This is the first time that I've featured the short-lived rock band Aido（愛奴）on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but I have mentioned this group before. It was actually back for a March 2015 article featuring singer-songwriter Shogo Hamada's（浜田省吾）"Ai no Kakehiki" （愛のかけひき）since it was one of his very early singles as a solo performer after being the drummer and co-vocalist for Aido.
According to J-Wiki, Aido had its initial origins with percussionist/keyboardist Takao Yamazaki（山崎貴生）, guitarist/vocalist Kanji Choushi（町支寛二）and bassist Nobuhiko Takahashi（高橋信彦）starting up an earlier group as high school buddies in 1968 within the loose amateur grouping known as the Hiroshima Folk Village. However with the rigors of university, this group had to break up, but later on in 1972 when the guys were all attending higher education in Tokyo, they got together again along with a couple of additions in the form of future star Hamada and guitarist/vocalist Tohru Aoyama（青山徹）.
On handing over a demo tape to what was known as CBS/Sony Records, Aido was invited over to do an audition and apparently folk star Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）took a listen, was suitably impressed and then offered the guys to join him on a national tour as the backup band. Incidentally, it was Hamada himself who came up with the name Aido to identify the group which had apparently been the stage name for French literature scholar Isamu Kurita（栗田勇）but it was more about how the kanji sounded and the image (the literal meaning is "love guys") that sealed the deal.
In any case, I found this track from their 2nd and final album (Aido broke up in 1976), "Love In City", released in September 1976. "Natsu no Futari" (The Summer Couple), which was written and composed by Aoyama, is not to be confused by their debut single which was titled "Futari no Natsu"（二人の夏...Two of Us in Summer） and was created by Hamada. In fact, by the time that "Love in City" was released, Hamada had already left the band. To be honest, I was initially confused by the two titles but I'm all cool now and will cover the debut single in a future article.
For the most part, "Natsu no Futari" indeed has that calming effect although Aoyama's lyrics seem to be describing a bit of late-summer bittersweet feeling since it looks like the couple here is having one last dance on the beach before breaking up forever as the season flows into cooler autumn. The other observation is how most of the song is mellow weather interspersed with some sudden vocal squalls. Maybe we're still a few weeks away from the official beginning of summer but considering how hot it's been over the last few days in Toronto, I think "Natsu no Futari" is OK at this time.
Just one more piece of trivia before I wrap up here as I mention that Hamada also invited drummer Atsuo Okamoto（岡本郭男）to join Aido. Okamoto is not to be mistaken for the singer Atsuo Okamoto（岡本敦郎）who sang the kayo classic "Kogen Ressha wa Iku"（高原列車は行く）, and as you can see the kanji for the two people's first names are different. Plus, drummer Okamoto would also join a few more bands, including Spectrum and AB'S.
Hmm, I came across this song as I'm going through a lot of pre-recorded mini discs I bought. One of the MDs I found has Shogo Hamada's SINCE1975 best of album on it. Natsu no Futari is the first song on there, it's my favorite on the album.
ReplyDeleteHello, Vilem and thanks for your comments. I think that you've got yourself a real rare treasure there with the Hamada album Hope that your other MDs have similar stuff.
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