Sonia Rosa -- Charlie, My Darling

 

I gather that when reasonably priced mail passage is restored between Japan and Canada, Sonia Rosa's（ソニア・ローザ） 1979 "Samba Amour" may be one of the first albums that I'll get. So far, I've covered a couple of other tracks previously, "Te Quero Tanto (I Love You, So)" and "Tokyo in the Blue"（東京イン・ザ・ブルー）and both of them have been silky and smooth and eminently listenable.

Now, there is "Charlie, My Darling" with Rosa's kittenish vocals and a 70s City Pop/J-AOR arrangement. There are also some odd spacey bleeps in the background but otherwise, especially with a trombone solo, "Charlie, My Darling" takes me back to Mancini and Bacharach. It's perfect caipirinha-sipping music, and I think that it would have been fine on a "Lupin III" soundtrack of those times. That's not surprising considering it was Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）, the man behind the famous and iconic theme song for the anime, that composed this one for Rosa and Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）provided the lyrics.