Kimberley Rew is an English rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as a member of Katrina and the Waves from 1981 to 1999 and of Robyn Hitchcock's Soft Boys from 1978 to 1981. Two of his better-known compositions, both written for Katrina and the Waves, are "Walking on Sunshine" and "Love Shine a Light", performed by Katrina and the Waves as the United Kingdom's entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 1997, taking the country to its first victory in the contest since 1981. His family is from Bristol and moved house several times during his boyhood before he arrived at Jesus College, Cambridge in 1971, and settled in that city. After a brief excursion into archaeology at West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village and gaining a degree in archaeology from Cambridge, Rew formed the Waves with Alex Cooper in 1975, before joining the Soft Boys in 1978, recording the Can of Bees and Underwater Moonlight albums. In 1981, Robyn Hitchcock began his solo career; Rew and Cooper joined with Katrina Leskanich and Vince de la Cruz to form Katrina and the Waves. The group survived a slow career climb by tours of RAF bases and Canadian club gigs, then teamed up with the producersPat Collier and Scott Litt to record Rew's compositions "Going Down to Liverpool", covered by The Bangles, and, in 1985, "Walking on Sunshine", which became the group's first and biggest hit. In 1997, Katrina and the Waves won the Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom with the Rew composition "Love Shine a Light". In 1999, Katrina began her solo career. Rew continued to write, record and release solo albums. From 1988 through to 2004, Rew was a guest member with the Cambridge band The Lonely. He played on four albums, Underground, Rarer Gifts and Live. The Soft Boys reconvened from 2001 to 2003. Celine Dion recorded the Rew composition "That's Just the Woman in Me" in 2007. In the 1990s and 2000s, Rew completed a project to walk or cycle the coast of England and Wales and another to walk or cycle all of their navigable waterways. Rew can currently be heard with the Cambridge band Jack, and with Kim and Lee, both of the above with his wife and musical partner Lee Cave-Berry.
