Friday, March 11, 2022

Toshiki Kadomatsu -- Yokohama Twilight Time

 

Happy Friday! Ah, of course, I should say TGIF if that's still an accepted vernacular expression. Back to Yokohama again via that 2-CD "Yokohama Fantasy"(横浜幻想)compilation that I got recently. I did Disc 1 but I did leave out a few of those tracks such as a couple of Momoe Yamaguchi's(山口百恵)Yokohama-based kayo so I could do those individually.

One other such song actually is available on Disc 2 that I have yet to cover but will most likely do so over this weekend. However, being a Toshiki Kadomatsu(角松敏生)song convinced me that I had to give it its own article. That would be his debut single "Yokohama Twilight Time" which was released on the first day of summer 1981. I couldn't find the original version of this on YouTube but there is an excerpt via Sony that you can take a listen to via his debut album "Sea Breeze" that came out on the same day as the single.

Instead, I've found a number of videos featuring his 20th anniversary version of "Yokohama Twilight Time" which was the coupling song to Kadomatsu's 27th single "Shinpai"(心配...Worries). His sense of celebration wasn't lost on him since it was released on June 21st 2001, exactly 20 years since that debut single. It's that 20th anniversary version that's on Disc 2 of "Yokohama Fantasy". The single itself peaked at No. 26 on Oricon.

(from 2:29)

Because I couldn't hear the whole version of the original 1981 single, I can't give a comprehensive comparison between it and the 20th anniversary take, but my impression is that Toshiki's self-cover has got some more oomph in the horns thanks to Shin Kazuhara's(数原晋)arrangement. In either case, though, "Yokohama Twilight Time" shows that one of the big guys in City Pop/J-AOR had the summery urban contemporary DNA in him right from the get-go. 

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