Kimberley Rew
| Kimberley Rew | |
|---|---|
| Genres | Pop rock |
| Associated acts | Soft Boys, Katrina and the Waves |
Kimberley Rew (born 3 December 1951) is an English rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as a member of Katrina and the Waves 1981 to 1999 and of Robyn Hitchcock's Soft Boys 1978 to 1981. Two of his better-known compositions, both written for Katrina and the Waves, are "Walking on Sunshine" and "Love Shine a Light", performed by Katrina and the Waves as the United Kingdom's entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 1997, taking the country to its first victory in the contest since 1981.
The Rew family is from Bristol, and moved house several times during Kim's boyhood before he arrived at Jesus College, Cambridge in 1971, and settled in that city. After a brief excursion into archaeology at West Stow Anglo Saxon Village and gaining a degree in archaeology from Cambridge, Rew formed the Waves with Alex Cooper in 1975, before joining the Soft Boys in 1978, recording the Can of Bees and Underwater Moonlight albums.
In 1981 Robyn Hitchcock began his solo career; Rew and Cooper joined with Katrina Leskanich and Vince de la Cruz to form Katrina and the Waves. The group survived a slow career climb by tours of RAF bases and Canadian club gigs, then teamed up with producers Pat Collier and Scott Litt to record Rew compositions "Going Down to Liverpool", covered by The Bangles, and in 1985 "Walking on Sunshine", which became the group's first and biggest hit, remaining firmly in the public consciousness through frequent radio plays, appearances in films, advertising, etc.
In 1997 Katrina and the Waves won the Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom with the Rew composition "Love Shine a Light".
In 1999 Katrina began her solo career; Rew continued to write, record and release solo albums.
From 1988 through to 2004 Rew was a guest member with the Cambridge band The Lonely. Kim played on four albums, Underground (1989), Rarer Gifts (1998) and Live (2000) (my space thelonelycambridge); the Soft Boys reconvened from 2001 to 2003.
Celine Dion recorded the Rew composition "That's Just the Woman in Me" in 2007.
Through the 1990s and 2000s Rew completed a project to walk or cycle the coast of England and Wales and another to walk or cycle all the navigable waterways.
Rew can currently be heard with Cambridge band Jack (since 2004), and with Kim and Lee, both of the above with wife and musical partner Lee Cave-Berry.
Solo discography
- The Bible of Bop, 1981/2010
- Tunnel into Summer, 2000
- Great Central Revisited, 2003
- Essex Hideaway, 2005
- Ridgeway (EP), 2006
- The Safest Place, 2010
- Strawberry Fair, 2011
- Technically Closer than Tooting, 2012
- Healing Broadway, 2013
- The Next Big Adventure, 2014
References
- Robin Schwartz (July 1985). How a postman, dishwasher, mortician, and a bowling-ball-hole-driller became Katrina and the Waves. Spin. p. 12. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
External links
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