Etsuko Yamakawa is a name that I have seen through various liner notes over the years but it wasn't until her lovely performance in the one-off duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）that I really got interested in what she had to say within her creations.
Yamakawa was born in 1956 in Kyoto. She attended Ferris University in Yokohama where she majored in the Faculty of Music. From her student days, she was involved with the Yamaha Music Foundation working with various musicians as a tour member starting with singer-songwriter Hiroko Taniyama（谷山浩子）. If I remember from reading the liner notes for Tohoku Shinkansen's sole album "Thru Traffic", the foundation was also where she met her partner, Hiroshi Narumi（鳴海寛）. Following graduation, she began her activities as a composer, arranger, music producer and a studio musician (keyboardist). Probably one of her earliest works was for Junko Yagami（八神純子）, the lovely "Be My Best Friend" in 1980.
One of the things that I noticed while scrolling down Yamakawa's body of work on J-Wiki was that she participated in the creation of songs for those 1980s aidoru such as Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）. For Kyon-Kyon, she arranged her 18th single "Hyaku Percent Danjo Kyousai"（100%男女交際...100% Men And Women Dating）which was released in April 1986. The songwriters were Keiko Aso and Koji Makaino（麻生圭子・馬飼野康二）, and the song went as high as No. 2, eventually becoming the 86th-ranked single of the year.
Although Koizumi was apparently not too thrilled with the final title, "Hyaku Percent Danjo Kyousai" won Yamakawa a Best Arrangement prize at the Japan Record Awards for that year. In fact, it was the first time that a woman won the award.
I mentioned Hiroko Taniyama at the top there so this is a song that she wrote and composed titled "Country Girl"（カントリーガール）, her 8th single from March 1980. Yamakawa also arranged this one about a young man enthralled with the lass in the title. It got as high as No. 55 on the charts.
Before I discovered that Yamakawa was providing a lot of aidoru material, my impressions of her were that she took care of the mellower side of pop back in those days or she was into the City Pop side of things. "Tomete, Passio"（とめて、パシオ...Stop It, Passio）, a track from Etsuko Sai's（彩恵津子）5th album, "PASSIO", from October 1986 is a Yamakawa composition that fulfills the latter impression. Chinfa Kan（康珍化）, under his pseudonym of Shirusu Morita（森田記）, provided the words to this mysterious song of the night. Yamakawa is even one of the backup singers here.
I did find a mellower song here in the form of "Aki no Jasmine Tea"（秋のジャスミン・ティー...Autumn Jasmine Tea） by veteran Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）. Not sure whether Yamakawa composed, arranged or both but there is a nice touch of Latin with this one. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out who the lyricist was, but the song was originally part of Ito's 1984 album "fado".
For my last song, I've gone with Yuko Imai's（今井優子）cool "HOTEL TWILIGHT" from her 1988 album "VOYAGEUR". Yamakawa arranged this number written by the aforementioned Keiko Aso and composed by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）, and it rather gleams with that champagne-on-the-town sound that I often associated with some of the female pop singers at the end of the 1980s.
On one Mixi blog, one writer stated that he took a listen to "HOTEL TWILIGHT" and remarked that he had initially thought it was a Swingout Sister song with those strings and dramatic arrangement. The statement knocked me for a loop since I finally put two and two together. That champagne-on-the-town sound in that certain corner of J-Pop of the time might have been inspired by the British group. So, perhaps I can say that as much as the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan probably inspired City Pop at the beginning of the 1980s, Swingout Sister may have influenced the urban contemporary tunes of Japan at the end of that decade.
To sum up, Yamakawa has created a wider palette of music than I had expected, ranging from sweet aidoru to cool urban. Of course, J-Wiki probably hasn't included every single work that she ever made so I will continue to look forward to any further discoveries.
Good evening J-C: I was actually putting together an article that dealt with one of her arrangements in particular :) Alongside Sato qasi my favorite "creator" (would love to know how much and what input she had, vis-a-vis the writer/producer/engineer etc.). She worked quite a bit with Onyanko Club although (in my opinion) her most interesting efforts were with Kazuko Utsumi (内海和子) on 2 of her solo songs (within OC), "Seaside Session" and "Beautiful Memories (思い出美人)". Both are very Un-yanko like. Recently Kazuko mentioned one of her personal favorites was 思い出美人, "it was not like other songs" - currently not on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteAnother blog described her sound as "a melancholic chord progression that combines minor and major 7th"; I don't have the musical chops to speak to that but there is a slight undercurrent of melancholy that permeates even the most upbeat songs. In this phase of her music the instrumental breaks and run out at the finish are quite distinctive. Whatever you may think of some of the aidoru groups they were given top-notch support. As a good singer can sing most anything, Ms. Yamakawa appears to have the same gift for creation.
Good morning, T-cat. Looking forward to that article then.
DeleteGenerally speaking, I didn't go all that deeply into aidoru and aidoru groups from the 1980s simply because there were so many of them coming in and out but I know that especially in the latter part of the decade, there were some individual songs that really uplifted particular aidoru in my eyes since the arrangements were so good. Perhaps they may have been Yamakawa's. Unfortunately, since those tunes were on borrowed mix tapes, I have forgotten those singers. :(
Man, I wish I could speak like a musicologist. My guitar-loving buddy throws those chord terms about like a juggler. I often just nod and smile.
Your statement of that undercurrent of melancholy within otherwise upbeat songs is quite an accurate one. I've heard certain tunes which had that sense of ennui. And there have been really upbeat melodies but the songs' lyrics were actually quite depressing.
Yeah, that song Twilight Hotel hearkens back to what the kids now call sophisti-pop. Those urban, smooth jazzy, champagne-on-the-town songs were all over the radio from the middle to the latter half of the 80s.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Queen of that genre (Sade) to the groups that did their own thing but still fell into that category (Swing Out Sister, Style Council and Everything But The Girl - Yes, for awhile, them too!)
I liked that sound but it faded away by the end of that decade. I demand a revival of that genre and why not? Hasn't everything 80s came back in one form or another over the past several years?
Ahhh...sophisti-pop. There was something about a British horn section which really elevated things. Wouldn't it indeed be nice to bring that genre back along with Quiet Storm (e.g. Anita Baker)? Something jazzy and classy!
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