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.

Friday, July 6, 2018

Tomoko Soryo/Yasunori Soryo & Jim Rock Singers -- City Lights by the Moonlight


Well, the moonlight wasn't too bright over the city lights when I took this picture from Roppongi Hills, but the sentiment is there. It's time to introduce "City Lights by the Moonlight".


I've already introduced Tomoko Soryo(惣領智子)through her "I Say Who" with that Motown feeling. "City Lights by the Moonlight" is more of a straight-ahead nightclub-friendly City Pop number. I can hear the clinking cocktail glasses already. Written by Kuro & Kyozo and composed by her then-husband, composer-arranger Yasunori Soryo(惣領泰則), the song was released as a single in 1977 and there was even an album with the same title in that year.


In the same year, Yasunori Soryo formed his own group called Jim Rock Singers(ジム・ロック・シンガーズ)in which one of the members was singer-composer Hiroaki Serizawa(芹澤廣明), someone who also has a fair representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Together they put their own version of "City Lights by the Moonlight" onto their 1977 album "GOOD-BYE! GOOD-BYE! GOOD-BYE!".

For me, I like both versions but there is something even more interesting with the version of this song by Yasunori and Jim Rock with that echoing chorus and the added soprano saxophone. In a way, they rather add that appealingly nostalgic sepia tone to this photograph.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.