Akira Terao -- Reflections (Follow-Up)

 

One of my earliest articles for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" (March 2012) was dedicated to the classic City Pop album, "Reflections", by singer/musician/actor Akira Terao（寺尾聰）. Of course, being the lazy bum that I was (and still am), I only provided a couple of tracks in that article, Oricon's No. 1 single for 1981 "Ruby no Yubiwa"（ルビーの指輪）and another hit single "Shadow City". Since then though, I've written up articles on some of the individual tracks: "Shukkou Sasurai" (舟航～SASURAI), "Kita Wing"（北ウィング）, "Yokisenu Dekigoto"（予期せぬ出来事）and "Nagisa no Campari Soda"（渚のカンパリ・ソーダ）.

However, it says something that despite handling all these other tracks on "Reflections", there are still a few more tracks that have yet to be covered. Therefore, over 9 years later, I'm taking another crack at Oricon's No. 1 album for 1981 as a follow-up and finish off at least the remaining tracks recorded on the original LP.

A piece of trivia that I learned from reading the J-Wiki article regarding "Reflections" that I hadn't caught onto when I wrote the first article is that the famous cover for the album was photographed on the fly. Oddly enough, Terao had been so busy filming his scenes on his cop show "Seibu Keisatsu"（西部警察...Western Police） at the time that he and the photographer only had time to take that iconic shot of him smoking and tracing out the LOVE letters between scenes so that shot was actually taken in a corridor at the television studio.

Now, I did mention up above that "Reflections" was this classic City Pop album. Well, that's not exactly true since listening to the album a number of times over the years, I've found that the album seems to be split down the middle in terms of genres covered. Side B comes across as the more down-home City Pop side while Side A is more of an international travelogue with some City Pop elements and more rock and New Music hints in there (although the exception is the final track of the side which just happens to be "Ruby no Yubiwa").

Case in point is the first track on Side A is "Habana Express". It launches the album at a pretty frenetic pace as our hero is loving, leaving and sprinting across Cuba in what seems to be multiple whirlwind romances. I hear the City Pop but also the tropical and spritzes of rock thrown in like a many-ingredient cocktail. As is the case for most of the tracks on "Reflections", Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）is behind the lyrics while Akira Inoue（井上鑑）handles the arrangement for Terao's melody for all of the tracks.

Track 3 on Side A continues the international travel as Terao heads for South Africa in "Kibouhou"（喜望峰...Cape of Good Hope）. Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, this time, has the lyricist duties for a song that actually sounds more reggae. There's nothing really City Pop with the track but those familiar sounds and chords that I've associated with Terao's material are still there.

The track just before "Ruby no Yubiwa" is "Niki Monogatari"（二季物語...A Tale of Two Seasons）. With Arikawa on lyrics, it's by far the longest track at over eight minutes, and I gather that this is Terao's version of Billy Joel's "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant". It's an epic reporting of a once-happy romance that has since withered on the vine with the first half being the languid and melancholy aftermath as Shigeharu Mukai（向井滋春）provides a trombone solo. But then, a little over halfway into the song, the story shifts back in time to a snazzier and brighter past when the love was still there. Terao himself fairly tap dances vocally during this latter half.

Now, the final track for the original album that I've covering is the Side B "Dial M". It's the same trio of Arikawa, Terao and Inoue, and I'm not sure if any of them were big fans of Alfred Hitchcock when they came up with the title. It's that down-home City Pop that "Ruby no Yubiwa" belongs to with the crooning singer and the Latin rhythm bubbling underneath. 

As for the "down-home" part that I've mentioned twice now, I have to admit that my good friend Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" was a little confused by my term when I first said it to him since images of country hoedowns entered our heads. To explain a bit more clearly, a number of Japanese City Pop songs have been clearly influenced by Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers or Airplay so when I say "down-home", I merely mean that the City Pop sounds very Japanese or kayo without those American AOR influences. And you know, when I first heard "Ruby no Yubiwa" all the way back in 1981, my extremely limited musical vocabulary forced me to initially categorize it as really funky enka!

In 2007, there was a re-release of "Reflections" with four bonus tracks which consist of the totality of Terao's 2nd and 3rd singles released in October 1974 and August 1977. The A-side for that 2nd single is "Honto ni Hisashiburi dane"（ほんとに久しぶりだね...It Really Has Been a Long Time） which was actually written and composed by singer-songwriter Ken Murata（ケン村田）with Mickey Yoshino（ミッキー吉野）of Godiego（ゴダイゴ）fame handling the arrangements. A happy-go-lucky summery tune, it's about as far from City Pop as Terao can get as the lyrics relate the story of a re-encounter of what I assume are two former flames. "Honto ni Hisashiburi dane" was actually used as the theme for an NHK program "Osaka, San-gatsu, Sannen"（大阪、三月、三年...Osaka, March, Three Years）.