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.