I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
We're coming up to the end of another KKP day so let's go with something especially light and mellow. It seems as if over the last year, whenever I've posted an article on singer-songwriter Jin Kirigaya（桐ヶ谷仁）, it's to mention him in a Yutaka Kimura Speaks item such as No. 36 on that list.
So, let's wrap things up with an article specifically attuned to him, shall we? There is his track "Shizuka da ne" (You're Quiet) from his 1983 album"Jin". Written and composed by Kirigaya, it gives off an appropriately whispery-soft atmosphere as a man reminisces a past relationship fondly if somewhat sadly. As the song progresses, the arrangement and volume get a little higher including a feverish flute, perhaps signifying the guy getting deeper and deeper into his remembrances (maybe it's a bit of "Inception"). It definitely has that late summer/early fall vibe.
Although I don't own Kimiko Kasai's（笠井紀美子）album"Kimiko" from 1982, I've got a feeling from the couple of tracks that I've heard so far that for 80s jazz/fusion/soul fans who are just dipping their toes into the City Pop pool in Japan, this may be the perfect album. Case in point: the subject of this article, "I Wish That Love Would Last".
Created by Allee Willis and David Lasley, this song is so mellow, creamy and groovy that melted caramel would turn green with envy (and I really would avoid green caramel). "I Wish That Love Would Last" sounds perfect for radio airplay since I think it possesses those qualities which can place it within the areas of Quiet Storm and slow jams (which might be the same thing, but please correct me). Along with Kasai's caressing vocals, there are some pretty big names in the studio including Randy Waldman on the keyboards, Jimmy Johnson on bass and Paul Jackson Jr. on the guitar.
The other track on "Kimiko" that I was referring to is "The Right Place" which begins the album. That one is more uptempo and has me thinking George Benson and the Manhattan Transfer.
The first time that I heard of "Pillow Talk", it was as the title of an old movie starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. It wasn't until later that I finally got the meaning of the phrase (chat which accompanies that cigarette for the afterglow), and I thought it was rather ironic that a 1959 flick with that title starred someone like Doris Day, although after watching the trailer, there were a few expressions that probably had audiences and PTAs go like this:
Anyways, I have a less torrid "Pillow Talk" which was recorded by singer-songwriter Kengo Kurozumi（黒住憲五）as the B-side for his June 1989 single"Hachi-gatsu no Angel"（八月のAngel...August Angel）. It was also the title track for his 5th album that came out in the same month as the single. Written by Yoshiko（与詞子）and composed by Kurozumi, it's a laidback mid-tempo tune for summer relaxation and cocktail imbibing. It also contains a pleasant gospel-like backup chorus and aside from a fusion rock instrumental bridge, "Pillow Talk" retains that nice AOR edge. Plus the keyboards have that sound that I've always enjoyed from the late 1980s going into the early 1990s for some light pop.
The above shot was taken on June 24th 2011 as I was walking in the Daimon neighbourhood of Tokyo. Don't quite remember how it felt although I know I walked a long while but the fact that I was even able to do two straight hours meant that it wasn't all that hot that one summer night. Right now, I believe the megalopolis is going through its usual steamy bath days and nights.😵
Long time no see, Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子）. Good to meet you again. For all of us, I have "Summer Night", a song written and composed by the singer with Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）handling the arranging duties. A breezy City Pop tune with a touch of that disco in the beat rather than the strings which sound more romantic, the whole thing sounds like something of intrigue. It's as if Watanabe and Funayama had been assigned to create metropolitan music as a theme song for a detective program but got rejected at the last moment.
"Summer Night" was the B-side to Watanabe's 8th single,"Hold Me Tight", which was released in May 1980. Both songs ended up on her 5th studio album from August of that year, "Libra". I would think that the nights in that month were typically torrid.
Within this greatly acclaimed album, these two tracks really stand out: "Suna no Onna"（砂の女）and "Binetsu Shonen"(Feverish Boy). On top of that, "Binetsu no Shonen", which incidentally was used as titles for a novel and a movie, has become emblematic of a boy living in a city of change, so the combination of Takashi Matsumoto's（松本隆）sense of revealing this boy wrestling with fever (...the tram is floating away/off to the galaxy...) and Suzuki's（鈴木茂）own hot and feverish sliding guitar play also invites us to head off to the galaxy.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised"(2020).
Hello, J-Canuck here. I usually end the Urban Contemporary Friday with Yutaka Kimura Speaks but today I've chosen to actually start with it today since I might be distracted by the Opening Ceremonies of the Paris Games in a few hours.
Looks like I've encountered another instance of a song on the Yutaka Kimura list that had yet to be covered by me or any of the other writers on KKP. So, allow me my comments here along with Yutaka's. Well, I gotta say that there is a goodly amount of funk and Steely Dan especially with Suzuki with that aforementioned sliding technique on his guitar. For a kid who's wrangling with a high temperature, I'm wondering whether he's actually come down with a disease or he's in thrall to the big city or someone special in his life.
Incidentally, that November 1985 novel that Kimura mentions in his review originated from an original essay penned by Matsumoto in January 1975. The movie adaptation would come out in June 1987.
Ah...one more by-the-way here, but this is Article No. 11,000 for the blog!
Earlier today, when I was writing up the article for "Minuet"（メヌエット）by Chika Ueda（上田知華） + Karyobin, I also noted that Ueda herself had performed the song on a 1978 episode of a relatively long-running TBS drama called "Sannan Sanjo Muko Ippiki"（三男三女婿一匹...Three Sons, Three Daughters and One Son-In-Law） starring thespian Hisaya Morishige（森繫久彌）. Well, seeing out of curiosity that "Minuet" hadn't been used as the theme song for the show, I decided to see what was used.
For the second season (in each of the three seasons, different songs were utilized), the opening theme was singer-songwriter Koji Kobayashi's（小林幸司）1978 single"Tokyo no Yane" (The Roof Over Tokyo). Composed by Yasuo Higuchi（樋口康雄）, the music strikes me as being a tune describing a new optimistic morning coming to greet Japan's capital city. It has elements of folk and rock so it was rather easy for me to place it into the New Music category (and there's even a part of it which had me thinking of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer"). The star of "Sannan Sanjo Muko Ippiki" himself, Morishige, provided the lyrics which also describe the wonder and good vibes of waking up in one of the largest cities on the planet.
As for Kobayashi himself, there are some videos of his music up on YouTube but there isn't much of a profile on the man. The blog where I found out about the songwriters behind "Tokyo no Yane" only noted his husky yet high-tone vocals, although I have to admit that his voice does indeed remind me of the voice of later pop star Hideaki Tokunaga（徳永英明）. The only other information that I could get on him was that he was briefly a vocalist in 1980 for the duo Buzz（バズ）which had come up with the big hit of 1973, "Ken to Mary ~ Ai to Kaze no yo ni"(ケンとメリー〜愛と風のように〜) .
Not sure if Kayo Grace and Mr. Calico have quite mastered the minuet but they're certainly giving it the college try.
I was listening to some of the discography of the late singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）the other night, and realized that the last time I wrote about her and her group of string musicians KARYOBIN was over a year ago when I posted "Avenue"（アヴェニュー）from their December 1981 album"Miss Heart". Ueda and KARYOBIN were one of the prime examples of Fashion Music in my honest opinion, and so I opted to go even further back to their very beginnings.
And indeed, their first single from August 1978 was the aptly-named "Minuet" after the French social dance of a few hundred years ago. Right from the beginning, Ueda really stood out for her vocal abilities while her piano and KARYOBIN bring out this lush sound that could have had listeners swaying in their chairs. Maybe some of them could have even tried the actual dance.
Once again, I have to admit to some uncertainty but this time, it has something to do with where "Minuet" was featured. The song wasn't used as the theme for the 1978 TBS drama"Sannan Sanjo Muko Ippiki"（三男三女婿一匹...Three Sons, Three Daughters and One Son-In-Law） that had a three-season run between 1976 and 1980 but it was performed by Ueda (and presumably KARYOBIN) in one episode in the second season. However, I'm not sure whether it was the appearance that sparked Ueda and KARYOBIN to launch their music career or the show had given them further opportunity to reveal themselves to the masses after already beginning their time together. The above video has a brief scene of "Sannan Sanjo Muko Ippiki" starring the veteran actor Hisaya Morishige（森繫久彌）but isn't the one that has Ueda singing "Minuet". Looking at the setting though, I think the song was a good match for the show.
