The Spiders/C-C-B -- Summer Girl （サマー・ガール）

On TV Japan just following the weekly "Uta Kon"（うたコン）on Tuesday nights, there has been that 10-minute vignette from NHK called "Ano Hito ni Aitai"（あの人に会いたい...I Want To Meet That Person）which focuses on a certain notable person who has left this mortal coil. Last night's focus was on Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）, the singer and guitarist from Group Sounds band The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース）who had only passed away a few months ago in March.

Of course, a number of his songs during his time with The Spiders and on his own played in the background while we heard some of his comments over the decades. Most of the songs have already been covered in the pages of this blog, but I did hear something new, and that would be "Summer Girl" which came out in July 1966 as the band's 6th single. Written by Hiroto Sasaki（佐々木ひろと）and composed by Kamayatsu, the beach ballad has that bittersweet mood of love with a bit of appealing early Beatles rawness.

But I have to admit that the version by 80s pop band C-C-B is one of the few instances in which the cover actually sounds even better than the original. The arrangement by the band and Yasuo Sako（佐孝康夫）injects a lot of Beach Boys into C-C-B's take on summer love, and I have to say that the vocal delivery is a lot more solid, and it was a nice touch to have a Duane Eddy-like guitar instrumental in there, too. "Summer Girl" was included on C-C-B's 1985 album "Tanoshii Natsu Yasumi"（楽しい夏休み...Fun Summer Holiday）.