Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Emiko Nakayama -- Black Coffee (ブラックコーヒー)


I was just taking one of those traipses down YouTube when I spotted this video by Emiko Nakayama(中山恵美子). It is a name that I had never heard before but apparently she was a DJ, a lyricist and a singer from the 1970s into the 1980s. Plus her name is almost identical to that of an old student-turned-friend of mine so I decided to check her out.

There were a number of her videos on YouTube but the one that I got most attracted to was "Black Coffee" from her 1977 debut album, "Sketchbook". Her name and discography aside from the J-Wiki entry on her are very obscure so that I couldn't track down who had written or composed "Black Coffee" although it's possible that Nakayama was at least responsible for the lyrics (June 27 2022: Actually the composer/lyricist is Yukinojo Mori). Listening to it, the bossa nova is obviously evident; there was a certain corner in the kayo kyoku of the 70s which loved the Brazilian genre. It's all very pleasant although I think the ending of the refrain just seemed a little too similar to Keiko Maruyama's(丸山圭子)"Douzo Kono Mama"(どうぞこのまま)from 1976.


I do like my coffee but with a lot of cream or milk.

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