Continuing on from Part 1 that is "Who Influenced Toshiki Kadomatsu (Pre-Debut)", I bring you Part 2 with the singers and songs that helped in shaping this man's sound following his official start in 1981 as an entertainer. Again, as mentioned in that article, this is based on a section of Kadomatsu's（角松敏生）J-Wiki biography which has listed these pre-debut and post-debut influences. Unlike yesterday's pre-debut batch in which the majority of the songs have been well-known to me since my childhood, most of the post-debut entries coming up were fresh at the time.
(February 11 2023: That whole section on Kadomatsu's pre-debut and post-debut influences has been excised from the J-Wiki article, possibly since it was never sourced. Still, I don't think the person who put up all of these songs was simply picking names or titles out of a hat so at the very least, these choices can still provide a topic of discussion.)
Hiroshi Sato and Wendy Matthews -- You're My Baby (1982)
I mentioned this in the KKP article for Hiroshi Sato's（佐藤博）classic "Awakening" in which Kadomatsu gave his stamp of approval to this 1982 album, a release by the keyboardist and singer that is perfect as a cool-down AOR project. According to that section on his post-debut influences, Kadomatsu did listen to "Awakening" after his own debut and found it so polished that he felt that he could never match that level of goodness. He even said that as a fellow just barely into his 20s at the time, he didn't have the vocabulary to respond or express for the chords and melody, and didn't have any hope in replicating them. Geez! I can only assume that Sato gave him a pep talk to buck up.
My take on what I just read there is one of surprise considering that Kadomatsu had already released a few albums such as "Weekend Fly to the Sun" before "Awakening" came out in June 1982. I personally found "Weekend Fly to the Sun" a great album, so I can only assume that Kadomatsu was totally in awe of "Awakening". I wonder whether he had been searching for a certain leavening agent to help take his music into more dreamier and introspective circumstances.
Steely Dan -- Aja (1977)
This influence on Kadomatsu made me go "Ah...naruhodo". Considering how much Steely Dan's riffs have been incorporated into many a Japanese City Pop/J-AOR song, I guess that I wouldn't be surprised that Kadomatsu would see "Aja", one of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's greatest creations, as a factor in how he developed his own sound. He said that he underwent a major learning experience from "Aja" which amassed all of the important things in music including musical sophistication, composition, freshness and the challenge itself.
Kadomatsu may have found out about "Aja" a bit late into the party, but he was much better than me because I only...finally...purchased the album only a couple of years ago, much later than Fagen's splendid solo work "The Nightfly". However, I have known about "Peg" and "Josie" for decades since that got regular airplay on the radio, and I've totally fallen in love with "Deacon Blues" and "Black Cow".
Earth, Wind & Fire -- After The Love Has Gone (1979)
Once again, another blessed song from my youth and it's up there in my love for EW&F tunes alongside "September". I actually first heard "After The Love Has Gone" on an episode on an old American sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati" during a more contemplative scene, and that is perhaps the perfect scene in real life to hear this one by David Foster, Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin. For Kadomatsu, this was the first Foster song that he had ever heard, and found it had this amazingly sharp and sophisticated mood. He's even stated that "After The Love Has Gone" evokes the best emotion while hearing it during a summer evening. Works for me, too! And you know, I can now get the influence of this ballad upon some of his slower songs.
Christopher Cross -- Sailing (1980)
And perhaps that is also the case with Christopher Cross' "Sailing" when it comes to influencing Kadomatsu's mellower efforts. According to Kadomatsu, apparently when Cross' self-titled album carrying "Sailing" was released in Japan, it sold like hotcakes upon hotcakes, and when he, who at the time was listening to his fair share of disco, heard this number, he felt that AOR had also finally landed in his country.
Luther Vandross -- Sugar and Spice: I Found Me A Girl (1981)
This is the one song that I had never heard before today, and yeah, I'm Gibbs-slapping myself. But better late than never, and don't we live in a wonderful time (COVID-19 excepted) when we have access to decades of great music that we can discover via sites such as YouTube?
Kadomatsu was truly knocked out by the upbeat and funky "Sugar and Spice" when he first heard it, and once again, along with his experience with Yoshitaka Minami's（南佳孝）"Poolside" from the pre-debut entries, he felt that Vandross expressed a world that was far away...a world that he himself wanted to experience. The Shibuya-born musician-producer really desired to know that vibe in New York City where he felt that Vandross was bringing out that world view of his, and sure enough, Kadomatsu got his wish a few years later in 1984 when he went to live in The Big Apple (not sure if he still resides there, though).
With the pre-debut and post-debut influences on Kadomatsu over the past couple of days, I kinda/sorta have a handle on how his music developed, but there is so much there that it will probably take quite a bit longer to absorb and understand it all. Hopefully, your brains will be able to sift through all of it better than I can.
One definite benefit from doing these articles is that when I was exploring Vandross' wonderful song, I also discovered "Street Life" (1979) by The Crusaders, formerly The Jazz Crusaders. It's the type of tune that I've always loved.
Hiroshi Sato and Wendy Matthews -- You're My Baby (1982)
My take on what I just read there is one of surprise considering that Kadomatsu had already released a few albums such as "Weekend Fly to the Sun" before "Awakening" came out in June 1982. I personally found "Weekend Fly to the Sun" a great album, so I can only assume that Kadomatsu was totally in awe of "Awakening". I wonder whether he had been searching for a certain leavening agent to help take his music into more dreamier and introspective circumstances.
Steely Dan -- Aja (1977)
This influence on Kadomatsu made me go "Ah...naruhodo". Considering how much Steely Dan's riffs have been incorporated into many a Japanese City Pop/J-AOR song, I guess that I wouldn't be surprised that Kadomatsu would see "Aja", one of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's greatest creations, as a factor in how he developed his own sound. He said that he underwent a major learning experience from "Aja" which amassed all of the important things in music including musical sophistication, composition, freshness and the challenge itself.
Kadomatsu may have found out about "Aja" a bit late into the party, but he was much better than me because I only...finally...purchased the album only a couple of years ago, much later than Fagen's splendid solo work "The Nightfly". However, I have known about "Peg" and "Josie" for decades since that got regular airplay on the radio, and I've totally fallen in love with "Deacon Blues" and "Black Cow".
Earth, Wind & Fire -- After The Love Has Gone (1979)
Once again, another blessed song from my youth and it's up there in my love for EW&F tunes alongside "September". I actually first heard "After The Love Has Gone" on an episode on an old American sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati" during a more contemplative scene, and that is perhaps the perfect scene in real life to hear this one by David Foster, Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin. For Kadomatsu, this was the first Foster song that he had ever heard, and found it had this amazingly sharp and sophisticated mood. He's even stated that "After The Love Has Gone" evokes the best emotion while hearing it during a summer evening. Works for me, too! And you know, I can now get the influence of this ballad upon some of his slower songs.
Christopher Cross -- Sailing (1980)
And perhaps that is also the case with Christopher Cross' "Sailing" when it comes to influencing Kadomatsu's mellower efforts. According to Kadomatsu, apparently when Cross' self-titled album carrying "Sailing" was released in Japan, it sold like hotcakes upon hotcakes, and when he, who at the time was listening to his fair share of disco, heard this number, he felt that AOR had also finally landed in his country.
Luther Vandross -- Sugar and Spice: I Found Me A Girl (1981)
This is the one song that I had never heard before today, and yeah, I'm Gibbs-slapping myself. But better late than never, and don't we live in a wonderful time (COVID-19 excepted) when we have access to decades of great music that we can discover via sites such as YouTube?
Kadomatsu was truly knocked out by the upbeat and funky "Sugar and Spice" when he first heard it, and once again, along with his experience with Yoshitaka Minami's（南佳孝）"Poolside" from the pre-debut entries, he felt that Vandross expressed a world that was far away...a world that he himself wanted to experience. The Shibuya-born musician-producer really desired to know that vibe in New York City where he felt that Vandross was bringing out that world view of his, and sure enough, Kadomatsu got his wish a few years later in 1984 when he went to live in The Big Apple (not sure if he still resides there, though).
With the pre-debut and post-debut influences on Kadomatsu over the past couple of days, I kinda/sorta have a handle on how his music developed, but there is so much there that it will probably take quite a bit longer to absorb and understand it all. Hopefully, your brains will be able to sift through all of it better than I can.
One definite benefit from doing these articles is that when I was exploring Vandross' wonderful song, I also discovered "Street Life" (1979) by The Crusaders, formerly The Jazz Crusaders. It's the type of tune that I've always loved.
Hello J-Canuck,
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting series. A lot of the Western influences were startling. A lot of the music that inspired Kadomatsu was the same music that was on the radio during my junior high/middle school days.
My mother had most of these albums. Back in the late 1970s, Earth, Wind and Fire and Steely Dan were gods!
They still are actually...
And the impact of Christopher Cross's song "Sailing" when it came out was astounding. During that time it was everywhere and on every station. You would hear it outside of the pop and soft rock sphere; specifically on soul/R&B and R&B radio.
Of course, I heard of Hiroshi Sato AND Toshiki Kadomatsu decades later. I do think that Awakening is one of Sato's best - and the Seaside Lovers album doesn't count because it is joint effort not something totally under Sato's control.
That being said, I put that album on the same tier as Awakening, but I like instrumental albums too. I think they may have played this album on a few of the smooth jazz and world music stations that used to litter FM radio during the late 1980s all the way through the early aughts.
Hi, Chasing Showa.
DeleteYeah, I was kinda hoping for some comments on this one. Some of these songs and artists I could easily imagine having influenced Kadomatsu but others may be a little harder.
One reason that I went ahead with this two-parter was that, like you, there were a number of songs that were also part of my childhood memories. EW&F and Steely Dan were indeed musical deities, although of course, everyone's preferences were different.
I hadn't known that "Sailing" was so popular, although I do recollect hearing it a lot on radio. It's very soothing. And maybe as Kadomatsu hinted, Cross' trademark tune opened up the Pandora's Box of AOR with the door never being able to be closed. :)
Hello J-Canuck,
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember "Sailing" being one of the last great 1970s hits before the musical landscape changed. The 1980s had its own universal, genre-defying hits but that song was the pinnacle, and oddly enough, the last of its kind. That was the beginning of the end of the soft/mellow/light rock as popular music.
In the 1980s it became "adult contemporary" and lost that sound.
At least stateside. I can't speak for other countries.
Kind of like how Japanese AOR/Mellow shook off enough of its New Music roots and became City Pop. Kind of how "A Long Vacation" was pinnacle and last of the New Music genre at the same City Pop was in its ascendancy. Yamashita's "Ride on Time" came out a less than a year earlier. And of course, "Weekend Fly to Sun" and "Sea Breeze" (Two of my favorite Kadomatsu albums) came out the same year as "A Long Vacation."
Thanks.
All these decades, it's been amazing how beloved AOR has been in Japan. Mind you, I've fallen for it as well.
Delete