Ken Takahashi/Naomi Nomoto -- Bucket Ippai no Ame（バケツいっぱいの雨）

 

Usually when it comes to singer-songwriter Ken Takahashi（高橋研）on this blog, I've usually included him as the songwriter behind the scenes but up to this point, I'd only had one article about one of his songs, "Natsukashi no Yon-go Sen"（懐かしの4号線）, in which the Iwate Prefecture-born Takahashi was behind the mike. Well, here is his second KKP article with him actually singing as well as creating the song.

In "Natsukashi no Yon-go Sen", I likened Takahashi to singers such as Motoharu Sano（佐野元春）and Shogo Hamada（浜田省吾）in his good ol' rock-n'-roll approach. Well, I did find a blog posting by someone named Takashi Ikegami in which the singer is compared to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band. And perhaps there is a particular connection with Dylan here when it comes to this track "Bucket Ippai no Ame" (Buckets of Rain) because the legendary singer-songwriter behind classics including "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" actually created a song titled "Buckets of Rain" for his January 1975 album "Blood on the Tracks".

Although Takahashi's "Bucket Ippai no Ame" is straight ahead rock-n'-roll (and basically a different animal) compared to Dylan's folk-rock "Buckets of Rain", I can't help but hear a bit of that rhythm from the Dylan song grafted into Takahashi's song as perhaps a tribute (maybe someone can confirm this). In any case, I also hear the Sano and Hamada feelings in Takahashi's creation which was a track on his third album from December 1986, "Freedom". It's definitely a feel-good song as Takahashi sings that every life has its buckets of rain falling down but there is also sun breaking through the clouds, too.

Up to this point, I had two entries on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for Naomi Nomoto（野本直美）including her "Kanashimi Doori"（かなしみ通り）, and my impression was that she was into the folk/New Music genres. Well, with her 1987 "The Fire" album, Nomoto decided to check out her own inner rock-n'-roll as well. In fact, the above-mentioned Ikegami has likened her to an Osakan version of pop-rock singer Ayumi Nakamura（中村あゆみ）, and strangely enough, Nakamura's big hit from 1985, "Tsubasa no Oreta Angel" （翼の折れたエンジェル）was created by Takahashi.

Nomoto did a cover of Takahashi's "Bucket Ippai no Ame" for "The Fire" and it actually leads off the album. It's got that same motorcycle-on-the-road-friendly arrangement although it doesn't have that brassy E Street Band sensation from the original. However, Nomoto makes it quite clear that she can also provide the good ol' rock-n'-roll chops.