Kimberley Rew
Kimberley Charles Rew (born 3 December 1951) is an English rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as a member of Katrina and the Waves from 1981 to 1999[1] and of Robyn Hitchcock's Soft Boys from 1978 to 1981. Two of his better-known compositions, both written for Katrina and the Waves, are "Walking on Sunshine"[1] and "Love Shine a Light". The latter was performed as the United Kingdom's entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 1997, taking the country to its first victory in the contest since 1981.
Kimberley Rew | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Kimberley Charles Rew |
| Born | 3 December 1951 |
| Genres | Pop rock, new wave |
Life and career
His family is from Bristol and moved house several times during his 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,[1] Rew formed the Waves with Alex Cooper in 1975,[1] before joining the Soft Boys in 1978, recording the A Can of Bees and Underwater Moonlight albums.
In 1981, the Soft Boys' leader 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 the producers Pat Collier and Scott Litt to record Rew's compositions "Going Down to Liverpool", covered by The Bangles, and, in 1985, "Walking on Sunshine", which became the group's first and biggest hit.[2]
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. He played on three albums, Underground (1989), Rarer Gifts (1998) and Live (2000).
In 2001 Rew reunited and toured with Robyn Hitchcock, bassist Matthew Seligman, and Morris Windsor for the Soft Boys' re-release of their best-known album, 1980's Underwater Moonlight. The following year they recorded and released a new album, Nextdoorland, which was accompanied by a short album of outtakes, Side Three. The reunion was short-lived.
Celine Dion recorded the Rew composition "That's Just the Woman in Me" in 2007.
In 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 of their navigable waterways.
Rew joined the Cambridge band Jack in 2004 (his wife Lee Cave-Berry had previously joined in 2000) and they are both still playing with the band (as of 2020). Rew and his wife also perform as a duo called Kim and Lee.[3][4]
Solo discography
- The Bible of Bop (1982)
- 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)
- Are we there yet, Daddy? (2015)
- Miles of Smiles (2016)
- Purple Kittens (2021)
References
- How a postman, dishwasher, mortician, and a bowling-ball-hole-driller became Katrina and the Waves by Robin Schwartz, Spin, July 1985
- "Katrina and the Waves: how we made Walking on Sunshine". the Guardian. 1 September 2015.
- "Meet the Band". Jack. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
- "Biography". Kimberley Rew. 22 April 2020. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
