Ruiko Kurahashi -- Main Course

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/main-course/id720341630

(excerpts only)

"Main Course", Ruiko Kurahashi's（倉橋ルイ子） 12th album released in March 1986, was the first album that I'd bought by this lovely balladeer at that Chinatown record shop a few decades ago. Her previous albums were known mostly for her lilting adult contemporary songs, but this album had Kurahashi going for a little more of the European sophisticated pop and jazz. In a way, she was following a bit along the lines of Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子） in the 1980s.

The first track is "Koi Hitosuji ni"（恋ひとすじに....Eng. title: I Give My Love to You) which is a ballad of sophisticated pop written by Yu Aku （阿久悠）and composed by Tom Coster, an American keyboardist. Listening to this, you just kinda get this French ennui and champagne feeling.

Track 4 is the torch song "Gas Tou"(ガス燈....Gaslight) which has Ruiko in full jazz mode, complete with shimmering strings, horns and a bluesy sax solo by regular session musician Jake H. Concepcion. Melodically, there are some resemblances to Frank Sinatra's "I'm A Fool To Love You". For me, this is my favourite song on the album. I don't drink, but whenever I hear this, I just want to get a whiskey on the rocks. Akira Ohtsu and Kingo Hamada（大津あきら・濱田金吾）were behind the creation of this classic.

The 2nd last track of the album is "The Best In My Life", written by Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）, who wrote a lot of Anri's（杏里） songs. The composer Katsuo Ono（大野克夫） and arranger Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）definitely made this to be the Whitney Houston entry of the album. It has that soft beginning and ending bracketing an epic soaring climax that has characterized a Whitney ballad. The video above has Kurahashi performing at Nakano Sun Plaza, Tokyo in 2009.

I like to dedicate this album to a fellow Ruiko fan on the Mixi SNS in Japan, C.C. Baxter (yes, named after the beloved Jack Lemmon character in "The Apartment"), on his birthday today. He was very generous a few years ago by providing me with a couple of her increasingly rare CDs, one of which was her debut album, "Without Sugar".