Kate St John
Explicit content warning
04/05/23 • 28 min
Kate St John is an English composer, arranger, producer and multi-instumentalist.
Classically trained on oboe, she gained a music degree at City University London. Her first band was The Ravishing Beauties with Virginia Astley and Nicky Holland. The trio joined The Teardrop Explodes in Liverpool during the winter of 1981 for a series of dates at small clubs and a UK tour in early 1982. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a member of The Dream Academy with Nick Laird-Clowes and Gilbert Gabriel. In 1985 they had a worldwide hit with "Life In A Northern Town" and produced three albums: The Dream Academy (1985), Remembrance Days (1987) and A Different Kind Of Weather (1990). In the 1990s St. John was a member of Van Morrison's live band playing oboe and saxophone. She played on five Van Morrison albums. In 1994 she co-wrote and sang on 4 tracks with Roger Eno on the album The Familiar on the All Saints Label. This led to the formation of Channel Light Vessel, a band with Kate, Roger Eno, Bill Nelson, Laraaji and Mayumi Tachibana. St John has released two solo albums: Indescribable Night (1995) and Second Sight (1997).
I met Kate when she was musical director for a Barbican show of the songs of Nick Drake. She has gone on to MD many other multi-artist shows. She has worked with Hal Wilner, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, to name just a few.
In this episode she talks about working with Van Morrison, a love of books and libraries, wordle and how sleep comes even when she is stressed.
Find Kate here
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Kate St John is an English composer, arranger, producer and multi-instumentalist.
Classically trained on oboe, she gained a music degree at City University London. Her first band was The Ravishing Beauties with Virginia Astley and Nicky Holland. The trio joined The Teardrop Explodes in Liverpool during the winter of 1981 for a series of dates at small clubs and a UK tour in early 1982. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a member of The Dream Academy with Nick Laird-Clowes and Gilbert Gabriel. In 1985 they had a worldwide hit with "Life In A Northern Town" and produced three albums: The Dream Academy (1985), Remembrance Days (1987) and A Different Kind Of Weather (1990). In the 1990s St. John was a member of Van Morrison's live band playing oboe and saxophone. She played on five Van Morrison albums. In 1994 she co-wrote and sang on 4 tracks with Roger Eno on the album The Familiar on the All Saints Label. This led to the formation of Channel Light Vessel, a band with Kate, Roger Eno, Bill Nelson, Laraaji and Mayumi Tachibana. St John has released two solo albums: Indescribable Night (1995) and Second Sight (1997).
I met Kate when she was musical director for a Barbican show of the songs of Nick Drake. She has gone on to MD many other multi-artist shows. She has worked with Hal Wilner, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, to name just a few.
In this episode she talks about working with Van Morrison, a love of books and libraries, wordle and how sleep comes even when she is stressed.
Find Kate here
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode
Romeo Stodart
Romeo Stodart is the lead singer/songwriter for The Magic Numbers. The band have released five critically acclaimed albums thus far including the self-titled Mercury Music Prize nominated, million selling debut, the follow up Those The Brokes, 2010's The Runaway, 2014’s Alias and their most recent album, 2018’s Outsiders. He is also a producer and songwriter for artists as varied as Ren Harvieu, Billy Bragg and Natalie Imbruglia.
He has toured with the magic numbers world wide and supported artists such as Neil Young, the Flaming Lips, Rufus Wainwright.
in this episode he talks about how his granny got him into music and creating and how he makes up magical far out bedtime stories for his son.
Find Romeo here
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Next Episode
Neill MacColl
Neill MacColl is the eldest son of folk pioneers Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger and the half brother of Kirsty MacColl. He is also a musician, songwriter and producer in his own right.
He has produced albums for many artists including Bombay Bicycle Club, where Neill eldest son Jamie is the guitarist, and toured as a seasoned session guitarist with artists such as David Gary, David Gilmour, Jesse Buckley and Nadine Shah. He has composed for film and TV, films such as Fever Pitch, 24/7, Far From The Madding Crowd and My Cousin Rachel. He also wrote and recorded an amazing album with me called Two, as well as writing songs such as Heart Shaped Stone for the Crown Electric album and the song Me For You on my latest record Night Drives.
In this episode he gets quite vehement about cushions, and talks of being in the wilderness as his most at home place.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/before-the-light-goes-out-522067/kate-st-john-67991595"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to kate st john on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy