Hiromi Go -- My Lady （マイレディー）

I was earnestly getting into the kayo kyoku game just when the 2nd big aidoru boom was soaring with Seiko Matsuda, Naoko Kawai and Matchy. However, Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）was well into his career as this young and dashing Casanova (represented by the first song that I heard, "Oyome Samba" in 1981), and as my education started into Japanese pop music, I was hearing more of his discography back then and since then.

"My Lady" is an example of what had come before. Released in September 1979, Go was in that transition from cheekily cute teen to that man-about-town when he tackled his 32nd single, and looking at that video above, I thought he looked like a disco-age Peter Pan. And yep, the song has that disco kayo vibe (the recording orchestra string section probably needed some heavy doses of liniment for the muscle pain after that session). But there is also some of that Latin Lover beat which presaged some of his future hits into the 80s. It is one of his trademark songs, so I was surprised that I hadn't covered it earlier.

The composer and lyricist for "My Lady" is given as Harunosuke Karasawa（唐沢晴之介）but that was actually the name of the character that Go had played in the 1979 TBS drama, "Ieji - Mama Don't Cry"（家路〜ママ・ドント・クライ...The Road Home） which also included the song. In fact, it was created by songwriter Kazuya Amikura（網倉一也）who made songs for various singers including the far calmer "Glass no Yesterday" for Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）a couple of years later.

"My Lady" peaked at No. 8 on Oricon and ended up as the 79th-ranked single for 1979, and hung around even longer to finish 1980 as the 84th-ranked single. One of the things that has defined a hit for me is being able to remember at least some of the lyrics and Amikura certainly provided that with "My lady under the sunshine" and "My lady only you". I'm sure the female fans responded to that at his concerts as Go serenaded the audience about how much he craved that special woman. Not sure if there had been any major fainting spells among the ladies on the level of The Beatles or Elvis, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them floated home that night.