KATRINA AND THE WAVES
Katrina and the Waves were an English rock band best known for the 1985 hit “Walking on Sunshine”. They also won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Love Shine a Light”. (More from Wikipedia)
Katrina and the Waves came along in the 1980’s when a lot of the alternative rock music was getting pretty serious, and were they a breath of fresh air. Kimberley Rew (guitar, chief songwriter) put together a band in the mid-1970’s called the Waves (along with a cover band called Mama’s Cookin’); but it was their second incarnation as Katrina and the Waves that hit the big time, after his other band, the Soft Boys came and went. Other bandmembers were Katrina Leskanich (guitar, lead vocals), Vince de la Cruz (bass), and Alex Cooper (drums). Actually Kimberley Rew was also a sometime lead singer, but that didn’t last long. Their major hit was “Walking on Sunshine” (1985), but they previously wrote and recorded a song that was a hit by the Bangles, “Going Down to Liverpool”.
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I have previously told the ironic tale of finding the 12-inch single of the follow-up hit by Katrina and the Waves to “Walking on Sunshine”, called “Do You Want Crying” as practically the first record that I picked up in the yard from the wreckage of our home from Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. “Katrina” would have been enough by itself, but with the band name being the Waves . . .
From Wikipedia: “When Hurricane Katrina and its storm surge devastated much of the U.S. Gulf Coast in [August-]September 2005, the MSNBC news program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, dubbed its coverage of the hurricane, ‘Katrina and the Waves’; the name also appeared in numerous headlines and blog postings. A New York Times reporter contacted Katrina Leskanich, who said: ‘The first time I opened the paper and saw “Katrina kills 9”, it was a bit of a shock. . . . I hope that the true spirit of “Walking on Sunshine” will prevail. I would hate for the title to be tinged with sadness, and I will have to do my own part to help turn that around.’” She had the same or similar sentiments posted on her website for several months. Anyway, I still hear “Walking on Sunshine” on the radio frequently, and it has the same joyful spirit to me.
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Past Eurovision Song Winners
I initially had Katrina and the Waves confused with a rock band that I remember from some years earlier that did pretty good music (live, not just recorded background music) in a recruitment video I believe for the U. S. Air Force. I have no idea who they were (and can find nothing on the Internet about them); but their female lead singer looked a little like Katrina Leskanich, and the Waves were the female section of the U. S. Naval Reserves, so that sure made sense to me. Since they are a British band, I doubt very much if they were the ones; though in actuality, Katrina and her then-boyfriend Vince de la Cruz are from America, so who knows.
There are not many commercials that feature truly rousing music, so in that respect, those ads were reminiscent of the famous 1970’s commercial for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (IGLWU) with the song that was the result of a contest sponsored by the union, “Look for the Union Label” that featured a performance by actual union workers.
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The Katrina and the Waves album discography is a bit tangled to say the least. Their first two albums, Katrina and the Waves and Katrina and the Waves Vol. 2 came out on small labels in 1983 and 1984, respectively. The latter is also known as Katrina and the Waves 2, but the cover shot doesn’t have a “2” in sight (the first album only has lettering on the cover). Wikipedia has the debut album listed as Walking on Sunshine and says that it was released only in Canada, though that seems doubtful.
The album that I have, also called Katrina and the Waves, sure looks like a debut album to me and features “Walking on Sunshine”; Waves appears to have followed as their second album, and both came out in 1985. Actually Allmusic has Waves as being third in the list, and then comes Katrina and the Waves as their major-label debut album. In any case, what the band did for the second Katrina and the Waves album was re-record tracks from their first two albums, and the result was given a 4½ star rating by Allmusic, higher than any of their other albums.
The band continued to have success in Europe, releasing another four albums; their career was given a major boost in 1997 when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with their entry, “Love Shine a Light” that made it to #2 on the British charts. Rock bands rarely even enter this contest, never mind win it; it is primarily a competition among European pop outfits. Katrina and the Waves have remained active into the 2010’s.
(March 2016)
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