The English singer Kate Bush immediately fell in love with: “Not considered that as a factor before”
The magic thing about Kate Bush is her theatricality and the sense of showiness that comes with it, but also that she’s equally authentic about it too.
In a lot of ways, there are very few people who could get away with living a life like hers. The temptation to see her as contrived or over-the-top is avoided for the sheer fact that, beneath the veneer of performance, she has always remained searingly honest and true to herself, even if sometimes that might have seemed to her detriment.
But at the same time, going out on a limb and cultivating a stardom in this manner is not something you could do without a precedent. Ultimately, it’s too bold and too fraught with obvious risk. However, if you’ve seen someone taking that plunge before, well, that does admittedly make everything a little easier.
Step forward, Bryan Ferry. The Roxy Music frontman may not immediately be cast in the same light as Bush in terms of allure and romance, but she nevertheless felt a connection to him that extended beyond professional and platonic boundaries, she always felt it was something more. He was daring and bold, and she wanted to follow wherever he would go.
That sense evidently became deeply ingrained into everything that Bush has ever identified with as an artist. “I don’t sing with an American accent,” she once mused. “I’d not considered that as a factor before, but certainly a lot of English singers do sing with an American accent. I used to love that about Bryan Ferry, that he sung with such an obviously English voice, when so few people did. I loved Roxy Music, really loved the first four albums.”
Indeed, when Roxy Music broke onto the scene in the early 1970s, it was amid the burgeoning backdrop of a scene which would have so many colours on the palette for them to paint from. There were hints of stylistic glam, splashes of punk, and later hues of new wave coming through. Their music was a fertile feeding ground upon which everyone else could feast.
When you then look over to someone like Bush, it’s easy to see exactly where she picked up these aspects of inspiration. Her career, vaulting from art pop to rock to out-and-out synth new wave, has seen a similar somersaulting trajectory to Roxy Music in that sense, far beyond the basics of just an English accent alone.
But the power and presence of Ferry have always remained consistent. This is obviously not to say that Bush is a mere shadow or imitation, but with the band’s career having taken flight just on the cusp of her own, it was easy to see how the path that had been laid by them was one that she was keen to emulate, in order to set on the golden chalice.
It goes without saying that this was just one piece of the ever-shifting puzzle. But if one thing is clear, it’s that if Ferry and Roxy Music as a whole hadn’t gone on such an effervescent journey, then perhaps neither would Bush. From the very first moment she saw him, she fell head over heels in love, then wanted to dive straight in.
