Craft -- Boku ni Makasete Kudasai（僕にまかせてください）

I may have mentioned about this 1970s folk band called Craft（クラフト）in one of Kingo Hamada's（濱田金吾）articles, since Hamada was the bassist in this group that lasted from 1973 to 1978. Craft also included guitarist Makoto Mitsui（三井誠）, who happened to later compose one of J-Pop's evergreen (no pun intended) Xmas songs, "Christmas Carol no Koro ni wa"（クリスマスキャロルの頃には）, a Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）classic.

Hamada himself has become known to readers of the blog as the perennial City Pop/J-AOR singer in the 1980s, and that's how I first got to know him. With Mitsui and Hamada, this is a further reflection on how these folk singers in Japan somehow morphed into urban contemporary specialists.

However, this article is on their former group, Craft, which became best known for its hit second single "Boku ni Makasete Kudasai" (I'll Take Good Care of Her) from April 1975. That mandolin (or similar instrument) sets the tone as this bittersweet song, penned by famed folk singer Masashi Sada（さだまさし）, relates the story of a couple walking up the hill to the grave of the woman's mother as the man vows that he will take good care of his beloved. I'm not sure who is singing lead vocal but it could be Hamada.

Although there was no report on how it did in the Oricon rankings, according to music critic Issei Tomisawa's（富澤一誠）book on 300 of the top folk songs in Japan, "Boku ni Makasete Kudasai" sold around 500,000 records. It was also used as the theme song for a NTV drama titled "Houzuki no Uta"（ほおずきの唄...The Song of the Lantern Plant）in 1975. As for Craft, they released a total of 6 singles and 4 original albums. They broke up in 1978 but decided to come back together in 2012 to give concerts again.