Kazuhito Murata & Mariya Takeuchi/Naomi Kawashima/Yukiko Tanaka -- Summer Vacation (サマーバケーション)

(the original video was taken down but

did find this live version with Murata and Anri)

A little over a year ago, nikala introduced us "Kayo Kyoku Plus" readers to Kazuhito Murata's（村田和人）relaxing and summery "Ippon no Ongaku"（一本の音楽）. For a fellow who received his musical epiphany from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, my impression from that song was that he was more along the lines of Rupert Holmes and Jimmy Buffett.

Well, summer is back and so is Murata with more of his beach sandals-and-umbrella sound via "Summer Vacation". Like "Ippon no Ongaku", it was composed by Murata and written by Yoshihiko Ando（安藤芳彦）as a track on his 3rd album from July 1984, "My Crew", and I'm guessing that everyone involved must have been inspired by Shonan Beach when they came up with this Perrier-friendly number. Nikala mentioned that Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）helped out in the arrangement of "Ippon no Ongaku", and with "Summer Vacation", there was further assistance from the Yamashita family via Tats' wife, Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）, who does the duet with Murata.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A3%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%81%AE%E3%81%82%E3%81%A8%E3%81%A7-%E7%B4%99%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A3%E3%82%B1%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E4%BB%95%E6%A7%98-%E5%B7%9D%E5%B3%B6%E3%81%AA%E3%81%8A%E7%BE%8E/dp/B001B56JF8

(excerpt only)

Originally, though, "Summer Vacation" had been provided for the late Naomi Kawashima（川島なお美）in her 1983 album "Shower no Ato de"（シャワーの後で...After Takin' Shower）.

Then in 1993, the song was covered once more by sweet-sounding Yukiko Tanaka（田中友紀子）for her album "Kimitachi no Kureta Natsu"（君たちのくれた夏...The Summer All of You Gave Me）. She's another singer that I had never heard of before but would be interested in hearing some more of her material. As for this cover, I can still imagine myself somewhere in Izu or Okinawa.

To finish off, here is a live performance by Murata. Let's let go of the work today, shall we? And if you want to see what the covers for all of those aforementioned albums looked like, you can check out this Japanese link.

Kensington Market