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Q.� When did Kate Bush begin recording < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

A.� The debut album by Kate Bush, The Kick Inside, is approaching its quarter-century; it was released in February 1978.

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Q.� So Kate�wasn't very old when she started

A.� No, Kate Bush was actually signed to EMI Records when she was only 16, her first demo having reached the ears of Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. He�saw her potential and took her to Pink Floyd's label to sign a deal.

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Q.� Isn't Kate Bush the girl who has wild eyes and waves her arms around a lot

A.� Aah, the perennial image of Kate Bush, taken from her promo video for her first single Wuthering Heights. It's an image that has followed her through her entire career, and although it may make an easy peg for dubious mimicry, it does much to obscure the talent and novelty not only of that song, but also of the album which followed it.

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Q.� How did The Kick Inside come to be made

A.� Having achieved worldwide success - except, oddly, in America - with her debut single, EMI thought it appropriate for Kate to follow with an album, and the material for it was taken from the songs Kate had written over the�previous few years. The next release, The Man With The Child In His Eyes was a success in America, and went part of the way to convincing people that there was much beyond the video image of Kate miming the passion and tragedy of Emily Bronte’s Cathy.

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Q.� How good an album is this

A.� Kate Bush has managed to create a vocal and musical sound that is timeless, and very few artists manage to do so. With the exception of Elton John, it is hard to hear another British artists whose latest release fits seamlessly alongside material from their first album -�but The Kick Inside is a fairly timeless collection of songs. Kate Bush was always a very literary individual, as evidenced by the subject matter of her first record. The combination of the re-telling of the passionate tragedy of Cathy and Heathcliff, woven with the spellbinding vocal range and dexterity that Kate Bush displayed, set a template for her work that she has adhered to throughout her career.

Q.� Is it a pop album

A.� Not in the sense that you can dance around the room with it, but it is thoughtful and beautifully produced, and played by some of the top session musicians of the time. It is important to stress that at the time it was released, punk was just beginning to burn out, and this sound was about as far removed from the three-minute ire and vitriol of punk as it was possible to get.

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America in particular, singularly failed to understand where Kate Bush stood in the framework of British pop music, and the presentation and theme of Wuthering Heights left them cold. The rest of the world had no such reservations, and the album sold spectacularly well on the strength of the initial single release.

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Q.� Did Kate Bush produce her kooky stager persona in interviews

A.� She produced no persona at all! Kate Bush has maintained a fierce privacy about her personal, and indeed professional life. She has resolutely refused to play the star system, preferring the company of her close family, and the solitude of her country home -� now with a recording studio which has freed her from the constraints of record company deadlines and interference in her work. She appears in public rarely, gives almost no interviews, and is usually happy to let people buy her albums and make up their own minds about them. Self-promotion is something Kate Bush avoids with a passion.

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Q.� So she's not likely to be seen falling out of the Met Bar at 2am

A.� Not really, especially as she is now a mother; although she is convinced that the other mothers at her child's nursery don't actually know who she is, and she is quite happy for it to remain that way.

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Q.� Did The Kick Inside show the way of Kate Bush's writing and career

A.� Insofar as she has remained successful with a large and loyal fan base, and her steadfast refusal to adhere to any kind of musical fad or fashion, The Kick Inside was always an example of what was to come. Kate Bush sings her own songs, in her unique style�- a vocal sound that is instantly recognisable, and occasionally imitated, although never equalled. Her work on this album showed her influences as being literature and serious thought, and she has attracted like-minded fans in large numbers. True to form, The Kick Inside stands up against her latest album, and will doubtless stand with the next, which has been in typically slow production for a number of years.

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Andy Hughes