Jun'ya Kitagami -- Suki Suki Suki to Nankai mo（好き好き好きと何回も）

 

A couple of days ago, I wrote up an article on one of Katsuhiko Miki's（美樹克彦）early hits, "Kaiten Kinshi no Seishunsa"（回転禁止の青春さ）, from January 1966. Considering that I'd known him only for a Mood Kayo duet with Sachiko Kobayashi（小林幸子）much later in the mid-1980s, it was a revelation that he had once been recording the twist-and-rock music of the 1960s.

Well, it looks like I found something similar and I think it was that similarity which may have doomed this singer to relatively early obscurity. Jun'ya Kitagami（北上淳也）doesn't have a J-Wiki profile and I had to get my information from a Japanese blog page. He made his debut in 1965 with this twist-and-rock tune "Suki Suki Suki to Nankai mo" (Love Ya, Love Ya, Love Ya Times Infinity).

The title by itself garners interest but it's also Kitagami throwing out the title as often as he can that has been catching my ear. Plus, the music by Jun Kitahara（北原じゅん）, the same fellow behind the composition of Miki's "Kaiten Kinshi no Seishunsa", has that catchy rhythm which reminds me of the TV themes for "Batman" and "The Munsters". In fact, I think director Quentin Tarentino would love this one for one of his flicks and maybe even the B-52s would enjoy it, too. The lyrics were provided by Tetsu Mizushima（水島哲）.

According to that same blog page, "Suki Suki Suki to Nankai mo" got oodles of its own love on the music shows on television. However as for Kitagami himself, beyond his debut, he apparently wasn't able to stand out enough from the rest of his singing compadres including the aforementioned Miki and Teruhiko Saigo（西郷輝彦）and perhaps he did the slow fade out. Showa Pops Encyclopedia, in fact, only lists "Suki Suki Suki to Nankai mo" as his accomplishment, so he may have truly been a one-hit wonder.