Joanna Newsom lattest offering has often been compared to Kate Bush early style and voice in the medias (especially in France where we lack good points of comparison as long as female singer/songwriters are involved).
As many of you noticed, I'm a big admirer of this english lady and I've been since the very begining. I was even lucky enough to see her perform on stage in Paris back in '79...
I'm so fed up by those endless lazy comparisons between numerous girl singers and Kate Bush as I rarely can't see it. But it sounded really obvious for early Tori Amos, Happy Rhodes (for whom Kate Bush was a definite inspiration) and Björk (in some aspects of her style, especially the experimental side of songwriting and research for sonic elements). When Joanna Newsom appeared, I immediately thought they belonged to the same musical "family" allthough they didn't really sound the same, but with "Have one on me", it seems the similarity between their respective styles and singing can't be avoided, allthough both sound so personal and idiosyncratic.
A new unreleased early Kate Bush demo has just surfaced on the net. You can hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AmqhwAXMiM
I can hear some Laura Nyro inspiration in it, but obviously, once again the similarity with later Joanna Newsom's material is obvious (Soft as Chalk especially).
I think it's probably more difficult for the younger generation (especially american people)to rely on Kate Bush when talking about Joanna, but I'm sure british european fans of my generation can't really escape from it.
Any comment about that?