Partner -- Asa no Yuenchi（朝の遊園地）

 

The above shot was taken from the Landmark Mall in Yokohama's Minato Mirai 21 area sometime on a Saturday afternoon in November 2017.

Temporally speaking, that photo is about as close as I could get with this song called "Asa no Yuenchi" (Morning Amusement Park) by this band called Partner（パートナー）. "Asa no Yuenchi" is a track on the band's debut album "Next Morning" from 1980.

And there's not much more that I could find out about this mystery group. According to Marty McFlies who was generous enough to upload the song, the album was produced by Akira Inoue（井上陽水）and from what I could see through Yahoo images of the various parts of "Next Morning", Partner had 6 partners including Hitomi Souma（相馬ひとみ）, Haruhiko Uchida（内田晴彦）and Nobuyo Hashimoto（橋本信代）. The legendary Jake H. Concepcion contributed his sax and flute to the cause, Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）was on guitar, and Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）was part of the brass section, although it doesn't seem to be heard for "Asa no Yuenchi". The JASRAC database did provide a list of some of the songs that were recorded onto the album so Inoue was helping out on songwriting as well as Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）but there was nothing listed for this particular track.

However, I have to say that "Asa no Yuenchi" is all about the dreamier side of City Pop/J-AOR, and the sound is so velvety-smooth that the song could be poured into a chocolate shell and placed into a box of Laura Secord (famous chocolate manufacturer in Canada). Additionally, my compliments to the vocalist here, whether it be Souma or Hashimoto since the delivery is on the level of a Takarazuka Revue member. It really can be the background music for an amusement part in the wee hours of the morning as someone comes out of woozy slumber. I can truly imagine the situation since I once did stay at the Sakuragicho Station Hotel not too far away from that amusement park that you see in the photo. Mind you, it wasn't quite as romantic since: 1) I was alone in bed and 2) a Shindo 5 tremor rumbled through Yokohama just when I was waking up. How's that for excitement?😱

In any case, if anyone including Marty can provide any more information on Partner, I will be quite happy and delighted.