no-one on the judging 
panel corrected her, Essex girl Hope seriously impressed the panel with her rendition of Kate’s This Woman’s Work.
Hope had started with Jessie J’s Mamma Knows Best, but Simon Cowell complained: “I’ve heard that song so many times, “I want to hear something different to whatever anyone else is singing.” so Hope turned to Kate and won a standing ovation from the audience, and pass marks from the panel into the next part of the competition.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpeaYFmMCik[/youtube]
Later: As a consequence of this it appears This Woman’s Work (both versions) has reappeared in the i-tunes Top 20.
Later Still: This from the Radio Times:
“Hope Murphy was from Upminster and was not ashamed to be an Essex girl. She was 16 but already had the flinty, aged look the county specialises in, with solid blonde hair and Barry M cladding. You could imagine her quite comfortably running a large pub/carvery. But her singing voice! Perfect clarity and hints of a freakish range achieved without effort.
She sang This Woman’s Work “by Maxwell” (it’s by Kate Bush!), a canny leftfield song choice arrived at after Simon, looking down at his producer’s notes to see the words “TELL HER TO CHANGE HER SONG”, told her to change her song. Shameless, but who cares any more?”
LSMedia on last night’s Maaike Breijman’s tribute gig:
“There may have been the odd one or two in the audience… that would have been in the 
audience the only time Kate Bush actually played in Liverpool and …the only ones to be there over 30 years later from that date to hear the sensational talent of Maaike Breijman go through two sets of the most sensual, inspiring and classic music from one of the queens of British popular music …There are not many women who would willingly go through so many costume changes in the name of music but as soon as Maaike came out on stage for the opening numbers of Moving, James and the Cold Gun and the haunting Babooshka, the audience knew they were in for a night that went …into the realms of performance high art…
The second act of the show was just as impressive with tracks such as This Woman’s Work, the incredible Running Up That Hill, Cloudbusting and the sensational Wuthering Heights …This was so much more than a gig or even a celebration of music created by one of the most endearing song writers of her generation …it became a show of importance, a moment in time that captured the essence of the music and left the audience stunned by the spectacle and roaring with their approval…”
The New York Times remembers Theo Bleckman’s January live show, reviews his album of Kate covers, and interviews the man:
“I fell in love with her music in high school,” said Mr. Bleckmann, who said he listened to Ms. Bush’s recordings incessantly until his interests shifted toward jazz in his late teens. After hearing her 2005 record, “Aerial,” he revisited her old albums. “I thought, oh my God, this is still incredible: it’s actually better now,” he said. So Mr. Bleckmann decided to make a project out of it “because no one had ever treated her as a composer in that way,” he said. “There are a few cover versions out there, but that’s it. The songs are hard to do. Some are very rangy, and weird intervallic stuff is going on; there’s a lot of meter changes and uneven bars. There’s so much weirdness about it, which, of course, I love and is exactly the reason I wanted to do it …”