Izumi Kobayashi & Flying Mimi Band -- Naze（なぜ）

Kinda interesting how some of these singers from years past seemed to have transmigrated from one genre to another. There have been folks who have moved from Folk over to City Pop/AOR such as Sumiko Yamagata（やまがたすみこ）and the band Off-Course（オフコース）. Another form of crossover I've witnessed is seeing some of those City Pop artists go into anison. One such singer is Mai Yamane（山根麻衣）who I first knew for some of her early urban contemporary stuff but has subsequently become famous for her contributions to anime "Cowboy Be-Bop".

Then, there is singer-songwriter Izumi Kobayashi（小林泉美）who became known for creating theme songs for the famous "Urusei Yatsura"（うる星やつら）in the 1980s for which I will write something pretty soon. But I only found out about this after I discovered her early material on YouTube via New J Channel. 

Some years earlier, though, she and her group Flying Mimi Band were into the funkier stuff. For example, here is "Naze" (Why?) from her second album from October 1978 "Sea Flight"（シーフライト）. Not the greatest singer but hey, I do love the music. Must have been nice to strut the streets of Tokyo or Osaka to this one. And I always welcome a good mellow saxophone.

Izumi Kobayashi & Flying Mimi Band released their only two albums in 1978 when Kobayashi was in her early twenties, after which Mimi (her nickname) went solo in the 1980s with 4 albums. I'm also glad to hear that she hails from Funabashi City, Chiba Prefecture, a very familiar metropolis since it was a mere few stations down the Tozai Line from my neck of the woods.