Aki Izumi and The Rangers -- Koi wa Heart de（恋はハートで）

 

I figure that after doing that rather large article on my thoughts on the 2020 Kohaku Utagassen, I should go completely different and head way back to the 1960s.

Well, for a sleepy Sunday night, I can give you "Koi wa Heart de" (Love with Your Heart) by pop singer Aki Izumi（泉アキ）. Released as her first single in October 1967, it's got that spicy Group Sounds twang (although I couldn't find anything on these Rangers so I'm assuming that it was just a bunch of studio musicians brought together for this particular song) and Izumi's distinctive delivery of the title. 

I also chose this one since "Koi wa Heart de" was written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）, who had just passed away just before the Holidays last year after a very long career, and composed by another veteran, the late Takashi Miki（三木たかし）. Izumi herself, whose father was an Indian-American soldier and whose mother was Japanese, released a total of 12 singles going up to 1977.

According to her J-Wiki profile, the Nagoya-born singer married tarento Kikumaru Katsura（桂菊丸）in 1972 and the two of them have two daughters: radio personality ANNA and tarento Anri Otsuka（大塚安里）. Izumi also became a TV personality herself and has even become a reporter for a number of TV shows.