Van Paugam sent out a tweet reminding all of us City Pop fans that February 4th is Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）birthday, and since it is indeed already the 4th in Japan, may we wish him a happy 69th birthday! And thanks to Van for the notice.
Some years ago, I wrote about City Pop/jazz singer Kimiko Kasai's（笠井紀美子）"Vibration" which was a track from her 1977 album "Tokyo Special", and I revealed that Tats provided the melody with the added information that it had the alternate title of "Love Celebration".
Well, that "Love Celebration", as it turns out, was more than just an alternate title. It was actually Yamashita's alternate take on the original melody with James Ragan's new English lyrics replacing Kazumi Yasui's（安井かずみ）original Japanese ones in "Vibration". This "Love Celebration" would inhabit Tats' December 1978 3rd studio album "Go Ahead!" as the first full track after the 48-second overture which starts things off.
There's also more story behind "Love Celebration" thanks to the liner notes in "Go Ahead!" via the J-Wiki article on the album. Back in the spring of 1978, Yamashita had planned to have this song and one other included in a release for singer Linda Carriere which was being produced by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, but unfortunately for whatever reason, Carriere couldn't quite hit the heights with either of them, so her recordings were left as demo takes. Seeing that as a waste, Yamashita then decided to use "Love Celebration" for "Go Ahead!".
I don't know whether I am the only one who has this opinion, but I think that there is quite a difference in feeling and sound between "Vibration" and "Love Celebration". Kasai's "Vibration" has that steamy and sultry sensation while Tats' "Love Celebration" is one fist-pumping up-with-life sprint down the road. To be honest, if I hadn't been told of the connection, I wouldn't have noticed that the songs have the same main root.
One other thing I found out about "Love Celebration" from those liner notes is that Yamashita planned to incorporate a tone of 1970s Chicago R&B while at the same time, bassist Akihiro Tanaka（田中章弘）and drummer Yutaka Uehara（上原裕）as part of the rhythm section brought in more of a Miami feeling. What I've just stated is something that makes me wish that I was a musicologist or a music historian since I can only provide the information without any particular knowledgeable insight. So I will leave this for my fellow City Pop fans including Van Paugam and Rocket Brown to digest that rather long first sentence of this paragraph and give us any further opinions. In any case, this is another feather in Tats' cap, so much so that I figure that the cap might evolve into a real bird.
You can also try out another track from "Go Ahead!", "Let's Dance Baby".
Also as a final PS, Rocket himself has created his own Top 10 Tatsuro Yamashita song list so have a gander right here.
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