Tokyo Happy Coats -- Forevermore

 

I only found out about this group through a tweet mourning the passing of one of its members. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one but the Tokyo Happy Coats（トーキョー・ハッピー・コーツ）apparently was a sister act of the Hakomori family consisting of Eiko, Keiko, Shouko, Tomiko and Ruriko. Trying to look them up online, a number of the articles on these ladies state first and foremost that there isn't a whole lot of information on them although writers such as Sayo Sakamoto（坂元小夜）do their level best.

And in fact, the writing has it that the Tokyo Happy Coats weren't all that well known in Japan, mostly becoming famous throughout the United States through concert tours and perhaps the odd TV appearance such as on "The Ed Sullivan Show". Their time was in the late 1960s going into the early 1970s at least as they covered the hits including jazz tunes and even the old kayo kyoku in English.

One song that I found on YouTube that got my memory engrams buzzing immediately was "Forevermore" from 1970. The reason was that it is a cover of Yuzo Kayama's（加山雄三）evergreen "Kimi to Itsumademo"（君といつまでも）from 1965 as done as a gentle guitar ballad with plenty of heartful harmonies.