Harumi Tsuyuzaki -- Taiyo （太陽）

She may have been dubbed "The Mariah Carey of Japan" but I think Harumi Tsuyuzaki（露崎春女）is her own singer...a singer with her own great set of vocal cords, and she arrived on the music scene even before R&B songstresses such as Misia and bird.

J-R&B may have had its first heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s and a lot of it was through rap and hip-hop, but for me, my love for R&B targets the old stuff from the late 70s through to the early 90s. There were young Mariah, CeCe Peniston, Whitney Houston and similar singers back then, and Tsuyuzaki reminds me of them.

Tsuyuzaki's 5th single is "Taiyo" (Sun) from May 1997 (a good 20 years ago...sheesh!), and this fits very snugly into my favourite type of R&B. It truly is a sunny song. The singer wrote and composed this piece about getting all cheered up and living life to the fullest and happiest. Not a bad theme for getting out of the blues. And listening to her sing, I wonder what would happen if she were to duet with Keizo Nakanishi（中西圭三）who also has a similar set of pipes.

The first presence of "Taiyo" on a Tsuyuzaki album was a live version on her August 1997 "THANK YOU! 〜WONDER OF LOVE TOUR '97〜". However, I was happy to get the recorded version on my BEST album of hers above in the photo...first track even.