Masako Mori -- Okaasan（おかあさん）

Happy Mother's Day to everyone. Along with having dinner for the whole family last weekend for my mother, I took my parents out for some breakfast in honour of the day. Kinda gloomy out there, though, unfortunately. It would seem that a warm spring may simply not be in the cards for us here this year.

Anyways, again in honour of Mother's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to put up the appropriate kayo, and what wouldn't be more appropriate than "Okaasan" (Mother) by 70s aidoru Masako Mori（森昌子）? In fact, I'm surprised that I hadn't put it up any time in the last 7 years of this blog.

Somewhat reminiscent of her big debut hit, "Sensei"（せんせい）from 1972, Mori gives a truly sweet and loving tribute to Mom in "Okaasan", her 10th single from September 1974, but with the accompaniment of some pretty bossy brass and percussion. Perhaps not surprising is that composer Minoru Endo（遠藤実）was behind both songs.

I couldn't lock down the proper way to say the lyricist's name so I will take a wild guess at Kaoru Kanzaka（神坂薫）; both first and family names have various ways of being pronounced. So if anyone can set me straight, please let me know. In any case, "Okaasan" reached No. 21 on Oricon and Mori was able to appear on the Kohaku Utagassen for the second straight year to perform it. "Sensei" had been her first ticket onto the NHK special the previous year.