Nyc Nyusa -- Sachiko（サチコ）

Back in the early 1980s when I was just getting started with my interest in Japanese popular music, there were a few Japanese magazines hanging about. There was one with Hiromi Go and Hitomi Ishikawa（郷ひろみ・石川ひとみ）on the cover that I remember quite well and it had the usual entertainment stuff along with news on singers and their songs. And in katakana, I saw one fellow's name on one of the pages. In fact, I think I even saw that same name in one of the issues of Akira Toriyama's classic "Dr. Slump"（ドクター・スランプ）manga (pre-Dragonball).

Now, considering that the name was in katakana（ニック・ニューサ）, I naturally thought that the guy was some singer from either Europe or America who was making it big in Japan since I had never heard of him before coming to the country. My assumption was that in romaji, his name was Nick Newser.

Let's blast forward by 3.5 decades. It's because of this blog that I picked up the chase again in terms of this "mysterious" Nick Newser. Only that this isn't the proper spelling for the name. Actually, it's Nyc Nyusa and it's not a person. It's actually a band from Western Japan. As for how this weird spelling came about, the members simply derived it from New York City, New York, USA.

The leader, vocalist and songwriter of Nyc Nyusa is Shuu Tanaka（田中収）from Fukuoka who first started his music career by being a member of the Group Sounds band, Shin Saegusa with Day & Nights（三枝伸とデイ＆ナイツ）back in 1967. With Nyc Nyusa, though, I found out that Tanaka and his band took things in an interesting direction. It was a fusion band except that it wasn't jazz and rock being involved but more like enka/Mood Kayo and rock and perhaps blues.

Their debut single was "Sachiko" which came out in June 1981. It's quite an atmospheric number that has that feeling of kayo rock. The guitars are in there but I can also envision a video involving lonely people hanging out in Ginza bars which is quite the Mood Kayo trope.

I also find Tanaka to have a voice similar to Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐）of the Southern All Stars（サザンオールスターズ）, and Kuwata is a singer that I think has an affinity for blues rock. The other fascinating thing about the J-Wiki article on Nyc Nyusa is that it was categorized as being "close" in genre to something called New Adult Music（ニューアダルトミュージック）.

Say what? Never heard of this one. I mean, as anyone who has read a number of articles on this blog and elsewhere about Japanese pop music, a particular song can be categorized over a few genres. But apparently this New Adult Music (it also has its own J-Wiki article) is a hybrid or perhaps blend of folk, New Music, rock and good ol' kayo. The article has a list of singers who belonged in this genre including Teresa Teng（テレサ・テン）and Marcia（マルシア）.

Perhaps then New Adult Music could be that European enka that I had once referred to when I was talking about Teng and some of her discography. I'd always thought that the late singer stood apart from other enka and Mood Kayo singers because her songs had that certain exotic class to them. I shouldn't be too surprised by the existence of this genre since at around the same time when Nyc Nyusa came on the scene, there was that Fashion Music genre which I've only associated Asami Kado（門あさ美）and Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）with. Speaking of the latter singer, some of her songs have also been quite bluesy with that wailing guitar solo and yet there was also that sense of old-fashioned kayo. Perhaps Kurahashi was also a part of the New Adult Music scene as well.

Anyways, Nyc Nyusa has continued to record music well into the 21st century with their last single coming out in 2015. Ah, incidentally, there was another "Sachiko" performed a couple of years before Nyusa's namesake song. That one is even mellower.