Hiromi Kanda -- Kanashimi Yohou （哀しみ予報）

(10:20)

Amazing where getting information for writing an article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" can take me. I was looking up the usual information about my last entry, Yoko Oginome's（荻野目洋子）debut single, "Mirai Koukai"（未来航海）and saw the name of the lyricist, Hiromi Kanda（神田広美）, and just on a whim, I decided to check if any of her songs were available on YouTube after seeing her own J-Wiki article.

Sure enough, I did hit pay dirt. This is "Kanashimi Yohou" (Melancholy Forecast), her 2nd single from May 1977, and I found it to be a very light and pleasant number which reminded me somewhat of the songs by another Hiromi...Hiromi Ohta（太田裕美）from around the same time. It has that sunny and summery feeling. Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）provided the lyrics and Yusuke Hoguchi（穂口雄右）was behind the nostalgic music. Hoguchi was also responsible for composing a number of Candies'（キャンディーズ）hits such as "Toshi Shita no Otoko no Ko"（年下男の子）. And on a personal note, Hoguchi and Kanda would later marry.

Kanda was born in 1956 in Kishiwada, Osaka (according to J-Wiki...her own website has her coming from Nagasaki), and first got into the music business through an audition for NTV's "Star Tanjo"（スター誕生...A Star is Born）. After winning the competition, she was signed to the Polydor label and debuted in January 1977 with "Hitomishiri"（人見知り...Shyness）. Up to 1980, she would release 6 singles and 1 album, but also got into the songwriting profession. Along with the Oginome debut, she wrote lyrics for Anri（杏里）and Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）.

In the past several years, though, Kanda and her husband have settled into life in Hawaii, and she's gotten full throttle into the jazz genre. Her first album in America was "Hiromi in Love" in 2010, and she has just released her sophomore album, "Days of Yesterday" back in September this year. Above is her performance of Cole Porter's classic "Night and Day".