The Tigers -- Mona Lisa no Hohoemi（モナリザの微笑）

It was announced just today but tarento/actor and former guitarist of the Group Sounds band, The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）, Shiro Kishibe（岸部四郎）had passed away at the age of 71 on August 28th this year.

However I had first known about Kishibe as the host of the morning variety show "Look Look Konnichiwa"（ルックルックこんにちは）on NTV during my time in Japan. I hadn't known anything about his music past at the time and recognized him just as the calm and collected and tall (1.87 m) TV personality each and every morning.

Kishibe and his brother Ittoku "Sally" Kishibe（岸部一徳）, who also went the acting route, were both in one of the premier GS bands along with vocalist Kenji "Julie" Sawada（沢田研二）during the late 1960s and a little into the 1970s. So for today, I wanted to bring out The Tigers' 3rd single, "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" (Mona Lisa's Smile) released in August 1967 (although Shiro didn't officially join the band until 1969). Written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）, that harmonica sets the tone for "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" as sad and wistful and reassuring as the smile on the titular legend herself.

(2:05)

I'm sure at the time that The Tigers got their fair share of accolades but I gotta admit that I hadn't been expecting the Beatles fans' level of screaming and shouting when they came out during that skit above which looks like the producer decided to combine a samurai drama with "The Wild Wild West". To be honest, The Tigers did look rather Beatles-y there. Now, Oricon hadn't quite come onto the scene just yet, but according to the November 1967 music rankings in the magazine "Young Music"（ヤング・ミュージック）, "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" reached No. 1.

Nice of the Enterprise to drop by!