Yokohama Fantasy（横浜幻想） -- Disc 1

 

I don't quite remember how I found out about this January 2004 2-disc album which features the Yokohama-themed kayo called "Yokohama Fantasy". All I know is that I just had to have it and I did get it as part of my shopping spree recently. Although of course, the album had been released years before I launched "Kayo Kyoku Plus", it still reminds me of that rather little Yokohama-based kayo article that I came up with early in the blog's history. 

Ironically, neither Hiroshi Itsuki's（五木ひろし）"Yokohama Tasogare"（よこはま・たそがれ）nor Ayumi Ishida's（いしだあゆみ）"Blue Light Yokohama"（ブルーライト・ヨコハマ）shows up in this collection although both of them can be considered to be the crème de la crème of Yokohama kayo. Rocket Brown posited that copyrights may have come into play while I think perhaps that those two had been assumed to be just a bit too obvious (however, there's a very rearranged version of the latter song by singer-songwriter Tomoko Tane（種ともこ）on Disc 2).

One thing that I noticed was that the booklet inside the CD case seemed unusually thick, but as it turned out, the reason for that was the presence of a map of Yokohama centering upon the famous Yokohama Bay. That's rather magnanimous of Sony and especially now when international tourism is rather vital for Japan, it gives me some inspiration to definitely visit the Japanese port city again and maybe even spend a few days there on my next trip.

Without further ado then, I would like to feature a few tunes from Disc 1 today because I'd never heard them before. Still, it's quite evident that Yokohama kayo has made for a good part of KKP since I have already covered them in the past, although I've also noticed that there isn't any Mood Kayo on either disc. I gather then that Sony was going more for the pops part of the kayo. As for the tracks on Disc 1:

1 Ima Mezameta Kodomo no You ni -- Momoe Yamaguchi (いま目覚めた子供のように)

2 Doll -- Hiromi Ohta (ドール) 

3 Yokohama Eleven -- Midori Kinouchi (横浜いれぶん)

4 Koibito mo Nureru Machikado -- Masatoshi Nakamura (恋人も濡れる街角)

5 Yokohama AKUMA -- Akina Nakamori (ヨコハマA・KU・MA)

6 Beautiful Yokohama -- Miki Hirayama (ビューティフル・ヨコハマ)

7 Minato no Yoko, Yokohama Yokosuka -- Downtown Boogie-Woogie Band (港のヨーコ・ヨコハマ・ヨコスカ)

8 Machikutabirete Yokohama -- Yoshie Kashiwabara (待ちくたびれてヨコハマ)

9 Fly-Day Chinatown -- Yasuha (フライデー・チャイナタウン)

10 Minato Scope -- Machiko Watanabe (港スコープ)

11 Yokohama Cheek -- Masahiko Kondo (ヨコハマ・チーク)

12 Yokohama Boogie-Woogie Musume -- Rie Nakahara (横浜ブギウギ娘)

13 Yokohama Chinese Doll -- Judy Ongg (横浜チャイニーズ・ドール)

14 I Came From Yokosuka -- Momoe Yamaguchi (I CAME FROM 横須賀)

15 Beautiful Yokohama -- IN THE GROOVE (ビューティフル・ヨコハマ)

You may have noticed that there are two songs by 70s aidoru Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）in the mix but I'll be doing those as a twofer in the near future. For that matter, I'll be doing the same for the remaining tracks aside from the three that I'll be covering here today.

Let me start with Hiromi Ohta's（太田裕美）12th single "Doll" from July 1978. Created by the songwriting dream team of lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, Ohta sings this smooth if jaunty song of slightly melancholy intent in the setting of Yokohama. 

If I've interpreted Matsumoto's lyrics correctly, the young lady here may be recovering from a broken romance while feeling somewhat out-of-sorts just like a doll without any strings or owner to love her. I was a little confused by the repeated statements of celluloid initially; was she referring to her life being like a film (melodrama is part and parcel of the kayo experience, after all)? However, I figured out that celluloid in katakana refers actually refers to a certain type of doll as pictured on J-Wiki.

"Doll" peaked at No. 21 on Oricon and has been included on Ohta's 8th studio album "Elegance" from August 1978 which went as high as No. 13. The singer also performed this particular tune on the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of the year.

From the brassy Miki Hirayama（平山三紀）, I have the just-as-brassy "Beautiful Yokohama", and this one is an especially auspicious tune because the song happened to be Hirayama's debut tune released in November 1970. Tsutsumi was once again the composer but back at that time, his lyrics-writing partner was Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）, and as I recall from doing other articles, those two were quite the tandem, too. 

Hirayama was all of 21 with that husky voice of hers when she recorded it as this worldly young woman who made Yokohama her oyster and her men her pets tightly wound around her finger (two of the many men's names that she mentions happen to be the songwriters' sons). According to the J-Wiki article on this song, Hirayama had been attending the Takarajima Music Office for singing lessons at the Hotel New Japan. It just so happened that both Hashimoto and Tsutsumi had founded the organization and offered her "Beautiful Yokohama" as her first original tune. The cover of the single was also photographed with Hirayama at Yamashita Park right by Yokohama Bay. Ranking at No. 64 on the singles chart, the song was placed in her debut album "Beautiful Album"（ビューティフル・アルバム）from November 1971.

My final example is Machiko Watanabe's（渡辺真知子）"Minato Scope" (Port Telescope). When I saw that katakana for the second word in the title, I'd first thought that it was the translation for "scoop" which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But then on reading Akira Ito's（伊藤アキラ）lyrics, I realized that Watanabe's protagonist was looking through a telescope on a cruise ship entering the harbour in Yokohama to see if she could improbably spot her old flame and probably her memories with the guy. Watanabe came up with the City Pop melody punctuated by the buzzy electric guitar.

It certainly comes across as another fresh City Pop discovery and Watanabe's vocals sound as wonderfully resonant as ever. "Minato Scope" was the B-side to her 12th single from February 1982, "Suki to Itte"（好きと言って...Tell Me You Love Me）. Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）arranged everything.

As mentioned, I'll take a look at some of the other tracks in individual articles in the coming weeks and months, but otherwise, I'll see if I can get Disc 2 up here in March.