Mai Yamane -- Tasogare (album)（たそがれ）

Finally decided to take a look at the rest of Mai Yamane's（山根麻衣）debut album "Tasogare" (Twilight) from May 1980. I have already written about half the tracks separately: the title track, "City Drive", "Foolin' Myself", and "Wave", and just judging on that half, I had assumed that "Tasogare" would be a pure City Pop/J-AOR collection.

Of course, I was wrong, and happily so. If it were just a City Pop album, I think that would have been cheating us and Yamane from showing off the range of her rich bluesy voice, which she does in tracks like "Heart For Sale". The singer wrote and composed this 2nd track as this down-home country tune, and the image that I get is the lady manning a bar out in the dusty desert somewhere in the Western United States. There are only a few regulars, the lights are laid down low and it's the jukebox playing the song itself while Yamane is singing away while sitting the other way around on a wooden chair with a Corona in her hand. Another City Pop king, guitarist Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）handled the arrangements.

It's Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）, Matsushita's good buddy, who came up with the rumbling New Wave-ish music of "Get Away". We're away from the desert here and racing down the highway cutting through the city at warp speed, and I'm getting some Pat Benatar vibes here. Yamane once again supplied the lyrics.

Plenty of atmosphere with "Yore Yore Boy"（よれよれ・ボーイ...Worn-Out Boy）as Yamane provides some musical libation to cheer up a guy who hasn't had a great day. It looks like the cure is working, though. Perhaps this time, the singer is in a more successful drinking establishment replete with adorably off-tune honky-tonk piano and good friends. This time, it wasn't Yamane behind words and music, but Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）.

The final song on "Tasogare" is the wonderfully wistful ballad "Hikari to Kaze to Nami"（光と風と波と...The Light, Wind and Waves）as Yamane becomes a giver of a country lullaby about being apart from a loved one. Indeed, true to the album title, it's probably twilight as the heroine stands on the wave-lapped beach as the music brings hints of the Eagles' "Desperado". Bringing in an orchestra near the end to finish things off might divide opinions, but being a fellow who likes his fair share of schmaltz in a song, I'm good with it. Yasuhiro Abe's（安部恭弘）music is paired with Yamane's lyrics.

By this point in the recent history of City Pop, I think that most likely fans have already discovered "Tasogare" and have grown to appreciate the surprising variety in it instead of it just being focused on one genre. Moreover, even as far back as 1980, some of us got that hint of what she could provide in the late 90s anime classic "Cowboy Be-Bop".

I'm glad that I could get a re-released form of "Tasogare". Way back when I was still living in Tokyo but still early in my City Pop ardor, I went to visit one of my old haunts, Tacto, and tried to track down a Yamane album, but could only find a BEST compilation for the low, low price of $100! Luckily, there was a change of heart once I came back home to Toronto.