FEATURE:
My Brother You Were Born
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Marking the Upcoming Birthday of Paddy Bush
_________
THIS is a person…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate and Paddy Bush alongside Peter Gabriel in 1979 for her Christmas special/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
who I have written about before in relation to Kate Bush. The role of her brothers in her music is huge. Both made such an impact and helped shape her in their own way. I have included writing about John Carder Bush, her eldest brother, as his book, Kate: Inside the Rainbow, is one I am writing a feature about. A series. I am completing that soon. I have spoken about Paddy Bush a few times. Normally in the context of songs and albums he has played on. In terms of his involvement with Kate Bush’s career, he has been there since the very beginning. There have been interviews where he has talked about his sister. However, it would be fascinating if there was a new interview where he reflected on his time recording with Kate Bush. I do hope that their association is not over. Paddy Bush played on every Kate Bush studio album, bar her most recent, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. I have pondered before why this was. I guess there were fewer musicians in the pack and it was sparser in some ways. However, Paddy Bush is such a versatile musician. Someone whose gift for seeking out interesting and unusual sounds and putting them into Kate Bush’s music, and enhancing it, should have been utilised. There might have been other reasons for him not being on the album. When Kate Bush does release another studio album, I do hope that Paddy Bush is in there. Either on backing vocals or playing instruments. His involvement in Kate Bush’s career has been enormous. He has appeared in multiple videos. Performed live with her through the years. Paddy Bush turns seventy-four on 9th December. Whilst Kate Bush got a lot of birthday wishes on 30th July, and she responded to that recently, there will be a minority who will know it is Paddy Bush’s birthday.
I would say he is the most influential person to Kate Bush in terms of music and her career. Some may say her late parents. I would argue that Paddy Bush has been the biggest anchor and navigator. When they were children, the bond between the siblings ran deeper than blood and their four walls. Kate Bush obviously fascinated by music. They grew up at East Wickham Farm, and a lot of music was played. When Kate Bush was a teenager, she was discovering music and listening to the radio, though her brother would have exposed her to something less conventional. I do wonder whether Kate Bush’s love of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa came via her brother. It would be fascinating to hear from Paddy Bush now. In terms of what their early lives were like. People might have their own favourite Paddy Bush input on Kate Bush’s albums. Whether a vocal or instrument, what stands as the very best?! I would say his work throughout Never for Ever. That is Kate Bush’s third studio album that was released in 1980. You can see his credit here. He featured on almost every track. In terms of live performances and videos, there are some great choices. I love him in the video for The Red Shoes (the title track from her 1993 album of the same name). A brief glimpse of Paddy Bush as The Devil. I also love him in The Wedding List (a track featured on Never for Ever). That was not a single, though it was part of her 1979 Christmas special. Paddy Bush played a couple of roles. The video depicted a wife seeking revenge on the killer of her groom. Paddy was the vicar at the wedding (the groom shot after the marriage was made formal/legal) and also the bandit or killer. The scene of him smoking a cigar cockily as his sister totes a gun and then shoots him down. Also, Paddy Bush supporting her for international dates and being part of 1979’s The Tour of Life. That sibling love and connection would have been so crucial, especially during the earlier years.
There are some archives where Paddy Bush discussed his sister and her career. Gaffaweb provide this invaluable information. It is clear that, far from him being on her albums because he is talented and added something, he is also a massive fan. You can feel the affection and respect he has for her.
“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)
Do you have a favorite kate bush song?
Paddy: For me. Yes, yes...it's `` get out of my house", really, was my favorite track. I think if alfred hitchcock ever made hit singles [Laughter from audience]... And I love it, I love the energy that it deals with. It's fantastic. And paul hardiman's vocals on the very beginning of it I think are, to me, one of the most fantastic things thats ever been recorded. I used to go into fits of extascy when we listened to the multi-track tapes of that and those opening ``eoyores'' .. I love that track. (1985, Romford Kate Bush Convention - Paddy and Jay interview)”.
Kate Bush has also said how her brother was crucial in bringing these unusual or unknown instruments and sounds to her. That sounds diminishing. Styles and instruments not featured in Pop music in the West. I feel Paddy Bush’s influence and importance runs wider and deeper. I do hope that he features on her music again. In his seventies, it would be wonderful to have these siblings credited together. I was thinking of their early life together. There are not many solo artists whose siblings were big parts of their career. Paddy and Kate Bush together on her albums. On the road and videos. Their early lives when they were forging that bond. Not to say that the influence was one way. Paddy Bush would definitely have changed his musical horizon and worldview because of his sister. If it were not for her, he would not have got to perform on these huge albums and performed around the world. I am so curious whether they have weekly calls and if there are family get-togethers. John and Paddy seeing their sister. Perhaps just at Christmas. In terms of music, it would be a shame if things ended in 2011. Director’s Cut arrived before 50 Words for Snow. He played instruments and did some backing vocals. Looking at 50 Words for Snow, things were very traditional. Perhaps the most traditional or sparse of Kate Bush’s career. Even The Kick Inside, her 1978 debut, featured saxophone and beer bottles! On her latest album, the most ‘unusual’ instrument was bells. The late Del Palmer played those. I would have thought the album’s single, Wild Man, would have room for Paddy Bush. Given lyrics like “The schoolmaster of Darjeeling said he saw you by the Tengboche Monastery/You were playing in the snow. You were banging on the doors”, you would imagine a Nepali Sarangi (a traditional carved wooden string instrument) and the Chyabrung (a traditional double-sided oblong drum used by the Rai and Limbu communities) could have been wielded by Paddy Bush. I am assuming he knows how to play every instrument thrown at him! So many traditional instruments from Nepal too. I would imagine Paddy providing some backing vocals (or playing the eponymous wild man) would have added something. Makes me wonder, again, why this is the only Kate Bush album where he does not feature.
That said, on Aerial, her 2005 double album, multiple opportunities for him to appear, and he only provided backing vocals on its lead track – and single -, King of the Mountain. So perhaps, as he gets older, he is less involved in music. Though fans would be desperate to him to feature on an upcoming Kate Bush album. Because Paddy Bush has literally been there since the start. A formative influence on his sister, Kate Bush’s career without him would be significantly affected. Rathe than him being this guy who brought weird and wonderful sounds in and was this eccentric and fringe influence, he has been a bedrock and constant support. On 9th December, he turns seventy-four. Kate Bush doesn’t really post birthday wishes to her family. She is grateful when people wish her a happy birthday, though family are kept out. As we, of the time of me writing this (22nd September) hold our breath for news of new music from Kate Bush, I have been thinking of Paddy Bush. Whereas now and whether music is still part of his life. Such has been his devotion and fascination with music, you have to imagine it is still part of his life. Though I think of him and can’t imagine he would be into streaming and digital music. Still someone who very much favours the aesthetic and tangibility of music, that is something I feel was directly passed to his sister from an early age. Even though Kate Bush’s albums are available on streaming services, she very much prefers people listen on physical formats. Vinyl particularly. That, at least in part, comes from Paddy Bush. I also feel like their bond and relationship is unique in music. There are siblings who have recorded together, though the history, dynamic and intricacies of Kate and Paddy Bush is wonderful. Let’s hope that these two work together at least once more. Paddy Bush might be done with music, though I suspect it will be with him to his dying day. His contributions on his sister’s albums are…
UTTERLY wonderful and substantial.