Tan Tan -- Happy Day（ハッピー・デイ）

 

Last night, after getting my five articles up on KKP, I went on one of my occasional browsings through the Internet which included the website "Tamaranaku J-AOR Kayo"（たまらなくAOR歌謡）, and somehow I discovered this compilation album titled "Akasaka Soul Funk...10 Masterpieces of Japanese Soul Funk 1969-1977". The psychedelic cover grabbed my eyes but I had to admit that I wasn't quite sure how soul and funk would associate itself with one of Tokyo's toniest districts. When I think of Akasaka, I almost always envision Mood Kayo groups, not R&B guys, but that's just me.

One of the tracks on "Akasaka Soul Funk" is "Happy Day" by Tan Tan. Now, she's one of the personae that the late Taeko Morino（森野多恵子）, one of the members of the Group Sounds band The White Kicks, had taken on in the 1970s and perhaps the early 1980s, had taken on. Afterwards, she became Harumi Ohzora（大空はるみ）, techno jazz diva. As Tan Tan though, I first got to know her for City Pop efforts such as "Bring Me Your Broken Heart" in 1978.

But with "Happy Day", which was originally the final track on her April 1973 debut album "Ai wa Omokage no Naka ni"（愛は面影の中に...Love is in the Shadows） under the name of Tan Tan, this wasn't a City Pop number at all. Instead, as advertised on "Akasaka Soul Funk", it's indeed a rabid soul funk kayo kyoku whose lyrics were provided by Yuko Shimazu（島津ゆうこ）. The interesting thing is that the composer was Koichi Morita（森田公一）and there's something about the intro that reminded me of his famous hit "Seishun Jidai"（青春時代）; for one thing "Seishun Jidai" came out a few years later in August 1976, so perhaps that intro riff made its first appearance in "Happy Day".