Chanels -- Tamashii no Brother（魂のブラザー）

 

Was a tad disappointed to read that Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）appearance on NHK's annual Kohaku Utagassen later this Thursday night will have him sing just "Yume de Aetara"（夢で逢えたら）. Not that "Yume de Aetara" is a bad song by any stretch of the imagination; it is a great ballad created by the late Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）, originally sung by Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）and also hit out of the ballpark by either Martin or his old group Rats And Star (formerly Chanels). 

It's just that I had been hoping that he would sing those two amazing theme tunes that adorned as many seasons of the hit anime "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai"（かぐや様をこくらせたい）including "DADDY! DADDY! DO!" or even a medley of his hits since he has been celebrating his 40th anniversary in the music business. But perhaps the logistics have proven to be a little difficult. Not sure, but I'm still hoping that the announcement is more of a duck blind for something more substantial and funkier.

Anyways, speaking of the 40th anniversary, I did write about his "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" album which had come out earlier this year to celebrate the auspicious occasion, and there was one song there that I didn't cover since I'd wanted to take care of it on its own. I promised that it would be talked about in October, but well...it's now here in late December instead.

"Tamashii no Brother" (Soul Brother) on "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" is an updated version with special guests Kaoru Kurosawa（黒沢薫）from the vocal group Gospellers and Kaname Kawabata（川畑要）, one-half of Chemistry. However, let me first show you the original "Tamashii no Brother", a track on Chanels' December 1981 album "Hey! Brother"（Hey!ブラザー）.

Written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）under his pseudonym Reiji Aso（麻生麗二）and composed by Suzuki with arrangement by Chanels and Kunio Muramatsu（村松邦男）, "Tamashii no Brother" ought to have been the theme song for cool-as-all-get-out TV detective partners of the 1970s. Oh, those bongos, the guitar solo, the bass and the chorus work. For some reason, it sounds as if it should also have adorned the soundtrack of one of the "Ocean's 11" movies. According to the J-Wiki writeup on "Hey! Brother", Chanels' trumpet player and tarento Nobuyoshi Kuwano（桑野信義）is supposed to be the lead vocal, but if that is indeed the case, he sure sounds a whole lot like Martin himself.

Well, now we come to the new version on "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" which is more of a disco-fied take as if the song had been taken from the mean streets to the starry neon-lit avenues. Pretty cool too but y'know, I still have to go with the original...for now. As for "Hey! Brother", it peaked at No. 9 on Oricon.