Blend -- Woman That I Love

I've heard of John J. Stanley for the fact that he has been married to splendid chanteuse Junko Yagami（八神純子）for years, and for the fact that he's also helped produce her albums. If I'm not mistaken, I think that Stanley has even participated as backup vocals for his wife as well.

However, little did I know until recently that Stanley had even been active with his own band in the early 1980s. Purely by accident, I encountered the YouTube videos for Blend which consisted of Stanley, songwriter Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）, and drummer Tohru Yazawa（矢沢透）from the folk band Alice.

I think Blend only had the one 1982 album "Intercity Renegade" which is about as City Pop a title that one can get, and the full version is on YouTube. However, I wanted to work on just the first track for now, "Woman That I Love" which was written and composed by Stanley. Yup, I gotta say that this sizzler is brimming with gleaming City Pop goodness, and Stanley himself comports himself musically as if he were Gino Vannelli. That distance between Tokyo and Los Angeles got a whole lot shorter.