FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1977/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Come Together: Welcome to the KT Bush Band
_________
BECAUSE 2nd April…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with the KT Bush Band in 1977/PHOTO CREDIT: Vic King
was the forty-sixth anniversary of the warm-up date for Kate Bush’s The Tour of Life – that show was at Arts Centre, Poole -, I wanted to go back two years to 1977. That was the year she recorded her debut album, The Kick Inside. Having discussed this before, I wanted to return and expand. The KT Bush Band was a way of Bush to play small gigs and get some live experience before recording her album. That brief stint helped when it came to the performances in the studio. However, consider the leap from the KT Bush Band to The Tour of Life. In terms of the scale and size. However, there is something wonderful about the KT Bush Band. Between April and June 1977, there was this brief anomaly. I am reading Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. With Vic King on drums, Del Palmer on bass and Brian Bath on guitar, they were fronted up the teenage Kate Bush. Those three men all bonded at Charlton Secondary School in the late Sixties. They had this incredible love and devotion to the band, Free. They recalled for years the excitement of All Right Now being played live for the first time. It is a shame there are not recordings of the sets they performed. Hearing this track performed alongside work by The Beatles and Steely Dan. King, Palmer and Bath were established musicians. They had done the gig circuit and experienced the usual pitfalls of the industry – bad label deals and playing in tiny venues. Kate Bush connected with Brian Bath via her brother Paddy. She had seen King jam with her brother at East Wickham Farm. I did not know that she played at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1976. There, she saw a band play that consisted of Vic King and Barry Sherlock. Paddy Bush was mounting his final year show for Music Instrument Technology. His sister danced to Classical music with a woollen suit on and a trumpet-like thing coming out of her head. It was pretty strange but you can see that routine expanded and revived for Violin, which was performed during The Tour of Life.
There was no real reason or risk for the KT Bush Band to exist. Nothing at stake. EMI keen for Bush to get some live experience. The strange romance of small pubs and clubs in and around London and the south of England. A smaller-scale version of what she would do in 1979 on her only tour. Venues like the Rose of Lee in Lewisham iconic and essential. There is a bit of debate as to how Kate Bush fronted this new band. Whether she asked Vic King directly or Paddy Bush leaving him a note asking King to call him. Her brother calling King asking him to come over as his sister needed some live experience. I Heard It Through the Grapevine and Sweet Soul Music were rehearsed. Songs too by The Rolling Stones and Free. After a brief rehearsal time at local swimming baths in Greenwich, the band convened to East Wickham Farm and the barn in the garden. Putting furniture away and sweeping up, it was a better space. It was through the winter of 1976-1977 where they honed their set. Vic King was the one who drove the band in terms of organising equipment, organising rehearsals and picking Kate Bush up from dance classes home. King – averse to smoking and quite disciplined – was the one who got thigs together. King, Bath and Palmer were enamoured of Kate Bush: a woman very different to anyone they had met. Del Palmer was especially taken with her! They would soon start dating and did so for many years (Palmer died last year). After debate around that they should call themselves – Bush wanted some strange name; the KT Bush Band seemed like a compromise she was not keen on -, rehearsals began. Brian Bath used his contacts to organise a residency at the Rose of Lee down on 162 Lee High Road. They started playing there in April 1977. After a first week with a low turnout and a nervous singer, the crowds grew. So too did Bush’s confidence.
It was clear that the KT Bush Band stood out. When Pub-Rock was popular and that had a foundation in U.S. Roots Rock, this was very different. Rather than it being about the musicianship alone., the KT Bush Band had a singer who could perform and was a physical performer. More arty and expressive. The Rose of Lee never saw anything like it! In 1977, Bush was taken lessons at the Dance Centre in Covent Garden, so this fed into her performances. When it was cold in the barn at East Wickham Farm, they would decamp to the house’s front room and play on acoustic guitars. With a piano in the room, the rest of the KT Bush Band got an insight into this young genius’s world. Songs that appeared on The Kick Inside were on the KT Bush Band’s setlist. The Saxophone Song and Them Heavy People. A standout was James and the Cold Gun. More equipment and a bigger PA system arrived as the band grew bigger. They were paid £60 a show to play club nights by the South Eastern Entertainment Agency. They played some strange locations. A Sunday cabaret slot at Tiffanys in Harlow. Target in Greenford. After gigs, they might then stop at an all-night eatery like Mike’s Diner (off Regent Street, London) and discuss the next day’s plans. Bush kept band and private life separate. There was some socialising here and there but only occasionally. Del Palmer and Kate Bush got together soon enough. His influence was good. He was straight and direct and could often cut through the biased and unanimous praise Bush’s songs received. Objective despite his personal attachment. Del Palmer brought everything down to reality and was this anchor point. There were about twenty gigs in total. After a time, EMI called Kate Bush into the studio. Brian Southall saw Bush at a pub in Lewisham – where her mother tried to offer him sausages all of the time! – and hurried to the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington to tell his boss Bob Mercer what he just saw!
Bush was in the studio in July 1977 to record The Kick Inside. Snapping from that pub and club circuit to a series setting, some felt she was still a rich girl playing in a noisy band for fun. Four-track recordings were laid down at De Lane Lea and De Wolfe studios in London. When recording at De Wolfe, Bush had a heavy cold and her voice was not at its peak. Vic King suggested taking it down to half pace and adding a guitar solo for James and the Cold Gun. Something that was first played during the KT Bush Band gigs. There might have been a feeling that the band would play on The Kick Inside. Del Palmer and Brian Bath would eventually come into the fold though, for her debut (and 1978 follow-up, Lionheart), session musicians were used. A blow to Vic King. Brian Bath was told earlier that this was going to be the case. Even though many of the KT Bush Band’s gigs were filmed, photographed and taped, nothing has come to light. It is such a pity that we cannot get a whole album or documentary about this. A particularly good take of Johnny Winter’s Shame Shame Shame would have been an excellent single. That was laid down at Graphic Sound studios in Catford as a way of promoting the covers and band performances rather than Kate Bush originals. The song was never released. EMI wanting to keep stuff like that down so that it did not interfere with their plans. Maybe EMI or Bush’s family demanded it, but Del Palmer asked Brian Bath to hand over anything kept that could see the light or be used for profit. Bush was not overly eager for that early stuff to be released. It is a shame. We can only imagine how evocative these performances were. I do wonder whether there are recordings somewhere that could get out. Perhaps we will never know! For this magic time in 1977, Kate Bush, Vic King, Del Palmer and Brian Bath rehearsed together, performed a string of gigs and seemed bonded. Even though Vic King did not continue to perform with Bush, Brian Bath and Del Palmer appeared on her studio albums. When the KT Bush Band were rounded up for promotional duties, Vic King did not participate. It is a shame. However, he must have these very fond memories of being on the road with Kate Bush for a brief time. Imagine being one of those punters who saw the KT Bush Band performing! It would have been very different to any other act playing in pubs in 1977. It also would definitely have been…
A life-changing experience.