Kate Bush

Catherine Bush was born on 30 July 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent, to an English doctor, general practitioner Robert Bush (1920–2008), and Hannah Patricia (née Daly) (1918–1992), an Irish staff nurse.

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.

In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single “Wuthering Heights”, becoming the first female artist to achieve a UK number one with a self-written song.

Bush has since released 25 UK Top 40 singles, including the Top 10 hits “The Man with the Child in His Eyes”, “Babooshka”, “Running Up That Hill”, “Don’t Give Up” (a duet with Peter Gabriel), and “King of the Mountain”.

All ten of her studio albums reached the UK Top 10, with all but one reaching the top five, including the UK number one albums Never for Ever (1980), Hounds of Love (1985) and the greatest hits compilation The Whole Story (1986).

Bush was the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist to enter the album chart at number one.

Bush began writing songs at 11. Her family produced a demo tape with over 50 of her compositions, which was turned down by record labels. She was signed to EMI Records after Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour helped produce a demo tape.

Gilmour helped the 16-year-old Bush record a more professional demo tape. Bush recorded three tracks, paid for by Gilmour. The tape was produced by Gilmour’s friend Andrew Powell; Powell later produced Bush’s first two albums, and sound engineer Geoff Emerick, who had worked with the Beatles. The tape was sent to EMI executive Terry Slater who signed Bush.

EMI gave Bush a large advance, which she used to enroll in interpretive dance classes taught by Lindsay Kemp, a former teacher of David Bowie, and mime training with Adam Darius.

Her debut album The Kick Inside was released when Bush was 19, with 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”.

Inspired by the 1847 Emily Brontë novel of the same name, “Wuthering Heights” was released as the lead single. Bush recorded her vocal in a single take and the single peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks.

Bush’s only tour, the Tour of Life, ran for six weeks in April and May 1979, covering Britain and mainland Europe. The BBC suggested that she may have quit touring due to a fear of flying, or because of the death of a lighting engineer, Bill Duffield, who was killed in an accident after a warmup concert.

Bush is regarded as the first artist to have had a headset with a wireless microphone built for use in music. For her Tour of Life in 1979 she had a compact microphone combined with a self-made construction of wire clothes hangers so that she did not have to use a hand microphone.

According to Guinness World Records, Bush was the first female artist in pop history to have written every track on a million-selling debut album.

“Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel was recorded as a duet with Kate Bush for Gabriel’s fifth solo studio album So (1986). The song won Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.

Elton John cited Bush’s duet with Peter Gabriel, “Don’t Give Up”, for helping him to become sober, particularly Bush’s lyric, “Rest your head. You worry too much. It’s going to be all right. When times get rough you can fall back on us. Don’t give up.” He stated, “she [Bush] played a big part in my rebirth.”

After the release of The Red Shoes, (1993) Kate Bush dropped out of the public eye. She had originally intended to take one year off, but despite working on material, twelve years passed before her next album release. In 1998, Bush gave birth to Albert, known as “Bertie”, fathered by guitarist Dan McIntosh, whom she met in 1992.

Bush was one of the singers whom Prince thanked in the liner notes of 1991’s Diamonds and Pearls. Kirk Hammett of Metallica listed Bush as one of the influences on Master of Puppets.

Bush has received 14 Brit Awards nominations, winning for Best British Female Artist in 1987, and has been nominated for three Grammy Awards. In 2002, Bush was recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to music.

Bush returned to headline performance with a 22-night residency, Before the Dawn, which ran from 26 August to 1 October 2014 at the London Hammersmith Apollo. Tickets were on sale to the general public on 28 March and were sold out within 15 minutes.

Bush’s 1985 single “Running Up That Hill” gained newfound popularity in May 2022 after it was incorporated into the plot of the fourth season of the Netflix series Stranger Things. It became the most streamed song on Spotify in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and globally.