Kate Bush, aka Catherine Bush, is a name synonymous with originality. It’s a label which has always been hung on Bush. From making her name in 1978 with her hit ‘Wuthering Heights’ to present day, the singer has long been touted as a unique artist. It would seem the star was always destined to be in the limelight as these candid black and white images of a young Kate Bush, taken by her brother John Carder Bush, clearly show.

The images show a young Catherine performing for her brother and showing off the kind of theatricality which would become her hallmark. A few years before she would top the charts with ‘Wuthering Heights’ and become the first female artist to achieve a UK number-one with a self-written song, Bush shows off her nouse for a great shot.

She would go on to release 25 UK Top 40 hits including ‘The Man with the Child in His Eyes’, ‘Babooshka’, ‘Running Up That Hill’, ‘Don’t Give Up’ and ‘King of the Mountain’. Releasing 10 studio albums which all reached the UK Top 10, including the UK number one albums Never for Ever and Hounds of Love.

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Bush is often remembered as a theatrical and idiosyncratic performer, and rightly so, but her massive contribution to music is often overlooked outside of her huge fanbase. But as well as being the first female to achieve a UK number 1 with her own song she was also in the books for other amazing feats. Bush became the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at number-one, as well as the first (and to date, only) female artist to have top five albums in the UK charts in five successive decades.

This beautiful collection though shows off the twinkling start to Bush’s future stardom. Taken during the ’60s and ’70s by her brother John Carder Bush, the shots are a candid view of not only a family, not only a brother and sister relationship but the beginning of an artist who would change the musical world, with almost every release.

Buy John Carder Bush’s book Kate: Inside the Rainbow:

(All images via Vintage.es)