FEATURE:
Symphony in You
PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Kate Bush and Producer Andrew Powell
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I have been re-reading…
IN THIS PHOTO: Andrew Powell
the biography by Graeme Thomson, Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush, and I wonder whether she regards her first couple of albums with any real affection and fond memories. Certainly, when Bush headed into AIR Studios in the summer of 1977 to record and complete her debut album, The Kick Inside, she was excited and eager. Even if, fairly soon after releasing the album, she distanced herself and felt that she was not as involved with shaping the sound and direction and she would have liked, Bush definitely wanted to spend time in the studio seeing how everything came together. I feel one of the reasons why her first couple of albums, The Kick Inside and Lionheart, are so beautiful-sounding and memorable is the production of Andrew Powell. Bush assisted Powell on Lionheart – as she wanted more of a say -, but I think that his expertise and experience really made a difference. Although The Kick Inside was Powell’s first real experience of producing an album, he was a skilled musician with perfect pitch. A Cambridge graduate who was a friend of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour (who helped discover Bush and made that connection between her and Powell), Bush produced her third album, Never for Ever, without Powell. That might suggest an unhappy working relationship or an artist who felt more free producing on her own.
Powell has worked in music relatively consistently since 1978. According to his Wikipedia page, his last project came four years ago:
“More recent work has included arranging and conducting Wouter Van Belle's work Wow & Flutter, as well as writing for brass bands including the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Parc & Dare Band and Burry Port Town Band; and album Stockhausen: Michael's Farewell, etc with John Wallace.
Living Stones received its world premier at St Davids Cathedral, Wales, on 27 October 2007, and Glasiad y dydd dros Ben Dinas at the City of London Festival on 19 March 2008.
In 2017, after a break from film scoring of nearly thirty years, he wrote the original music for the sci-fi short movie Here We Go Again, Rubinot!, directed by Italian cinematographer Giuliano Tomassacci. The score was published the following year on Kronos Records in a limited edition CD release.
Powell is artistic director of BluestoneArts, a social enterprise company that promotes music, words and visual arts in north Pembrokeshire”.
I am going to bring in an article where we get to find out more about Andrew Powell’s role and relationship with Kate Bush. It would be nice, if The Kick Inside was reissued on its anniversary (either the completion of recording in 1977 or the release in 1978), to hear some words from Andrew Powell. He was a big part of Kate Bush’s debut album.!
When we think of Bush and her career, personnel like producers and musicians do not necessarily get as much attention and focus as her. They are all key to her sound and success. Although Andrew Powell produced Bush’s first two albums, he did arrange the strings, alongside Dave Lawson, for The Dreaming’s Houdini. Before coming to the article I was mentioning, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provided an interview exert of Powell discussing his earliest experiences with Bush:
“David Gilmour phoned me one day, and invited me for lunch at the Pink Floyd's office in Bond Street, London. When I arrived there, he introduced me to Kate Bush (or Cathy, as she was then known.) She was a very quiet, but obviously thoughtful, young girl. He played me some of her songs, and I was impressed by her vivid musical and lyrical imagination. We talked about which songs to do - I took a tape away, and we had a further discussion a few days later: we agreed on 3 songs to record, and David handed the project over to me. I booked some time at AIR London Studios in Oxford Circus with the renowned Geoff Emerick as engineer (who, to my great embarrassment, wasn't credited on the album), and booked a rhythm section consisting of Barry de Souza on drums, Bruce Lynch on bass, and Alan Parker and Paul Keogh on guitars. Kate would play piano (although I played both piano and electric piano on "Berlin"). We had another session a few days later with the orchestra, who played on "Berlin", and also played The Man with the Child in his Eyes - Kate played piano and sang live with the orchestra. If she was nervous, it didn't show - I still think this is one of the best vocals I have heard from her. Geoff, who was assisted by Peter Henderson, did great mixes of all 3 titles (the other one was called "Humming" - it was never released) and David took the tape to Bob Mercer at EMI, who signed her”.
Before wrapping things up, The Music Aficionado published a feature about Andrew Powell, where we got to learn more about his work with Kate Bush:
“The Kick Inside, Kate Bush’s debut album, was the first major project for Andrew Powell as a producer, and he is all over that album arranging the orchestral tracks, playing bass on Wuthering Heights and keyboards on other songs. The album is wonderful start to finish, but the hits are the real winners and represent some of Powell’s best work as arranger. The Man with the Child in His Eyes, written by Bush at the age of 13(!), features her playing the piano, accompanied by an orchestra arranged by Powell. The interplay between the piano, orchestra and her vocals is classic. Powell said of her singing on that song: “I still rate it as the best vocal sound I’ve ever heard from Kate“.
The album’s big hit was of course Wuthering Heights, the song that created history in British music – the first song composed and performed by a female singer to top the charts. Kate Bush on the song: “I wrote it in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon. Actually, it came quite easily. I couldn’t seem to get out of the chorus – it had a really circular feel to it, which is why it repeats. I had originally written something more complicated, but I couldn’t link it up, so I kept the first bit and repeated it.” Powell brought rookie engineer Jon Kelly, who was assistant engineer for Geoff Emerick at AIR studios in London. Like his mentor who got his break with the Beatles about 10 years earlier, Kelly could not hope for a better initiation as a principal engineer: “I give full credit to Andrew Powell and the great musicians, who were very supportive, while Kate herself was just fantastic. Looking back, she was incredible and such an inspiration, even though when she first walked in I probably thought she was just another new artist. Her openness, her enthusiasm, her obvious talent — I remember finishing that first day, having recorded two or three backing tracks, and thinking ‘My God, that’s it. I’ve peaked!'”
The great musicians Kelly mentions were all very familiar to Andrew Powell. Bass player David Paton and guitarist Ian Bairnson were both in the band Pilot and later joined the Alan Parsons project. Paton worked extensively with the band Camel in the 1980s and 1990s. Bairnson had success with Paul McCartney’s Mull of Kintyre and played on additional Kate Bush albums. The drummer on Kate Bush’s debut was Stuart Elliott who was part of Cockney Rebel and later worked with Powell on Year of the Cat and many of the Alan Parsons Project albums. He continued to work with Kate Bush on four more albums and hits including Babooshka, Running Up That Hill, Hounds of Love and Cloudbusting. Elliott later recalled the recording sessions: “The album The Kick inside was not at all demanding in any sense. It is one of very few albums I have ever done where there was instant chemistry between the whole band in response to Kate’s brilliant music. Kate made it very easy for us in that she performed the songs live on piano and vocal during all takes so following her and adding our own interpretation to her songs was all that was needed. Thankfully it just fell together without any verbal guidance from either Andrew or Kate.”
Wuthering Heights is rather complex for a pop song, thus rarely covered over the years. The chorus has a rhythm that changes from 4/4 to 3/4, throwing off many unsuspecting listeners and musicians. Amazingly the vocals for the song were recorded in a single complete take without overdubs, a fit unheard of with today’s pop singers.
Andrew Powell produced one more album for Kate Bush, Lionheart, released later in 1978. For Powell it was somewhat a lesser achievement: “Kate hadn’t been allowed enough time off from promotion work to write new songs, so we ended up using some which had been short-listed for The Kick Inside. There were probably a couple of songs which, with hindsight, shouldn’t have made it onto the record.” Still, there are gems on that album and although it does not feature an orchestra as widely at the debut album, Powell’s services were needed on the energetic single Hammer Horror. Not as commercially successful as the previous hits, but a great song nonetheless”.
I wonder how Powell feels about The Kick Inside and those months working with Bush on that album and Lionheart. I feel he was the right producer for an album as important as her debut. If Bush feels that she was more of a participant and less of an architect, I think that this stems more from her being very ambitious or feeling that not enough control was given to her. Regardless of whether she was a bit frustrated or the working relationship was not perfect, Andrew Powell got something terrific out of her and the musicians. I love her first two albums – especially The Kick Inside. I can only imagine how productive, interesting and revealing it would have been being in the studio and hearing these phenomenal songs come together. For his role in her first couple of albums, Andrew Powell deserves…
MUCH more acclaim.