Motoaki Masuo -- Oahu-to no Kaze（オアフ島の風）

 

Sad to say, but I've yet to ever set foot in the Aloha State. Most of my family have visited Hawaii and I've got a student who would love to retire there someday and just lie out on his lanai for the rest of his days. But alas, I've never been there but someday once this COVID-19 nightmare has finally let up and international travel actually returns to life, I would be happy to visit places like Honolulu and Oahu. It wouldn't just be for the usual sights, though. I've also got one of the KKP collaborators living there to meet in person and I'd just be interested in being in a territory where there are a lot of Japanese-Americans. Although there is a Japanese-Canadian community in Toronto, it's not a huge one when compared to the local Chinese-Canadian and Korean-Canadian communities, and I've been curious whether my life could have been significantly different if I had grown up within a large ethnic Japanese community.

Anyways, for the first of today's "Kayo Kyoku Plus" articles, I bring you "Oahu-to no Kaze" (Wind From Oahu), the first track on musician-songwriter Motoaki Masuo's（増尾元章）2nd album "Natural Mind" from 1982. That sparkling piano grabbed me immediately and Masuo, who is a multi-instrumentalist including with the guitar, weaves an inviting summery atmosphere throughout the tune. Going into November in the northern hemisphere with the decreasing daylight hours, hearing something like "Oahu-to no Kaze" is very comforting indeed.

There's no J-Wiki entry for Masuo so I had to scrounge about for information. I did find his discography right here, and as for a profile, I did come across this page on his own website. He was born in April 1951 and got into playing the guitar during junior high school after coming across The Ventures. Following that, he was further influenced by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. In the 1970s, he made his professional debut by forming a folk-and-rock group Peace City and during that decade, he released his own solo debut album "First". Incidentally, he hails from a musical family with his father being a bandleader/pianist, one sister also being a pianist and one brother being a guitarist.