FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
IN THIS PHOTO: The album cover for Kate Bush’s Lionheart (1978)/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak: Lionheart’s ‘Two Bands’ Awkwardness
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THIS time around…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Japan in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music
for Kate Bush: The Tour of Life, I want to focus on a pivotal and transformative moment. Not necessarily entirely positive. After 1978’s The Kick Inside, Kate Bush would have assumed she had won the right to select the band she played with. She did for 1979’s The Tour of Life. Produced by Andrew Powell, Kate Bush assisted production on the follow-up. Lionheart was recorded in France between July and September 1978. Only a few months after her debut came out, Bush was busy with its follow-up. Think about how hard she promoted The Kick Inside - and how she would still have been promoting it when she was working on Lionheart. It is staggering that 1978 threw so much at her. EMI wanting this momentum to keep going. They wanted product. Maybe Bush was not quite ready to tour, though she was not afforded the chance to rest and relax after such a successful and hectic promotional circuit for The Kick Inside. As such, when it came to Lionheart, Bush was sent from London to Super Bear Studios in Berre-les-Alpes. There were changes and shifts. The recording environment was very different from AIR in London. It was more conducive to relaxation, even though it was stifling hot. It would have seemed like a tempting holiday for Bush and her musicians, though they were there to work. However, they did get time to sit by the pool and have some downtime. It all boded well. Even if the album was rushed and Bush only had time to write a few new songs, she was a professional and wanted to make a great album. Learning more about the studio and production, as Graeme Thomson writes in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, Lionheart is the album where she becomes a studio baby. Fascinated by all the options the studio offered. Kate Bush felt that The Kick Inside was an album where she was less the architect and pioneer. They were her songs, though someone else’s vision and stamp was on them. She played the song as needed and that was it.
Lionheart was very much an opportunity to change that. She could have more say when it came to the production and the musicians she played with. Although I really love Lionheart and feel it is underrated, Bush has written it off. Looking back with a sense of regret, it was impossible to make something both different to The Kick Inside yet better. Many feel that at least two of the news songs, Coffee Homeground and Fullhouse, are muddled and half-hearted. Filler on the album. One new song, Symphony in Blue, is fascinating and among her best songs from that early period. It was this sense of Kate Bush wanted to work with players she performed with as part of the KT Bush Band. Having Del Palmer and Brian Bath in the mix. The more studio-savvy and experienced players of the debut – including Ian Bairnson and Duncan Mackay – were chosen over Bush’s choices. You can hear Del Palmer and Paddy Bush on a few songs. However, Lionheart has this feeling of tussle and awkward compromise. Transition and evolution that was stunted and rushed. A producer who wanted to repeat the debut in terms of the personnel and sound. Kate Bush, still a teenager (until 30th July, 1978), knowing that things needed to move and change. Andrew Powell was keen to hear Kate Bush’s ideas, and even came down to East Wickham Farm and listened to her band perform. Brian Bath was especially nervous. Even so, Powell had no real enthusiasm for using Bush’s guys. In that first couple of weeks, Bush’s band recorded eight tracks. Powell was not convinced or comfortable. There were logistical issues that gave Powell cause for concern. Charlie Morgan, who drums on Wow and Kashka from Baghdad, admits that the translation from those rehearsals at East Wickham Farm and recording in France was flawed. The band were a bit slower and less assured than the players on The Kick Inside.
As such, what could have been a case of Bush knowing best and her players blowing any concerns away, they were up against it. Coming into a professional studio in a new country. Not as match-fit as they could have been. It was not their fault. However, I feel that Bush’s band and Powell’s choices could have played together and harmonised. There seemed to be this truce. Bush got her band on a few songs, yet it was clear they would not be a permanent fixture. Powell’s attitude to Bush’s guys was a bit passive-aggressive. He would play with amp settings whilst they were playing. Asking Paddy Bush to track and improvised a part during Kashka from Baghdad. That would be almost impossible. You get the feeling Powell was questioning every take and tuning. It is fascinating that, mere months after a hugely successful album was released, its follow-up would find its producer question Kate Bush and her instincts. Powell felt that Bush’s players were not up to scratch. He would stop takes and question guitar lines. Say that notes were out of tune. Powell wanted the songs to be at their very best. He felt that some performances were substandard and not as polished as they could be. It seemed like Powell was not invited to the party and was hitting back. Bush and her band would have been in one camp and him in the other.
I have huge respect for him and his work, though it seemed like he wanted to keep control and power. With his band in the studio, he would have no obstacles or questions coming his way. Bush did get some studio experience, though it was in an assistant capacity rather than a full co-produce. Think about what Kate Bush was feeling during this time. She wanted her players on the album so that it would be more personal and different to her debut. However, she also knew that the players she had on The Kick Inside would work well and there was no real reason to send them away. Hilary Walker, who was the head of EMI’s international division – thanks to Graeme Thomson for the information! -, was dispatched to Nice to play Devil’s advocate. In fact, briefly acting as Bush’s P.A., she came to insist Bush’s band were fired and sent back to England. Bush was then put in this position of bowing to EMI’s demands and Powell’s disapproval. Her friends, including boyfriend Del Palmer, were dismissed. It meant that, awkwardly, the old band going back to England would either bump into the new band in the studio or at the airport. Imagine the conversation at night between Kate Bush and Del Palmer. Her staying on and Palmer not being involved in the album. Many of the band did hang around by the pool or would go on trips. They did not contribute much and were not needed but, for moral support and some familiarity, it would have been a comfort at least for Bush. However, Charlie Morgan went straight back to England. In July and August, 1978, recording recommenced. The band from The Kick Inside clicking back in. Even if the first few days would have been awkward and a little strained, things did get smoother.
Some claim Bush had a sour taste in her mouth being put in the middle. Others think she was okay but upset. She knew that some of the tougher songs on the album benefitted from a more studied and experienced band. Symphony in Blue is an example. Regardless, there was this moment when everyone had to be on the same page and record. Things did become harmonious and routine. The musicians later to waking up. They would meet by the pool. Diving into the pool or from the villa roof into the pool. Joint being rolled. Bush often involved with that but not always. Notepad and pan in hand to write and jot ideas and lines, she would often sunbathe near-nude. It was refreshing and laid-back. The older male musicians perhaps not used to a women, only just twenty, in their midst! Even if they all lived together under the same roof, shared meals and recorded together, there was no falling out. It was a close-knit group, yet there was this feeling that Bush was a bit tired. The seemingly endless promotion for The Kick Inside and then right into another album. Some of the songs, as Graeme Thomson notes in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, give a window into Bush’s mindset. The paranoia of Fullhouse and Coffee Homeground. Even Hammer Horror seems to be appropriately shadowy and tense.
Bush had got so much positive reception for the debut album. Wondering if she should repeat herself or do something different, there was also a feeling she could not please everyone and do right. People claiming she was a record company puppet or someone who was a novelty. In the studio, Bush was hard on herself. In terms of getting the vocal right. Wow went through so many takes! Bush never fully happy with her performance. As assistant producer, she had to try and explain ideas to the musicians. Trying to connect emotionally and bond, she also needed to try and translate her sometimes less technical and honed ideas into something that would understand. Maybe a bit more abstract, conceptual and general than the more studied and rigid notes and guidance they were used to. Unfortunately, there was a bit of mickey-taking and laughing. This young woman maybe not able to put into words her ideas, and the experienced musicians thinking she sometimes was out of her depth. Regardless, Bush knew that the studio offered up so many possibilities. Powell recalls how the two had their own ideas and directions but there wasn’t complete agreement. He didn’t entirely like what she was doing and she didn’t like what he was doing. However, as Powell noted, Bush wasn’t dogmatic. Returning to London in September 1978, Bush was right back into the promotional cyclone.
Jetting off to Australia and New Zealand in October for promotion, is it is amazing to think that, since January 1978, Bush had released her debut single, Wuthering Heights; The Kick Inside came out in February; she was promoting until the summer – including trips to the U.S. and Japan -, and then she recorded and completed her second studio album! I often think what Christmas 1978 was like. Bush, perhaps back in the family home at East Wickham Farm, exchanging gifts, watching some T.V. and celebrating. The first time she got to relax and reflect. Making resolutions for the year ahead. What she did resolve to do was not to work with another producer again. At least one who did not share her values and visions. She wanted more say and control. It would lead to het o mount The Tour of Life in 1979 and use the musicians she wanted to work to. This carried on after the tour when she started recording 1980’s Never for Ever. I think that the ‘two bands’ conflict and situation during Lionheart was a real turning point. It resulted in a disjointed second studio album that then sparked something in Kate Bush. Resolved to use her personnel and produce her own album, she would co-produce Never for Ever with Jon Kelly. From 1982’s The Dreaming onwards, it was her solo in the chair, together with her selected musicians. Rather than Lionheart being a case of a wonderful young artist roaring, it was more of a purr. A purr before a roar, perhaps. I still love the album. You can never really feel the joints or sense two different bands pulling in different directions. Andrew Powell and Kate Bush caught in an awkward situation where they both wanted to get their own say but also work together. Even if the two bands scenario blew over and there was a happier recording environment pretty soon, it was an event that…
CHANGED everything going forward.