There was a running gag on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show". Whenever anyone complained about the summer temperatures in Los Angeles, Johnny would snidely say "But at least it's a dry heat".😎 We weren't even that lucky in the Tokyo area. Basically from June to late September, we were assaulted with heat and humidity. Many was a day that I woke up leaving a major J-Canuck-shaped sweat stain on my sheets. But I endured. How I endured.
Maybe singer-songwriter Yumi Murata（村田有美）was luckier than most and she ended up recording her 1983 album "Drywindasian" in Los Angeles with its dry heat. With lyrics by her and music by Masanori Sasaji（笹路正徳）, the opening track "Kanpoo" (Dry Wind) is quite the R&B stomp and the style is pretty reminiscent of some of Minako Yoshida's（吉田美奈子）material back around the same time. It's also got quite the funk in there so there will also be strutting among the stomping at the same time. Love the guitar and the horns, too.
An English version of "Kanpoo" was also made into the B-side for Murata's single "Pigtail" from the same year. For that version, Chris Mosdell provided the lyrics. According to Jisho.org, though, the proper reading for the kanji of the title is karakaze.
Happy that you highlighted this song. This is one of my favorites from the Pacific Breeze vol. 2 compilation album. Didn't even know there was an English version. Interesting that the production is slightly different and there was no attempt to try to translate the chorus into English, lol.
ReplyDeleteHi there. Glad that you enjoyed the song, too. I also have my copy of that "City Breeze" compilation which is why I had bookmarked "Kanpoo".
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