My Seventies Music

Tag: David Gilmour

  • Kate Bush – “Wuthering Heights”

    Cover of Kate Bush debut album "The Kick Inside" Kate Bush suddenly entered my consciousness – and presumably that of many others – in February of 1978 with her debut hit “Wuthering Heights”.

    I was staying with my grandmother in Brighton, England, on my way back from Germany to New Zealand to finish my degree when I heard this magical voice on British radio, and I just had to get the album when I got back home (“The Kick Inside” – it had only been released a few days earlier).

    Here’s the original, “white dress” version:

    And the less surreal (visually at least) “red dress” version:

    Kate Bush was “discovered” by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, so her first album was bound to be a masterpiece technically at least.

    Artistically it has a great deal going for it too, and I still find every song on the album worth listening to again and again. (I’ll find a few more tracks from this and later albums for you to listen to some time in the future.)

    Meanwhile I just found this live clip from 1978 with Kate accompanying herself on the piano:

    Don’t you just love those eyes…

    I don’t know about you, but I have always found there is something intensely feline about Kate Bush – you almost expect her to turn into a cat in some of the videos.

    Well, that’s enough for now, watch out for more another time.

    Paul

  • “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” – Pink Floyd

    Pink Floyd album cover Dark Side of the Moon

    “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” from Pink Floyd accompanied me all the way round New Zealand’s South Island in the back seat of the family car at the end of 1975, my last year at school. (I grew up on the North Island, by the way.)

    And a few years later I remember hearing a band called Father Time playing it in the “Old Wool Room” at Massey University, where they used to hold the student dances before it was pulled down. Key members of Father Time later went on to become “Mi-Sex”, a top band in Australia.

    Of course, Pink Floyd was everywhere in the 70s, you couldn’t go to a party without hearing the album “Dark Side of the Moon” if nothing else.

    I had a bit of a problem regarding a video of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” – the song is so long, people have had to break it up and it wasn’t so easy to find the matching clips!

    This one is an earlier live version, from 1974:

    And here are two parts form a concert in LA, also in the Seventies, though the accompanying footage is more recent, i.e. 2008:

    Finally, three more recent renderings, Pink Floyd… in 1990 –

    and David Gilmour… electric in 2007:

    And Dave Gilmour solo doing a purely accoustic version on his own:

    I could have spent all night listening to all the different versions of this song, but I’ll leave you with these ones for now….

    Keep on shining!

    Paul

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