The Last Show -- Blue Lonesome Lady（ブルー・ロンサム・レディ）

I gather that Rocket Raccoon had another partner before he met up with Groot. Anyways, it's a lovely day outside with the sun filtering in so maybe something mellow to start off another "Kayo Kyoku Plus" day.

There was a song on one of the "Light Mellow" series of CDs by this band The Last Show（ザ・ラストショウ）but the one featured here isn't it. Consisting of co-vocalists Koichi Matsuda（松田幸一）on harmonica and Ritsu Murakami（村上律）on steel pedal guitar, guitarist Hirofumi Tokutake（徳武弘文）, drummer Eiji Shimamura（島村英二）and bassist Tetsuzo Kawai（河合徹三）, The Last Show came together as the backing band for folk and rock singer Shigeru Izumiya（泉谷しげる）in 1974 but has also worked as a session band behind other singers including Jiro Sugita（杉田二郎）and Agnes Chan（アグネス・チャン）. In addition, according to their J-Wiki entry, it was named after Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film "The Last Picture Show" which was actually known as "Last Show" when it was featured in Japan.

Just two albums, a single and a contribution to a movie soundtrack have totaled their output thus far. Their second album "Last Show 2" was released in 1978, and from it, I have "Blue Lonesome Lady", a country-blues creation which ought to have listeners kicking back with their beer in relaxation. Written and composed by Matsuda, it's the type of tune that possibly would have had country singers such as Crystal Gayle and Charley Pride sitting up and taking notice at the fact that the Japanese could come up with their own ballads of the genre. Listening to "Blue Lonesome Lady" a few times now, I find that Matsuda has a similar voice to that of Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）; in fact, I could imagine Minami covering this one.

I think The Last Show probably called it a day in the late 1970s but apparently, they came back together in 2008 to perform live, and in 2010, a new album by them was released. According to the writeup for the above song at YouTube, guitarist Amos Garrett was a guest performer on "Blue Lonesome Lady" or throughout the album. Garrett was born in Detroit but also grew up in Montreal and Toronto.