The Spiders were formed all the way back in 1961 by leader Shouchi Tanabe（田邊召知） as a band playing lounge music and providing backup for other singers until with some membership changes and the rise of Beatlemania around the world in the mid-60s, they became a popular Group Sounds band for the remaining half of their time. The Spiders were also known for having a bit of a comical touch due to the core members of Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）, Masaaki Sakai（堺正章）and Jun Inoue（井上順）. All three are still very much seen on Japanese TV today as tarento (TV personalities) or actors. In fact, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the younger generations are barely aware of these familiar faces ever having been in the music business.
The band's biggest hit was "Yuuhi ga Naiteiru"(Sad Sunset) which sold 1.2 million records after its release in September 1966. It was written and composed by Kuranosuke Hamaguchi（浜口庫之助）. The video from their 60s performance is interesting to see....these guys in dapper suits playing something approaching moody psychedelic music. The lead singer is Sakai. For an old Japanese TV watcher like me, it was a revelation seeing him sing seriously considering that I used to watch him late night on Saturdays hosting a cooking show on TBS in his typically comically Chaplinesque style.
hi , would you happen to know a song titled in English ,The Sun Also Rises ? sorry I don't know or recall it in Japanese, but it's around same time period,
ReplyDeletethanks
tony b,
Hi, tony, and thanks for asking.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find anything under the English title of "The Sun Also Rises", but I checked some of the other Group Sounds bands for any songs with the word "Sun" or its Japanese equivalent, "Taiyo" in their titles.
Strangely enough, The Spiders did release the song, "Taiyo no Tsubasa", translated directly as "Wings of the Sun" in 1967. You can check it out on YouTube and see if this is the song you're looking for:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS7fU2Djb5c
Hope this is the one for you.