Etsuko Yamakawa -- Do Yah!

 

Back on Wednesday, I wrote up an article based on the late Hiroshi Narumi's （鳴海寛）"Ame Agari"（雨あがり）and since I will always think of him and singer-songwriter (almost always the latter) Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）as the City Pop duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）, I decided to whimsically throw her name into the YouTube search engine to see if she might have popped up with anything on her own. After all, in Part 4 of that translation that I did of the liner notes for Tohoku Shinkansen's one-and-only "Thru Traffic" (1982) last year, it was noted that Yamakawa hadn't been too fond of being front and centre behind the mike.

Well, I actually hit an unexpected Bingo when I put her name into the search engine. In July 2024, she released a digital single called "Do Yah!" with her behind the melody with veteran Goro Matsui（松井五郎）behind the lyrics. Perhaps time and circumstances mellowed her out on the old unwillingness to sing out on her own. In any case, she sounds great in a cute and kittenish way while handling her own tune which is reminiscent of late 80s-early 90s Bubble Era City Pop with some of that funk intertwined in there. Plus, there are some nice subtle harmonies in the background. For me, "Do Yah!" is Oh Yeah! Nice to hear her behind the mike again after 42 years.