Hiromi Go -- Oyome Samba （お嫁サンバ）

The boy becomes a man. Well, at least from the first Go entry to this one. In any case, "Oyome Samba"(The Bride Samba) was the very first time I'd ever heard or seen Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）. Of course, as with many of my first songs and singers in kayo kyoku, I saw Hiromi on the 1981 Kohaku. He was all dressed up like a dandy just making out like a Rio hipster (pun intended). Although I couldn't find anything on YouTube from that particular performance, I can say that he was one of the highlights of the show judging from the audience reaction. It's a rousing tune.

"Oyome Samba" was Go's 38th single, and a track on his 17th album, "Plastic Generation". Both were released on May 1, 1981. The song itself managed to peak at No. 6 on the Oricon weeklies and sold about 250,000 copies. It was written by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）, who had also written Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子） "Aoi Sangosho"（青い珊瑚礁）a year earlier, and would later write Anri's （杏里）"Cat's Eye".

As I said, I couldn't get his performance on the Kohaku of that year, but I got something just as good. His performance was truncated, but it was on an episode of "The Best 10", the popular music rankings show that ran from 1978-1989 on the Tokyo Broadcasting System. It gained its popularity just as much from its 2 hosts, the hyperactive Tetsuko Kuroyanagi（黒柳徹子） and Hiroshi Kume（久米宏）, as it did from its weekly guests.

Along with Go, The Chanels and Kenji Sawada（沢田研二） also appeared. All that consternation before Go's performance was about celebrating Sawada's 33rd birthday.

(March 5 2013....well, whaddaya know....found the Kohaku version)