Happy first weekend of 2021! So far, so quiet today although I did catch that "Doctor Who" New Year's special (I've been doing my fair share of PVR'ing this Holiday season) earlier today. It was actually pretty entertaining and who knew that Chris Noth could play such a hilariously slimy villain?
Several years ago, I wrote up an article devoted to "CD '87", Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）May 1987 album and on it was "Gypsy Queen", one of my very favourite singles by her because of its dramatic exoticness, a melodic theme that seemed to course through the album.
It was given lyrics by Ikki Matsumoto（松本一起）and the melody was produced by singer-songwriter Wataru Kuniyasu（国安わたる）. A native of Chiba Prefecture, he has created tunes for a lot of aidoru according to his J-Wiki profile, but he also released several singles and albums of his own during the 1980s, although he had earlier debuted alongside his brother in the band RAIN.
Well, in October 1988, Kuniyasu released "Kuniyasu Wataru Best Hits"（国安わたるベストヒッツ）and on the album is his cover of "Gypsy Queen". It's quite a worthy cover, too, as though it still retains the drama of the song that he had given Nakamori to sing, his version has more of a City Pop flavour. I'm not sure if he was also behind the arrangement of the song, but there is a feeling of Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）in there.
According to that same J-Wiki article, his brother, singer-songwriter Shuuji Kuniyasu（国安修二）, is currently running a bar and live house in the Ueno-Okachimachi neighbourhood of Tokyo, and from time to time, Wataru shows up to play a session (although his website states that he's currently not active). That particular area is just around the corner where I first started my NOVA career as an English teacher in late 1994.
To be honest, though, I still prefer the original by Akina!
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