Mother Goose -- Boekifu ni Sarasarete （貿易風にさらされて）

Toronto has been getting dumped with snow frequently this year, the United States has been getting far more than usual, and even Tokyo is perhaps getting a second wallop of the white stuff sometime today. I think for a lot of folks in these affected areas, winter can't get away soon enough.

Allow me to spread a little summer into your lives (you still remember that season, don't you?). I inputted "City Pop" into the YouTube search engine and tried this video containing this song titled "Boekifu ni Sarasarete" (Touched by the Trade Winds) by 70s group, Mother Goose（マザー・グース）. I had never heard of this band before, but I enjoyed the summery and appropriately breezy sensation of this song. It took me all the way to Margaritaville.

Mother Goose consisted of a trio of friends from Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture. In high school, Mayumi Kaneda（金田真由美）, Yumiko Kyoda（京田由美子） and Sachie Takada（高田幸枝） started singing together under the name of The Campus and performed at record shops and other venues within their hometown as an amateur group. After graduating from high school in June 1975, they released their debut single, "Indian Katie no Uta"（インディアン・ケイティの唄...The Song of Indian Katie） which started getting attention, with Sumio Akutagawa（芥川澄夫） of the now-disbanded band Toi et Moi becoming their first mentor through Toshiba-EMI. It was Akutagawa's idea to have the name changed to Mother Goose, and in July 1976, their 2nd single, "Tonderu Lucy"（とんでるルーシー...Flying Lucy）was released.

"Boekifu ni Sarasarete" was their 4th and final single from November 1977 although it was on their first album, "Indian Summer" from September of the previous year. Written by Kaneda and composed by Kyoda, their producer was none other than Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. During the band's amateur days, Mother Goose was heavily influenced by the band Sugar Babe (Yamashita's old unit with Taeko Ohnuki) and its album, "SONGS". You can imagine their reaction when they saw their hero in the audience when he noticed that they were performing at a Shinjuku live house.

Yamashita's production of "Boekifu" turned out to be his very first gig in this capacity, and the song has that feel that would go into a lot of his future songs. In addition, the chorus work reminds me a lot of the background work that EPO would contribute to her own output as well as those of her contemporaries later on.

Mother Goose would release 2 albums along with those 4 singles before breaking up in 1978.