Read Online Waiting for Kate Bush by John Mendelssohn - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Mendelssohn
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manage on the family tape recorder. When he proposed she overdub a little electric piano part, one imagines her eyes becoming pinwheels, like Mr. Toad’s on first sight of a motorcar. She’d had no idea that there
was
such a thing as overdubbing.
Out, in any event, went the better demos, with Gilmour’s guitar and the bass and drums of a band he was producing, Unicorn, supporting Kate’s piano and voice. In came no positive feedback. Whereupon Gilmour decided that no mere demos would do, that nothing less than master quality recordings were required. He introduced Kate to EMI record producer Andrew Powell, who chose three of the more than 60 songs she’d written at that point – ‘The Child In His Eyes’, ‘Saxophone Song’ and ‘Maybe’ – to record at AIR London, high above Oxford Street. Gilmour couldn’t attend in person because of his Pink Floyd commitments, but might not have fitted in the studio anyway, given that Powell had hired an actual orchestra, for which Gilmour was generous enough to pick up the considerable tab. Powell had been afraid that his protégé, an unschooled teenager from the suburbs, might find it intimidating being surrounded by so many professional musos. If so, she kept it well under wraps, not missing a beat as she sang ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’ live right along with them. Powell’s jaw plummeted in wonder.
The next month, in spite of her parents’ apprehension, she declared that there was no point in remaining at school, and left with 10 – count ’em! – O-levels. One suspects that none was in penmanship, as her handwriting would come in years to be distinguished by enormous looped descenders (g, p, f, and y) and, because she writes them lazily, making the downward-pointing diagonal stroke of the taller main part of the letter, K’s that look for all the world like W’s. Wate Bush, you see.
Gilmour, meanwhile, was presenting the Powell-produced masters to EMI pop division general manager Bob Mercer when Bob popped into Abbey Road Studios to observe sessions for Pink Floyd’s
Wish You Were Here
. Impressed by her voice, and not oblivious to her gamin sexuality, Mercer invited her in for a chat, to which Dr. Bush, wanting to save her from the casting couch, accompanied her. EMI were definitely interested, Mercer said, but without reaching for the corporate chequebook. Not until the following summer would EMI put its money (and not much of it – £3,500, including a £500 publishing advance) whereits mouth was. Mercer described it as money to grow up with. The company wondered gently if she’d consider being … a little less idiosyncratic.
Understandably deflated, Kate, who’d not got on with St. Joseph’s dance teacher, spent the money she’d inherited from an aunt (Dr. Bush seems to have stopped leaving change around the house by this time) for classes with Robin Kovak at the Dance Centre in Covent Garden. She received offers of work dancing in clubs in Germany, but didn’t pursue them. She studied with Arlene Phillips, the creator of Hot Gossip, and morosely decided that she had a great, great deal of hard work ahead if she hoped to get really good. She went out with Steve Blacknall, an EMI promotion man earlier rescued from Decca by one Simon Drake. Remember the latter’s name. She moved out of the family farmhouse, but stayed close to family, renting the top floor of a house in Lewisham that her parents owned, with Paddy and his burgeoning collection of musical exotica one floor down and Jay and his family on the ground floor.
She saw former Bowie mime mentor Lindsey Kemp’s solo show
Flowers
at the Collegiate Theatre and was transformed. “I saw this funny little guy up there on this stage giving himself physically to other people’s music and thought if one person could actually produce the music and give themselves physically at the same time, then you’d get double energy coming from one person. I thought, ‘Golly, that’s what I
was
such a thing as overdubbing.
Out, in any event, went the better demos, with Gilmour’s guitar and the bass and drums of a band he was producing, Unicorn, supporting Kate’s piano and voice. In came no positive feedback. Whereupon Gilmour decided that no mere demos would do, that nothing less than master quality recordings were required. He introduced Kate to EMI record producer Andrew Powell, who chose three of the more than 60 songs she’d written at that point – ‘The Child In His Eyes’, ‘Saxophone Song’ and ‘Maybe’ – to record at AIR London, high above Oxford Street. Gilmour couldn’t attend in person because of his Pink Floyd commitments, but might not have fitted in the studio anyway, given that Powell had hired an actual orchestra, for which Gilmour was generous enough to pick up the considerable tab. Powell had been afraid that his protégé, an unschooled teenager from the suburbs, might find it intimidating being surrounded by so many professional musos. If so, she kept it well under wraps, not missing a beat as she sang ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’ live right along with them. Powell’s jaw plummeted in wonder.
The next month, in spite of her parents’ apprehension, she declared that there was no point in remaining at school, and left with 10 – count ’em! – O-levels. One suspects that none was in penmanship, as her handwriting would come in years to be distinguished by enormous looped descenders (g, p, f, and y) and, because she writes them lazily, making the downward-pointing diagonal stroke of the taller main part of the letter, K’s that look for all the world like W’s. Wate Bush, you see.
Gilmour, meanwhile, was presenting the Powell-produced masters to EMI pop division general manager Bob Mercer when Bob popped into Abbey Road Studios to observe sessions for Pink Floyd’s
Wish You Were Here
. Impressed by her voice, and not oblivious to her gamin sexuality, Mercer invited her in for a chat, to which Dr. Bush, wanting to save her from the casting couch, accompanied her. EMI were definitely interested, Mercer said, but without reaching for the corporate chequebook. Not until the following summer would EMI put its money (and not much of it – £3,500, including a £500 publishing advance) whereits mouth was. Mercer described it as money to grow up with. The company wondered gently if she’d consider being … a little less idiosyncratic.
Understandably deflated, Kate, who’d not got on with St. Joseph’s dance teacher, spent the money she’d inherited from an aunt (Dr. Bush seems to have stopped leaving change around the house by this time) for classes with Robin Kovak at the Dance Centre in Covent Garden. She received offers of work dancing in clubs in Germany, but didn’t pursue them. She studied with Arlene Phillips, the creator of Hot Gossip, and morosely decided that she had a great, great deal of hard work ahead if she hoped to get really good. She went out with Steve Blacknall, an EMI promotion man earlier rescued from Decca by one Simon Drake. Remember the latter’s name. She moved out of the family farmhouse, but stayed close to family, renting the top floor of a house in Lewisham that her parents owned, with Paddy and his burgeoning collection of musical exotica one floor down and Jay and his family on the ground floor.
She saw former Bowie mime mentor Lindsey Kemp’s solo show
Flowers
at the Collegiate Theatre and was transformed. “I saw this funny little guy up there on this stage giving himself physically to other people’s music and thought if one person could actually produce the music and give themselves physically at the same time, then you’d get double energy coming from one person. I thought, ‘Golly, that’s what I
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