Mari Yoshida -- Suteki na News（素敵なニュース）

 

I have to admit that this is a first for me but when I was looking up the songwriters for this particular song on the JASRAC database, I could actually track down Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）, the sibling songwriters, but the name of the singer wasn't there for some odd reason.

Fortunately, the name of the absent singer on JASRAC was plainly described underneath the video. This is Mari Yoshida（吉田真梨）, an aidoru who had a very brief career in show business just between 1976 and 1978. Hailing from Toyama Prefecture, she was born as Yuka Nishikata（西方由香）and graduated from Horikoshi High School, the school where a lot of show business folks attended, near where I used to teach in Nakano-Sakaue.

With a grand total of 7 singles and 1 album under her belt, this one song by her actually comes as a non-single track from her lone album "Makka na Mimitabu"（まっ赤な耳たぶ...Red Earlobes）, released in December 1976, "Suteki na News" (Wonderful News). Listening to it a few times, I'm pretty assured that this is indeed the Kisugi creation (the only other song with that same title listed in the database was the translation of an original song by Canada's own Anne Murray!). It's really quite refined as an aidoru tune in terms of the arrangement and I figure, yup, it's Takao behind it considering some of the other songs that he would weave for other singers later on in his career such as "Slow Motion" for Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）and "Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu" （セーラー服と機関銃）for Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）.

I'd say that there is something even quite Bacharach about "Suteki na News" just from the horns in there. It's more reminiscent of 1960s Sunshine Pop, and it's enough that I would be interested in seeing if there were any more of her songs up on YouTube. This may be the earliest example of the Kisugis' work that I've come across.