Jealous Haters Since 1998!
Home | News | Reviews | Day In Rock | Photos | RockNewsWire | Singled Out | Tour Dates/Tix | Feeds

Kimberley Rew Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Walking On Sunshine With Four Retro Releases

02/03/2010
.
Kimberley Rew, best known as an accomplished guitarist and songwriter who wrote one of the best known pop classics of the 80's -"Walking On Sunshine," has also written hit songs for The Bangles and Celine Dion and with his band Katrina & The Waves even won the Eurovision song contest in 1997 with "Love Shine A Light."

Inspired by this renewed interest in his work, Rew has put together a retrospective of four albums that draw from his highly creative output in the decade prior to his first hit single. These albums, released in late Spring 2010, are; Kimberley Rew – The Bible Of Bop (Special Edition) '81; The Waves – Shock Horror (Special Edition) '82; Katrina & The Waves – Katrina & The Waves (Special Edition) '83 and Katrina & The Waves – Katrina & The Waves 2 (Special Edition) '84. These special releases are all leading up to the Summer celebration of the 25th Anniversary of his first hit single "Walking On Sunshine," which is officially one of the most played summer songs of all time.

Rew's career started after leaving university in 1974 to form the first incarnation of THE WAVES with drummer Alex Cooper. Their psychedelic folk rock sound was big news on the band scene in Cambridge, England but the band never released any records. However a 1976 recording session is included as a bonus on the special edition of Shock Horror.

In January 1978 Kimberley was asked by Robyn Hitchcock to join THE SOFT BOYS, the hugely influential English neo-psychedelic band. They were signed to the short-lived Radar Records, who also had Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe at the time. THE SOFT BOYS also gave Rew the chance to attend his one and only punk gig when opening for The Damned. The band recorded two cult albums, A Can of Bees and Underwater Moonlight, but split in 1981 never achieving the commercial success of contemporaries on the London pub scene like Squeeze and the Police.

Kimberley Rew's first solo album, The Bible Of Bop (released in 1981) was compiled from four different recording sessions with three different bands – New York's The dBs, THE SOFT BOYS (with Hitchcock on guitar) and the second incarnation of THE WAVES (now featuring Katrina Leskanich and Vince De La Cruz). There are three previously unreleased songs from these sessions on the special edition of The Bible Of Bop.

In early 1983, KATRINA & THE WAVES (as they were now called) pooled their meager resources to fund the recording of an album's worth of original material - all songs written by Rew and sung by Leskanich - intended to be sold at live shows. Numerous labels on both sides of the Atlantic were approached, but only Canadian indie Attic Records, which had previously released recordings by THE SOFT BOYS (and documentary heavy metal heroes Anvil), responded with an offer. Consequently, KATRINA & THE WAVES' debut album Walking On Sunshine was released only in Canada, despite the band being based in the UK. Support from Rolling Stone magazine and critics such as Dave Marsh began to create a buzz. More importantly; radio play of the first version of "Walking On Sunshine" led to a Canadian tour, and, due to their well-honed live skills, their fan base grew quickly. 1984 saw a follow-up album, Katrina And The Waves 2, again only in Canada, which included the airplay hit "Mexico" (from bassist De La Cruz), and the excellent "Do You Want Crying" and "One Woman."

Fueled by constant touring and the added mystique of their releases only being valuable on import in the UK and USA, things progressed but it was the kind of lucky break that money can't buy which helped to put them on the music industry map. Los Angeles-based girl group The Bangles chose to cover Rew's song, "Going Down To Liverpool," on their major label album All Over The Place. With the help of an odd-ball video starring Leonard Nimoy, the single became an MTV hit, inspiring various labels in LA to trace the source of the song; Rew and Katrina & The Waves. Finally, after four long years, the band were snapped up worldwide by Capitol Records and began to enjoy their "overnight" success!

With this retrospective the world will have the chance to really hear the talent that brought it all to the forefront and his name is Kimberley Rew.

Share this article on Twitter

[an error occurred while processing this directive]


Click here to read today's full Day in Pop report

Preview and Purchase Kimberley Rew CDs

Kimberley Rew Tour Dates/Tickets

Kimberley Rew MP3 Downloads

Was it Good for you? Please Fark it!, Stumble It, Digg it or more!
Fark
Stumble Upon
Digg
Facebook

tell a friend about this article

know of a news item we should cover?

antiMUSIC News featured on RockNews.info and Yahoo News

.


...end


.
News Reports
.
Day in Rock:
Lamb Of God's Mark Morton Streams Chester Bennington Collaboration- Rush Members To Make Special Appearance- Unreleased David Bowie Tracks In New Collection- more

Day in Pop

B-Sides: Taylor Swift Reveals Her Mother Has Cancer- Rich Homie Quan Surrenders To Police Over Alleged Nightclub Assault- Justin Bieber Duets With Ariana Grande- Mumford & Sons- more

 Subscribe To Day in Rock

.
 
Reviews
.

Ladies Only: Jennie Abrahamson- Rachel Garlin- Nneka- More

Album of the Week: Led Zeppelin's When The West Was Won

Karyn Crisis' Gospel Of The Witches - Salem's Wounds

The Blues: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers- Arlen Roth, Mike Henderson Band- Slam Allen

Trauma Interview

December in Red - The Way Out

Battleaxe - Power From the Universe Reissue

SOKO Interview

The Compulsions - Dirty Fun

Rock Reads: Morbid Tales! A Tribute to Celtic Frost

Death Penalty - Death Penalty

On The Record: The Wild Beyond

RockPile: Minutian- Odin's Court- THEO

Michael Ubaldini Interview

Root 66: Cameron Mitchell- Stacy Jones- Greg Shirley


. .
.
Today's Rock News
. Lamb Of God's Mark Morton Streams Chester Bennington Collaboration

Rush Members To Make Special Appearance

Unreleased David Bowie Tracks In New Collection

Def Leppard Announce Summer Tour Dates

Avenged Sevenfold's M Shadows Guests On John Dolmayan Album

Aerosmith To Rock Steven Tyler's Grammy Awards Viewing Party

Tedeschi Trucks Band Streaming New Song 'Hard Case'

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Biopic Nominated For Seven BAFTA Awards

Behemoth Release Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica Video

Blues Music Awards Nominees Announced


Subscribe to Day in Rock Report by Email

.
.
Today's Pop News
.
.
.
Latest B-Sides News
.

More News
.
 
anti Worthy Links
.
AudioNationRadio.comThe Screen DoorA Journal of Musical ThingsLloyd Zeffler blogDemolish MagNightwatcher's House of RockCJ ChilversDeja VoodooThe 1st Fivethecopycat.bizHard Rock Memorabilia Day in Rock @twitter

.
  .
.

Click Here to Buy T-Shirts!
Click Here to Buy T-Shirts!

 

Tell a Friend about this page - Contact Us - Privacy - antiMusic Email - Why we are antiMusic

Copyright© 1998 - 2013 Iconoclast Entertainment Group All rights reserved. antiMusic works on a free link policy for reprinting of our original articles, click here for details. Please click here for legal restrictions and terms of use applicable to this site. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.