Rie Murakami -- TNT

Wikimedia Commons

 

(18:03)

Doing the blog for as long as I have, I've been able to encounter a lot of singers and bands that I never would have, and that includes the mysterious Rie Murakami（村上リエ）who only put out that one album in 1984, "Sahara". At the time I made my first posting for the singer, it was for one of its tracks, "Say Cheese", which had me reminisce about Boz Scaggs and Bobby Caldwell from their 1970s days. 

However, another track is the appropriately titled "TNT" which had the same lyricist, Linda Hennrick but this time, the composer was Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, and as dedicated KKP readers know, whenever I see her name, she has my undivided attention. And sure enough, this is one funky blaster. In fact, I think it so funky that it should have gotten a music video with plenty of choreography. The interesting thing about this one though is that it not only has some of that Dazz Band arrangement thanks to Masanori Sasaji（笹路正徳）but there are points where it approaches Manhattan Transfer-friendly fusion.

The above video was provided by Marty McFlies v2 (thank you for that, Marty) and I was struck by one comment he had in his explanation under the video. He mentioned that when he'd bought "Sahara", he hadn't been all that impressed with it and put it on the back burner for years. Years later, he gave it another shot and found it all so worthy. I could totally relate to that sentiment since I gave my first purchase of a Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）album the same initial short shrift and many years in my cabinet before giving it another shot for some reason and then finally seeing the light.