Radiokko -- Chigasaki Sunrise（茅ヶ崎サンライズ）

On our 2014 trip to Japan, we were in Kanagawa Prefecture on that one Saturday and made our way from Enoshima to Kamakura via the Enoshima Railway as you can see above. However, we just missed the city of Chigasaki which was just to the west of Enoshima. The city has quite a few very famous people who hail from there including singers Yuzo Kayama（加山雄三）and Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐）of Southern All Stars（サザンオールスターズリーダー）, that legendary band which always brings memories of happy beachside life.

I only discovered this song within the last several minutes because I had been traipsing through Super J Channel and heard this aidoru trio by the name of Lady oh! singing a happy tune. Now with such a name, I had automatically assumed that this would be a contemporary group of teens or women in their twenties, but looking at the album cover, I realized that this was a team from many years earlier.

Try 1982. In fact, Lady oh! was the second name of the trio which had originally been dubbed Radiokko（ラジオっ娘）. Kaori Mizushima（水島かおり）, Yayoi Nishihata（西端やよい）and Megumi Takahashi（高橋めぐみ）were working as radio DJs from the end of 1981 under the name of Radiokko for the Nippon Broadcasting System and also delved into singing. Under that first name, they released three singles of which the third one was "Chigasaki Sunrise", released in August 1982. Nice timing for that release.

What got my ears immediately was those tight and sharp horns which pierced down into my eardrums. Of course, the vocals just as immediately pegged this as an aidoru tune but "Chigasaki Sunrise" is refreshingly bright, sunny and soaring. Very sappari! It's running down the seashore of Chigasaki happily in a swimsuit. Ichiro Niita（新田一郎）, who I found out about only back in early February as this City Pop/AOR artist, was responsible for the music (ah, naruhodo!) and Koji Miyashita（宫下康仁）took care of the lyrics.

Under the Lady oh! name, the trio would release one more single and their one and only album "Lady oh! First" also in 1982. As for the derivation of this new name for Mizushima, Nishihata and Takahashi, try saying it in one quick burst.