Hiroshi Kamayatsu -- Island Girl

 

I was watching an "Uta Con"（うたコン）episode earlier tonight that I had PVR'ed a couple of weeks ago. There was a congenial theme of cover songs that night, and two of the folks guesting were veteran singer Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）and comedian Tomomitsu Yamaguchi（山口智充）. They performed a duet version of The Spiders' classic "Bang Bang Bang"（バン　バン　バン）which may still be an oldies favourite at karaoke.

The Spiders' guitarist Hiroshi "Monsieur" Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）was responsible for the dynamic melody behind "Bang Bang Bang" when it came out in the late 1960s. Who knew that approximately a decade later he would be into the light and mellow music for a while? His ninth studio album (and his fourth under the TRIO label), "Pineapple no Yukue e"（パイナップルの彼方へ...Up in the Pineapple）, came out in 1979 and apparently it was his third album in a row that was following the AOR line. Sure enough, the cover of "Pineapple no Yukue e" pretty much screams AOR.

One track in there is the very amiable "Island Girl", a happy-go-lucky tune of that genre with an underpinning of showtime jazz. The overall cheerful effect is similar to the one gotten from Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）classic "Yokogao"（横顔）from her 1978 album "Mignonne". Fujihiko Shimada（嶋田富士彦）was behind the lyrics to accompany Monsieur's melody. Not a bad way to end a Sunday.