Reiko Mari -- Psyche na Machi（サイケな街）

Combing through some of the funkier kayo of the 1960s, I became somewhat curious about all those go-go dances that I had always heard about back in the decade that I was born. I was obviously way too young to try them out although my mother once told me that I had done my fair share of intensely bouncing on the sofa whenever the opening credits for the original "Mission: Impossible" TV show came on (still a cool theme). In any case, I decided to take a look at the above video provided by Dusty Old Thing as a historical and cultural update on my knowledge. Was not aware of The Stroll or The Hully Gully.

The trigger for my curiosity was the above video containing the song "Psyche na Machi" (Psychedelic Town) by singer Reiko Mari（万里れい子）. Although I've provided the translation of the title in the previous sentence, according to one site, the official English title was apparently "In The Town". Released back in October 1968, the number just dares folks not to try out one of those 60s dances. And looking at the cover, Mari looks like she's ready to paint the town red through The Frug or The Pony. "Psyche na Machi" was written by Hiroshi Mizuki（水木ひろし）and composed by Jun Sakurai（櫻井順）.

There's not a whole lot of information on Mari except for what I found on the site "Ongaku no Aru Mura"（音楽のある村...A Village With Music）. She was born in 1948, and at the age of 23 sometime during the mid-1960s, she entered a Nichigeki dance troupe called NDT (wow, so it wasn't Yasushi Akimoto who had started up the idea of all those alphabet girl groups 😉) in which there were a number of smaller sub-units with the one that Mari had entered being called The Eight Poppies（エイト・ポピーズ）. She later left the troupe, auditioned for Columbia Records and took on the stage name of Reiko Mari. Her debut was in May 1967 with the single "Seishun no Nagisa"（青春の渚...Youth Beach）.

Going into the 1970s, she would later join the vocal group Koichi Morita and The Top Gallants（森田公一とトップギャラン）under the name of Reiko Watabe（渡部玲子）.