George Yanagi -- Burning (バーニング)

Yesterday, I wrote an article about a song by Tessei Miyoshi（三好鉄生）which was also covered by George Yanagi（柳ジョージ）. a musician who was adept at both the guitar and the bass. Now, Yanagi has been a figure in Japanese music that I had heard about for years but never got to know all that well. However, there was one really cool video which got a lot of play on the regional Gunma TV between programs which, I believe, featured him and his blistering guitar in a really good mood. Unfortunately, I have yet to find out what the song is titled although I did see it in through 1990 and 1991 which narrows things down slightly.

But since I still wanted to give him his due, here is his take on his 1996 single "Burning". As you can see, he was quite the kakkoii middle-aged dude on his guitar. Although I would like to say that he reminded me of Eric Clapton, according to the J-Wiki article about him, Yanagi was apparently not a big fan of his; he actually admired Dave Mason from the band Traffic. Anyways, this song has struck me as being the ideal tune to play on the car stereo while bombing down the Kan-Etsu or the Wangan highway in Tokyo....provided that there is no traffic jam. Lots of energy in there. And as the singer himself cries out in the song, there is "burning in your heart".

Yanagi himself started his career with his own band, George Yanagi & Rainy Wood in 1978 with the album "Time In Changes". Since then, his solo career has produced singles from 1982 to 2008 with many albums to boot. Tragically, the musician passed away in October 2011 from renal failure at the age of 63. However, I'm still looking for that elusive song and I've read about some even more representative tunes by him so there will be more articles.

As for "Burning", this was written by Koki Ikenaga（池永康気）and composed by Nobuhiko Kashiwara（樫原伸彦）.