FEATURE:
Your Sister I Was Born…
IN THIS PHOTO: Paddy and Kate Bush during a live performance of Army Dreamers (from 1980’s Never for Ever)
A Love Letter to Paddy Bush
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IN December…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate and Paddy Bush alongside Peter Gabriel during Bush’s 1979 Christmas special/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
Kate Bush’s brother, Paddy, turns seventy. She has two brothers. Her other, John, is her eldest brother. Kate Bush is the youngest of the three children. I have written about the bond between Paddy and Kate before. They go way back in terms of their music simpatico. Obviously, as brother and sister, they had this closeness from a very young age. Paddy Bush was five when his little sister came into the world. As I have observed before, Paddy was responsible for fostering his sister’s passions. He would help her hide when she tried to get out of violin lessons. He would also have been the member of the family who she felt closest to in terms of her particular musical tastes, ambitions and curiosity. Of course, her entire family did and gave so much when it came to the loved Kate Bush. From her dad, Robert’s endless encouragement, patience and piano (one gets the sense that her watching her father play the piano gave her the bug), to her mother’s music tastes, eccentricity and legendary hospitality, and John’s poetry and photography, all of this combined into Kate Bush’s unique and stunning brew.
I think it is Paddy who has had the most direct and obvious impact when it comes to her albums. The sheer breadth of his talent is outstanding! It is amazing hearing all of the textures and sounds he put into Kate’s music. Before carrying on, here is some biography and information about the amazing Paddy Bush:
“Paddy Bush was born on 9 December 1952. He is an English musician, instrument maker, music critic, producer and artist. He is also the older brother of Kate. His best-known works are his collaborations with her on all of her studio albums up to the 2005 release Aerial. He wrote many contributions to the Kate Bush Club newsletter during the 1980's. Bush often plays standard instruments such as the guitar, mandolin, and harmonica, along with more exotic and unusual instruments, such as the balalaika, sitar, koto, and digeridoo. Bush is the sole European musician who has mastered playing - and making of - the Marovany, a traditional Malagasy instrument related to the Valiha. He undertook a number of extensive trips to Madagascar for filming and radio recording purposes. On one of these, Bush presented the widely screened television documentary 'Like A God When He Plays' which also features popular Malagasy musician Justin Vali. Bush was an original member of the KT Bush Band. In 1993, Bush collaborated with Colin Lloyd-Tucker to form the band Bushtucker”.
Close to Paddy Bush’s seventieth birthday, I will do another feature. I am ending this one with a playlist featuring songs he has appeared on through his sister’s long career (when it comes to the songs he plays on, you may need to check Wikipedia to see exactly which instrument(s) he featured and where his vocals crop up). I think I said before, but I hope the two play together again. He did not appear on her most recent album, 50 Words for Snow (though he does feature through 2011’s Director’s Cut, as these are re-worked songs from The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993) where some backing tracks have been kept from the original tracks). Whether plucking, crooning, or playing some unusual instrument, he has always been there! I am going to save some quotes from Graeme Thomson’s biography, Kate Bush: Under the Ivy. In it, he talks about their relationship and how Paddy played this huge role. Such an admirer of his sister’s talent and passion for music. Last year’s feature was more about Paddy’s instrumental and musical input. There are interviews with Paddy Bush, though there is not a lot of information and stuff online. I would urge you to read this, because he is a fascinating musician and innovator. I feel that, were it not for him, Kate Bush might not have broadened her musical palette in the way she did so early.
IN THIS PHOTO: Paddy Bush very much in the zone in 2017/PHOTO CREDIT: Forum Schlossplatz/Nadine Schneider
Definitely, it was Paddy’s natural affinity for unconventional instruments that influenced his sister. As a huge music lover, I can imagine him coming to his sister with a record and getting her to listen! A rock and constant support through her early albums, 1979’s Tour of Life, right through to now (he also can be heard briefly on Waking the Witch during the 2014 Before the Dawn residency), Paddy is a crucial part of the Kate Bush story. I love listening to his backing vocals and his playing on Kate Bush songs. The rare interviews there are with him – I will drop in the full Nationwide documentary that was made around the time of The Tour of Life, as Paddy can be seen in that – are truly fascinating. In fact, before concluding, this article actually started with a quote from the Nationwide documentary from way back. We get some more snippets and archive interview bits where Paddy discussed his time as an artist and aiding and supporting his sister:
“You're kate's brother aren't you.
Paddy: [Smiles] yeah, afraid so.
Is it a sort of a bit of a family business, really?
Paddy: Um, well yes and no. I mean like, kate and I have been making music together for years and years, on different levels, you know. But I mean, there's always been music in our family. My older brother john, he played. And I was in a band with him when I was about thirteen or fourteen. (1979, Kate Bush on Tour)
On different album tracks you've featured not only irish musicians but also an array of other ethnic sounds. Does this betray a lot of your own listening? Are you listening to a lot of pretty far-out stuff, music for example of aboriginal, oriental, or comparable ethnic origin, and deliberately seeking to integrate that into your own music?
No, I don't think I am really. There was a period when I used to listen to certain ethnic music. But I don't think I was ever really an avid listener. Paddy is much more of an avid listener to ethnic stuff, he listens to it nearly all the time.
Paddy: Yes, I take ethnic music very seriously and collect the instruments and the music.
And is it then you who's responsible when you add one of those instruments to one of kate's tracks, is it you who's conceived of what is possible there?
Paddy: Normally, yes, when it comes to unusual or ethnic instruments. Because that is what I am interested in. I come in with the suggestion for such and such an instrument. Kate then listens to it in the context of the track and if she likes it, it stays; If she doesn't I try and find something different.
Paddy, maybe you'd give a quick sketch of your career as a musician prior to your involvement with your sister.
Paddy: Well, I suppose it all started off initially because there's always been so much music in our family. Our mother comes from a very musical family, all her brothers, I.e. Our uncles, played on accordians and fiddles and stuff. So music was something we were always exposed to as young kids and we were always hearing irish dance music, which has been very special to me ever since. But my initial involvement in music came when I used to play for an english morris dance team. I used to play the concertina, and the anglo-chromatic concertina. I did that for a very long time and worked for the english folk dance and song society. The society's image is one of lady dance-teachers sat at pianos with children prancing about. But, basically, at that time, it was the only source of broad-spectrum information concerning folk music.
So I used to play for their morris dance team, not a very big nor a very popular team really, but that was where my earliest experience of performing came from. We used to work a lot in folk clubs and, at that particular time in the sixties, the folk revival was happening in england and out of it came several thousand lps that are almost all unavailable and forgotten by now, but some of the stuff was just incredible, and that was our source material until I started getting involved in irish dance music. It's crazy! I happened to go to school, here in england, with a guy called kevin burke, who's considered the best fiddler in ireland. I was just walking past this classroom one day, and there was this geezer in there doing this absolutely incredible sligo fiddle playing. I'd never heard anything like it, I mean, it was a delirious kind of music! And then, from all that, my interest in musical instruments just grew and grew to the point where I tried to seek an apprenticeship with a musical instrument maker, actually with a harp maker at that particular time, 'cause I was interested in learning how to play all the things. So I looked for an apprenticeship for nearly two years - that would have been when I was between about eighteen and twenty - but I couldn't find anybody at all interested in taking me on. But then eventually, towards the mid-1970s, I discovered a place in london that was offering a course in musical instrument technology, not just on one instrument, but on everything. I mean literally, piano tuning, violin making, harpsichord building, keyboards, ethnic musicology with jean jenkings, and so on. And it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. So I went and studied at this college, the london college of furniture in shoreditch, for three years and became a musical instrument technologist specializing in mediaeval musical instruments.
And you were still playing around folk clubs during those years?
Paddy: Oh, yes, certainly. Folk music - it's very, very hard to give any sort of adequate description of what folk music can mean to you if you're not yourself completely involved in it. It's more like a way of life. It can't stop. It's like swimming, once you've learned the art you can't go and forget how to do it. You know, somebody goes ``dum-dee-diddle-dee-dum-dee-da'' (paddy breaks into an irish jig) and you're off! It instantly makes sense! If you're born into a tradition of playing some particular kind of music, you can branch out into all kinds of other music. But the tradition is something that's always there and just never, never falls apart. So, in my case, the folk tradition was constantly there. but my major interest in broad-spectrum musical instruments just grew and grew and grew. And being at that college was the perfect place to pursue it...
So then you came out of that into helping kate?
Paddy: Well, I struggled by myself for a time as an artist, an artist of weirdness. I had a couple of exhibitions of some things that I'd made during that time. You see, towards the end, my course in musical instrument making became very curious and strange, I started making instruments with arms and legs and out of very unorthodox materials; And instruments that didn't play and which demonstrated other sorts of principles. I had an exhibition at the whitechapel art gallery and sold a couple of things, there was a great deal of interest, but not much success! Then one day kate said, ``do you want to join the band?'' (1985, Musician)
Even from your lionheart album days there's been a noticeable interest in unusual instruments: Panpipes, mandocello, strumento da porco, sitar, koto, balalaika, harmonica, recorders, and musical saw.
Yes, that's because Paddy Bush, who has played on my albums, has made a lot of instruments since he studied at the London College of Furniture, specializing in mediaeval instruments. Whenever he finds an instrument that doesn't appear to exist that he likes - he'll make one, and learn to play it. Consequently, it ends up on one of my tracks!
Sounds are very important to me, and I think there are a lot of standard instruments that don't actually sound that emotional or that interesting, which is why it's really nice to have the flavours of these other instruments. In so many cases they are not used any more, and that means people don't recognize them, giving an air of mystery to the music. (1982, Electronics Music Maker)”.
I think there will be something posted on Kate Bush News in December to mark Paddy Bush’s seventieth birthday. It is a big occasion. John Carder Bush was born in 1944, but I am not sure of his exact birth month. Luckily, we know when Paddy’s birthday is! I am going to wrap up now. Finishing with a collection of songs Paddy appeared on, you can tell what a difference he has made! From his advice and musical exploration to his playing and singing on Kate Bush albums, through to performing live with her through T.V. appearances and during The Tour of Life, he has been a constant rock, companion and supporter of his sister. I will write again in December before his seventieth birthday. Kate Bush may be the star and one we all know, but her brother Paddy is a big reason why she followed the musical path she did. You can hear, feel and sense their…
VITAL love and connection.