Angus Kidman – anguskidman.show

Gusworld Records is my fantasy record label, where I imagine comprehensive CD reissues for performers I love whose CD catalogue has been neglected by major labels (so what else is new?).

New Zealander Kim Hart is forever associated with her best-known hit, 1980’s ‘Love At First Night’, a stringtastic low-key disco sleaze banger that reached #6 in Australia and #15 in New Zealand.

Technically she’s not a one-hit wonder – her follow-up ‘You’re The One’ just scraped into the Australian charts at #89.

But there’s a lot more Kim Hart material around. She released an entire album and 2 other non-album singles in New Zealand in the 1970s, and another 6 singles in Australia between 1980 and 1984.

None of those tracks, save ‘Love At First Night’ itself, has ever shown up on CD. So we’re here to say that needs fixing, pronto.

Disc 1: 1977-1979

1. On My Toes Again (3:05)
2. You Light Up My Life (3:36)
3. Wild Night (3:30)
4. Born To Wander (3:32)
5. Loving You (3:42)
6. How Deep Is Your Love (4:03)
7. One Love In A Lifetime (3:45)
8. You Don’t Need Me (3:50)
9. Blame It On The Sun (4:32)
10. (You’re A) Changed Man (3:34)
11. Carry My Troubles Away (4:12)
12. Fly Right Away (3:25)
13. Running Round In Circles (3:36)
14. Love Too Much (4:06)

Disc 2: 1980-1984

1. Love At First Night (3:25)
2. The Singer And The Song (3:20)
3. Out Of Control (duet with Steve Allen) (3:08)
4. Polar Star (duet with Steve Allen) (3:18)
5. You’re The One (3:40)
6. Off By Heart (3:24)
7. It’s Easy (3:02)
8. Love’s So Deceiving (3:20)
9. Feel Like Making Love (4:44)
10. Young Girl (3:20)
11. I Will (2:52)
12. Heartbeat (2:59)
13. Walking On Sunshine (3:00)

The first disc collects the 1978 Kim Hart album and the other New Zealand singles, while the second volume is basically every A-side and B-side she ever released in Australia.

Why didn’t Kim Hart become a bigger star? It’s hard to say. Hart had plenty of promotion in Australia, with regular appearances on Countdown (including a hosting stint in August 1980).

She even popped up on the ABC’s John Farnham/Deborah Byrne variety starrer Farnham and Byrne that year, though, unsurprisingly, the show only wanted her to do ‘Love At First Night’.

There’s some mystery surrounding whether Hart ever properly released a second album. There’s none mentioned on her Wikipedia entry, not is there any listing on Discogs.

However, on YouTube EMI New Zealand has uploaded 12 tracks into a playlist labelled Love At First Night, with cover art that is not from either the Australian or New Zealand single of the same name.

On 21 September 1980, Sounds host Donnie Sutherland reported in his Sun-Herald column that Kim’s album was complete and was due for release the next month:

But it seems that never happened.

Regardless, there were plenty more singles, including the late 1980 release ‘It’s Easy’. Very Sheena Easton.

Hart’s fondness for covers continued, with her take on ‘Feel Like Making Love’ joining her earlier takes on Bee Gees and Beatles numbers.

Her 1981 track ‘Young Girl’ wasn’t a cover of the Union Gap song. Annoyingly YouTube won’t let me embed the Countdown performance, so you’ll have to watch it yourself. But here’s the video, filmed in windy Wellington.

Nothing landed, and Kim Hart’s EMI contract appears to have lapsed after 1981. Her final appearance on vinyl was with the track ‘Heartbeat’, released on RCA in 1984 and pulled from the soundtrack for The Coolangatta Gold. The song was co-written by fellow Kiwi Sharon O’Neill.

But that lack of a contract didn’t mean her music career had ended. By this time, the Kim Hart Band had established itself as a gigging favourite in Sydney clubs, playing regularly at Gossips, the Balmain Sports Club and numerous others. Those club gigs continued into the 1990s, as this take on ‘I’ll Be There’ filmed at Twin Towns proves.

She also occasionally popped up doing covers on legendary lunchtime variety programs The Mike Walsh Show and Midday. Here’s her take on ‘Walking On Sunshine’ from Midday. (If there are more of these around, there’d be plenty of room on Disc 2 to add them.)

For more 1980-curly-hair-was-OK musical moments, check out Christie Allen: Goose Bumps The Complete Mushroom Recordings 1978-1981.