Mebae Miyahara -- Omocha no Machi ni Samayotte（オモチャの街をさまよって）

Miki Yoshihito via Wikimedia Commons

 

Approaching the summer solstice, we only have a few days left of increasing sunlight time so let's make some good use of that by going out with buddies onto the patio for some drinks in the evening, although I'm well aware that the decrease of daylight time will be quite slow into the summer months.

Regardless, let's finish Urban Contemporary Friday on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with a nice and refreshing tune by singer-songwriter Mebae Miyahara（宮原芽映）. She's been known for some eclectic material in the City Pop and pop veins, but this one has got that traveling-to-unknown-climes vibe. "Omocha no Machi ni Samayotte" (Wandering Through Toy Town) is a rather unusual title for this one. One would think that this would have more to do with Christmas, but actually, it's the name for a pretty stylish bossa jazz tune with accordion and saxophone in the mix. Again, cocktail time!🍹

"Omocha no Machi ni Samayotte" is a track on Miyahara's September 1987 third album "Mariposa". It was written by the singer with Kazutaka or Ichitaka Nishida（西田一隆）and Masaaki Kondo（近藤正明） behind the Latin melody.

Toshiki Kadomatsu -- Beams

 

I should remember that summer is just around the corner...in a couple of days as of this writing. Well, gotta think of some appropriate songs especially when we have Fridays like these on the blog.

Anyways, I was listening to the "Beams" CD within the "Light Mellow" series of albums as curated by Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）last night for the first time in a while. Strangely enough, I realized that for the number of tracks from "Beams" that I've featured on KKP such as Sonia Rosa's（ソニア・ローザ）"Tokyo in the Blue"（東京イン・ザ・ブルー）and Kenichi Fujimoto's（藤本健一）"Asa no Wakare"（朝の別れ）, I hadn't brought Toshiki Kadomatsu's（角松敏生）"Beams" onto the blog, and that was the first track and title track for this "Light Mellow" CD.

Originally from Kadomatsu's 15th studio album from August 2003, "Summer 4 Rhythm", "Beams" sounds timeless. I mean that I couldn't believe that it was actually from the 21st century. I'd thought it was right from one of his 80s albums. The song is ethereal, fun and summery. It's like undergoing a tribal experience under the sun at high noon on a pure white beach after which frolicking in the ocean is mandatory. "Summer 4 Rhythm" was probably a tribal experience for many who bought the album since it hit No. 9 on Oricon.

Kazushi Inamura and Dai Ikkan Dai Hyakusho -- Koi wo Suru Nara（恋をするなら）

 

I take a look at the band Kazushi Inamura and Dai Ikkan Dai Hyakusho's（稲村一志と第一巻第百章）album cover for their 1977 sophomore "Free Flight", and it looks like the guys were taking an overnight drive in their native Hokkaido. And yet, the song that comes from the album is plenty sunny and summery.

"Koi wo Suru Nara" (If You Fall in Love), written and composed by the late Inamura, feels like there was some inspiration from Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）sound back around the same time, and it's about falling in love (or lust) in the big city. The arrangement of keyboards, percussion and guitars makes the song a classic-sounding 1970s City Pop tune. So, perhaps the image of being stuck out on a lonely dark Hokkaido road with a malfunctioning car ought to be replaced by one of a smoothly thrumming red convertible racing out on the highway to Hakone. You can also give another track on "Free Flight" a try: "Ni-gatsu no Nioi"（二月の匂い）.

Haruko Kuwana -- Biyaku '85（媚薬 '85）

 

I was trying to categorize this Haruko Kuwana（桑名晴子）song since it's some years removed from her peak City Pop days. Well, when I put it through the "What's My Genre?" wringer (Sonoteller is always busy), I got the following:

Synthpop (53%)

J-Pop (40%)

Blues, Funk, Alternative / Indie R&B (22%)

Funk (19%)

New wave (16%)

I'm talking about Kuwana's track, "Biyaku '85" (Aphrodisiac '85) from her June 1985 album "Don't You Know". The above genres are quite the heady mix which I guess would fit for a song with a title like that. Perhaps like the more famous "Love Potion No. 9", the aphrodisiac for 1985 has quite the mélange of spices and herbs and all that. But I'll just go with my Labels of Pop and J-R&B and if anyone can provide a more pinpoint version of that latter genre, I'd be grateful. In any case, it is quite heady and Kuwana's vocals are quite panther-y and slick. Yoshinobu Kojima（小島良喜）and Kyohei Sakayaki（月代京兵）were the composer and lyricist respectively.

Reiko Kato -- Feel Me

 

It's been a happy 24 hours all around here for Canada. Not only did the Blue Jays sweep a series from the Boston Red Sox, but Team Canada managed to thump the Qatari team in the World Cup last night. Not a bad day for sports.

Let us begin Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP then with a song that perhaps straddles the line between regular pop and City Pop (and yes, I do consider City Pop going beyond the 1990s) in my estimation. I only discovered "Feel Me", Reiko Kato's（かとうれいこ）penultimate single from July 1997, just in the last few months and why I think that the song can have at least one foot in the urban contemporary of it all is that its underlying rhythm feels like something that I've heard within the sophisticated pop of bands such as Swingout Sister. Words and music were supplied by the late singer-songwriter Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）who seems to have a lock on some atmospheric arrangements when it comes to his creations including this tune and his own "Rain Dolphin" from a few years back. He was also the man behind the classic duet "Shibuya de Go-ji" (渋谷で5時）.

Azymuth -- Fly Over the Horizon

 

Usually I would have the weekly Reminiscings of Youth song today but I've decided to give that a break just for this time. The reason goes all the way back to a year ago when I posted my "If I Had an All-Night Radio Show..." article, just to show off my fantasy of hosting such a program with a mix of Quiet Storm and calmer City Pop ballads.

Well, in the last few days, I discovered that along with many a radio station everywhere, NHK-FM in Japan had the type of show I would covet. It was called "Crossover Eleven"（クロスオーバーイレブン）and it had its run between November 1978 and March 2001 on most nights between 11 pm and midnight. I've only been able to find a couple of broadcasts but it seems as if "Crossover Eleven" played a lot of non-Japanese fusion and R&B although the programmers were open to what was also trendy over the years such as New Wave. There was a host with that late-night DJ voice doing the introductions and any soothing narration to lull listeners into a restful condition.

For most of its run, "Crossover Eleven" had an opening theme which was quite cool and calming. "Fly Over the Horizon" or as it was known in Brazil, "Vôo Sobre O Horizonte", was recorded by the Brazilian jazz-funk band Azymuth that had first formed in 1973. It's a song that probably put listeners in the proper frame of mind for what was to come. "Fly Over the Horizon" was also a track on Azymuth's 1979 album "Light as a Feather".

If there were a late-night voice I would to emulate, it would be the one belonging to host John Van Driel. And the wonderful thing is that he's Canadian!

The Puppies -- Suki na Hito（好きな人）

 

Hey, KKP fans! How about taking a look at these puppies? OK...maybe slightly inappropriate but honestly speaking, the good folks at The Pet Collective have amassed this footage of the cutest puppies on Earth. Please enjoy the little ones as I use them as a segue to this song.

Commenter YMOfan04 showed me a number of these videos highlighting Japanese acts from the 1960s that I had never heard about. It made me realize how big the musical pyramids were when it came to the numbers of aidoru or Group Sounds or regular pop singers went in and out the revolving door of the music industry with 90% of them probably staying unknown or barely known while perhaps the top 1% at the peak became the iconic superstars.

One of these acts were called, strangely enough, The Puppies（ザ・パピーズ）. They don't have a J-Wiki entry so I had to do a bit of digging, and at one site, I found out that the duo was a sister act consisting of Nana（吉川ナナ）and Mimi Yoshikawa（吉川ミミ）. Maybe the powers-that-be were going for a similar Peanuts（ザ・ピーナッツ）vibe. Information is still hard to come by but at another site run by Chinpei, I also discovered that in 1968, The Puppies were latched onto a Group Sounds quartet called The Moondogs（ザ・ムーンドッグス）to release one single titled "Ai ga Subete"（愛がすべて...Love is Everything）. Chinpei wondered whether this had been a bit of a desperation move to get their joint careers on the move.

Well, most likely it didn't take since the following year in 1969, The Puppies were back on their own when they released what has been called their second debut single "Aishite Horo Horo"（愛してほろほろ...So In Love）. But I'm focusing today on the B-side of this single "Suki na Hito" (The Man I Love). It is a sweet kayo kyoku ballad with the popular harmonica, jangling guitar and backing orchestra supporting the lovely voices of the Yoshikawa sisters. One notable thing is that this rather short song was created by some big wigs: lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Takashi Miki（三木たかし）. However, Chinpei notes that soon after this release, The Puppies faded from view.