Kim Wilde (born Kim Smith, November 18, 1960 in Chiswick, West London) is an English pop singer, professional gardener and pop cultural figure. She debuted in 1981 with the new wave classic “Kids in America”, which hit number two in the UK Singles Chart. Major US success eluded her until 1987, when she topped the charts with her version of The Supremes “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”.
Wilde’s career has been unpredictable, featuring many peaks and troughs. She has experienced two distinct periods of success — her first wave of initial fame during 1981-1982 and an unexpected return to the spotlight from 1986-1988.
Early life
Wilde was the first child of 1950s rock ‘n’ roller Marty Wilde (real name Reginald Smith) and Joyce Baker, formerly of the British singing and dancing group The Vernons Girls.
As a child, she attended Oakfield Preparatory School, Dulwich. She moved with her family to Hertfordshire at the age of nine, where she was educated at Tewin School and later Presdales School, Ware, before completing a foundation course at St Albans College of Art & Design in 1980.
In 1980, at age twenty, Wilde was signed to Mickie Most’s RAK Records.
The RAK years
Wilde exploded onto the music scene with her debut single “Kids in America” in January 1981. It was an instant success, reaching number two in the UK Singles Chart and scaling the Top 5 in other important markets such as Germany, France and Australia. Although it achieved only moderate success in the U.S., peaking at number 25 when belatedly released in 1982, it is regarded today as Wilde’s signature song and a classic of its era.
Her debut album Kim Wilde repeated the success of the single, spawning two further hits in “Chequered Love” (Top 10 in the UK, Australia and Germany) and the UK-only single “Water on Glass”.
It was followed in 1982 by another million selling album, Select, led by the synthesizer-driven mid tempo hymn “Cambodia” and the melodramatic second single “View From a Bridge”. Both were Top 10 hits in Germany and Australia. In France, “Cambodia” topped the charts for 8 weeks.
The relative failure of Wilde’s 1983 single “Love Blonde” and third album, Catch As Catch Can, led her to leave RAK and sign with MCA Records in the summer of 1984 — effectively ending the first period of her career.
The MCA years
Her first MCA album Teases & Dares produced two moderate hits, “The second time” and the rockabilly “Rage to Love”, which reached the UK Top 20 in 1985. On this her 4th album, Wilde began contributing herself to the writing. Writing two songs on her own, and co-writing one with her father and brother.
Wilde’s songs up to this point, including all her major hits, had been written by her father Marty and brother, Ricki Wilde. On her fifth album, 1986’s Another Step, Wilde wrote or co-wrote most of the songs.
The album’s lead single “Schoolgirl” flopped in Europe and Australia — but Wilde’s fortunes improved in spectacular fashion with the album’s second single, a remake of the Supremes classic “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”. It became her first U.S. number one single in 1987, also topping the charts in Australia and Canada and peaking at number two in the UK. Wilde later admitted “not knowing the song terribly well” beforehand: “Basically we just went into the studio with a lot of energy and not a lot of reverence. We changed quite a lot of the song and I think that’s why it was so successful. It was a very spontaneous idea.”
Further hits followed with “Another Step (Closer to You)” (recorded with Junior) and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (a charity single, recorded with comedian Mel Smith).
“Close” and the 1990s
In 1988, Wilde released her biggest selling album to date, Close, which spent almost eight months on the UK album chart. It produced three Top 10 hits: “You Came”, “Never Trust a Stranger” and “Four Letter Word”.
The guitar pop of “Love Is Holy” and the dancefloor-influenced “If I Can’t Have You” (a cover of the Yvonne Elliman (Bee Gees written) song from the film Saturday Night Fever) were both UK Top 20 hits in the early 1990’s, the latter becoming a number three hit in Australia.
Wilde has undertaken five solo tours and performed as opening act for Michael Jackson in 1988 and for David Bowie in 1990.
From February 1996 to February 1997, Wilde appeared in London’s West End production of the musical, Tommy.
Personal Life and other interests
During the 1980s, Wilde was romantically linked with saxophonist Gary Barnacle, keyboardist Calvin Hayes of Johnny Hates Jazz and later her band’s keyboard player Jeff Hammer, previously of Teardrop Explodes and Stray Cats. In 1993 Wilde was also seeing TV presenter Chris Evans. On September 1, 1996, Wilde married her co-star in Tommy, Hal Fowler, and expressed a desire to have children as soon as possible. On January 3, 1998 she gave birth to Harry Tristan. Two years later, on January 13, 2000, Rose Elisabeth was born.
During her first pregnancy an old interest in gardening resurfaced, and she attended the famous Capel Manor college to learn about horticulture, so as to create a garden for her children. She was spotted by talent scouts of the UK television station, Channel 4, who asked her to act as a designer for their programme Better Gardens. A year later she started a two year commitment with the BBC, recording two seasons of Garden Invaders. In 2005 she won a Gold award for her courtyard garden at the Royal Horticultural Society’s, Chelsea Flower Show.
Her first book about gardening was published in 2005, entitled Gardening with Children. The second book followed in April 2006, entitled The First-time Gardener. Translations of the first book were released at the same time in Spain, France, Denmark and The Netherlands.
Return to pop
On January 13, 2001 she performed live for the first time in years, as a guest star in a show by ABBA tribute band, Fabba, for a local charity. This sparked her interest in performing live again. Since November 2001, she has toured the UK three times (and once in Australia during 2003) as part of the “Here & Now Tour”, an Eighties revival concert series, together with recording artists such as Paul Young, The Human League, Belinda Carlisle and Howard Jones.
New music also followed: in 2001 she recorded a new track, “Loved”, for a compilation album which became a surprise hit in Belgium, and in 2003 she had pan-European success with “Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime”, a duet with another 1980s pop star, German singer Nena.
In 2006 Wilde signed a new record deal with EMI and released the first single from her tenth studio album in many countries across Europe, Scandinavia and Asia. “You Came 2006″ charted well in most of these countries, becoming her biggest solo hit in Germany since 1988. The second single from the album, which was voted for by fans on her official website was “Perfect Girl”, released in November 2006, it did spend nine weeks in the German singles top 100. A third single “Together We Belong” was released in March 2007. The album Never Say Never includes eight new tracks plus five completely re-worked previous hits of hers and has charted well in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany (where her profile has remained high since the duet with Nena). There are no plans at the moment to release the album in her home country. A fourth single from Never Say Never was released in Germany in August 2007. The song “Baby Obey Me” has been remixed and added some rap by the German rapper Il Inspector.
