Yuiko Tsubokura -- Shooting Star

I've been wanting to write up an article on Yuiko Tsubokura（坪倉唯子）for a while now. And the reason for that lies behind what she's arguably been most famous for. She is the female lead singer of the B.B. Queens, that quirky musical unit responsible for the No. 1 song of 1990, "Odoru Ponpokorin"（おどるポンポコリン）, the first ending theme (and later eternal theme tune) for "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）. But as that co-vocal with blues singer Fusanosuke Kondo（近藤房之助）, she was heavily disguised (as I once put it in that article for that song) as a combination of Mrs. Doubtfire and a former First Lady of Japan.

However, underneath all of that makeup, costuming and squeaky voice, there is a gorgeous lady who has some soulful vocals. Tsubokura has been active since 1980 as a singer and also as a backup singer. In the same year that "Odoru Ponpokorin" came out, she released her 2nd album, "Loving You", in March 1990 and one of the tracks is "Shooting Star". I've sampled some of her other songs out on YouTube, and it seems like she's solidly in the urban contemporary category. "Shooting Star" has that melody of snappy drums and chiming synths which not only had me thinking of the turn of the decade between the 80s and 90s but also of downtown glasses of champagne and the high life in Shinjuku. Perhaps after giving those performances as part of B.B. Queens, that's maybe where she wanted to head for to unwind.

"Shooting Star" was written by Shun Taguchi（田口俊）and composed by Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志...I hope I got that last name right）. Tsubokura would be another singer that I would like to find out more about just from what I've heard so far. As for her backup work, she was involved in Maki Ohguro's（大黒摩季）Olympic theme "Atsukunare"（熱くなれ）and TUBE's "Summer Dream" among the many other songs she's participated in.