I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Near the end of last month, commenter Francois informed me of a Linda Yamamoto（山本リンダ）song that I hadn't heard before titled "Crazy Baby", so I decided to investigate.
"Crazy Baby" is actually the B-side to Yamamoto's 37th single from February 1978, "Minato no Soul" (Harbour Soul) and just seeing the title had me intrigued enough to tackle this one first. And yup, it's certainly got that strutting soul as the chorus pipes up like horns on a ship as they rattle off some of the major ports around Japan such as Yokohama. This was written by Akira Ito（伊藤アキラ）and composed/arranged by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, no slouch when it comes to the City Pop department. Some nice horns come in near the end as well.
The disco continues with "Crazy Baby" and once again, it was the team of Ito and Hayashi behind this B-side which is a little peppier than "Minato no Soul". Francois and I also noted the sexy and soft kittenish vocals by Yamamoto for both songs compared to the Charo-like voice on her classic "Nerai Uchi"（狙いうち）from a few years earlier. But then again, I think Yamamoto did something similar for her debut single"Kommachauna"（こまっちゃうナ）although not as softly.
Back on Monday, when I wrote up the piece on Hachiro Izawa's（井沢八郎）"Otokogasa"（男傘）, I made mention of the observation that there was a pounding on the piano keys in that kayo kyoku which reminded me of one of the earliest and most memorable television theme songs that I'd ever heard. I also stated that I would cover this today as this week's Reminiscings of Youth entry.
Well, here it is. Actually, this should be called a Reminiscings of Baby entry because when I was born, "Perry Mason" (1957-1966) was in its final season but of course, even back then in the age of black-and-white TV sets, there were the reruns so I got to hear the dramatic theme song over and over again. Perhaps my parents were into the legal series although I couldn't imagine that they could understand what was going on in Perry's courtroom.
The theme song for "Perry Mason" by Fred Steiner turned up a lot of interesting tidbits...kinda like a typical episode of the show itself. For one thing, it's one of the few times that I've encountered a TV theme song that actually had a proper title and not just the "The Theme from (blank)". It was called "Park Avenue Beat" and a fellow Blogger blog "Ill Folks" gave its own story on the theme back in 2013 so have a look at that one.
Another good point about the theme was that it mixed the saucy R&B/jazz of the streets where a lot of the sordidness that Perry and his staff had to wade through existed with the elegant symphonic strings of the high life of fancy restaurants and dance halls which Perry also inhabited. I also think that "Park Avenue Beat" melodically traced the usual episode of "Perry Mason": it starts with an ominous trill and crash which could reflect a violent crime being committed and then it goes into the jazzy symphony as the burly Raymond Burr as Perry comes into the picture and investigates the heck out of the case before winning it by the end. Considering that glowering expression and his linebacker appearance (albeit decked out in one fine suit), I was surprised that I never saw Mason use his fists and that it was his mind and voice that he used as weapons.
We're talking about 1957 here today. What were the hits of that year?
I used to hear this a fair bit in English classes and anime: "I wish I were a bird". Probably one of the great things to introduce students to the Second Conditional.
This song reminded me of that. I had no idea about this aidoru group Love Wings（ラブ・ウイングス）which has been referred to as the Kansai version of famed trio Candies（キャンディーズ）. I haven't been able to find out when this group, which incidentally started out as Love Winks before the slight tweak in one of its final morphemes, started up, but "Fly Like a Bird", the song of note here, was the B-side to Love Wings' fifth single"Happy Jumping Roller"（ハッピー・ジャンピング・ローラー）from November 1979. So, perhaps they'd been around since 1978 at least.
Looking at the cover of the single, I wonder whether Love Wings performed in front of the TV cameras and audiences on roller skates as Hikaru Genji（光GENJI）would several years afterwards. But getting back to "Fly Like a Bird", the ladies whose names I have yet to discover sound just like Candies and the song is a very congenial tune written by Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）and composed by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）, so that I could imagine Ran, Su and Miki tackling this one, although by the time this particular single came out, the Candies had already broken up.
I have to admit that I only found out about this song just earlier today. But as soon as I saw the title "Spy Dai Sakusen" which is the official Japanese title for the original American TV series "Mission Impossible", I knew that I had to investigate, since I remain a big fan of its first few seasons in the 1960s.
For one thing, what was I going to hear in Reiko Kato's（かとうれいこ）"Spy Dai Sakusen"? A moody City Pop tune or a really jazzy number along the themes for James Bond? Neither as it turns out. First off, "Spy Dai Sakusen" is a track on Kato's January 1995 album "Reiko" and it was created by lyricist Masami Tozawa（戸沢暢美）, composer Mayumi Horikawa（堀川まゆみ）and arranger Yuji Toriyama（鳥山雄司）. It actually sounds like an upbeat whimsical pop song which probably has so-called "combatants" in the spy adventure of love.
In Kato's J-Wikiarticle, there is indeed a note about this particular song and that the songwriters were all well aware of the title's significance but that's about it. As it is, Kato's "Spy Dai Sakusen" sounds as if it could have made for a theme song for a show of a totally different stripe instead of Bruce Geller's iconic series of adventure and intrigue.
When I was thinking up the article for this song, I was reminded of one of the more hilarious scenes from the anime "Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai"（中二病でも恋がしたい）when Yuuta happened to remember how he had confessed his love to one girl through the deathless line "Love you forever...". Yup, he had every right to give himself a massive concussion for remembering that one.
But to the topic at hand. Commenter Jim Laker added a recommendation to my article "Midori Songs" in which I commemorated Greenery Day during Japan's Golden Week holidays by providing a few songs by singers whose given names were Midori. Well, I was given another Midori...actress, singer and TV personality Midori Utsumi（うつみ宮土理）who I used to see quite regularly on her own shows as well as a guest on other programs. She's in one KKP entry via a duet with her husband, the late Kin'ya Aikawa （愛川欽也）, for the 1978 novelty tune "Man Man March"（マン・マン・マーチ）.
Although Utsumi's J-Wikiarticle doesn't give the occupation of singer to her...just tarento and actress, she did release a number of singles over the decades, and to be honest, she has a pretty nice voice. Anyways, Jim told me about one of her singles which came out in 1977 (it was just before "Man Man March"), and in fact, it was her debut single"Omoidasanaide"(Don't Remember Me). A bittersweet kayo ballad arranged by Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）, the lyrics related a plaintive request about not remembering a past romance since the breakup still hurts like heck. There's something about the song as well that reminds me of Toi et Moi's"Dare mo Inai Umi"(誰もいない海）.
Now, the song was written and composed by Daisaburo Nakayama（中山大三郎）and Utsumi's first foray into recording music was actually a cover of the original by Keiko Shimazaki（島崎恵子）who has no information on J-Wiki or elsewhere, it seems. However, her 1973 single"Omoidasanaide" has an even richer arrangement which has me thinking some of the folk-pop balladry from the United States at the time.
Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎良美）also recorded her own contemporary cover of "Omoidasanaide" as her 29th single in September 1982 with Nozomi Aoki（青木望）acting as arranger (No. 18 ranking). There's not much to say here except that it's another typically wonderful example of Iwasaki balladry. The interesting thing is that the song had been recorded some years earlier when it was included as a track in Iwasaki's March 1979 album of cover songs "Koibito-tachi"（恋人たち...The Lovers） which peaked at No. 14 on Oricon.
I've heard of the manga "What's Michael?" before and apparently it deals with the adventures of a rather unique portly cat whose name is not Garfield. But that's pretty much all of it. I only heard recently that there was even an anime done between 1988 and 1989.
Aidoru and tarento Mami Yamase（山瀬まみ）was given the assignment to sing the two sets of opening and ending themes for "What's Michael?". The first of these songs that I encountered was the first ending theme "Hoshizora no Etranger"(Starry Sky Stranger) that was written by Ben Uozumi（魚住勉）and composed/arranged by Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）. Having a happy Eurobeat approach, Yamase once again shows that her singing voice is just delightful and very different from the somewhat strangulated spoken voice she used on screen for most of her time on television.
"Hoshizora no Etranger" was released as Yamase's 8th single in May 1988. On the B-side was the first opening theme for the anime, "Michael Ondo"(The Michael Folk Song) which was created by Uozumi and Makaino once again. Given a contemporized and especially playful version of a Japanese folk song arrangement, Yamase demonstrates a mixture of her singing voice and that spoken voice (or a lighter version of it).
Perhaps it's a bit early in the week to bring in the dance stuff but hey, it's trf. Still have quite the nostalgia for them after first hearing about them just a little before I headed for Japan for my second tour of duty as an English teacher.
Of course, there were their heyday in the mid-1990s with big hits like"Boy Meets Girl" and then their contribution to the 1998 Nagano Olympics, "UNITE! THE NIGHT!", brought them back to the charts. But there are probably some trf songs in between that I most likely didn't give my full attention to. For example, the title "Hey! Ladies & Gentlemen" rings a bell but I can't say that I could remember the song off the top of my head.
Released in June 1996 as the group's 14th single, this was another one of Tetsuya Komuro's（小室哲哉）creations. It's got some of that House beat in there although for some of that other techno stuff in the arrangement, I'll probably need YMOfan04's or Marcos' wisdom in terms of categorization. Within all that synthesized rumbling, there is a story about sweaty bodies being invited for some fusion on the dance floor. Hey, it's the 1990s! "Hey! Ladies & Gentlemen" peaked at No. 4 on Oricon and it went Platinum. As for an album, it appears on the January 1998 album "WORKS -THE BEST OF TRF-" which was at No. 1 for a couple of straight weeks and eventually became the 25th-ranked album for the year. It also became the campaign song for Tokyo Beauty Centre.
