Fujimal Yoshino -- Pacific

Perhaps it's still a bit cool out there but the sun and sky are also out so it might be a great day outside for a park outing, as long as you still have a few layers on. Guess why I put up this Seizo Watase picture from my calendar as the thumbnail?

Once again, I read on Van Paugam's Twitter feed a few days ago that one of the big guys in City Pop, singer-musician Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）celebrated his 71st birthday on April 21st. All the best to him. Incidentally, my most recent article on Yoshino was "August" written up logically enough in August 2021, but once again in another display of my increasing forgetfulness, my memory failed to inform me that I'd actually written about "August" originally back in November 2018. I've done this before with at least a couple of other songs but I've kept everything up just to see if time has changed my outlook on them any.

Anyways in tribute to groovy Yoshino, I'm providing an article on "Pacific", the second track from his second album "Romantic Guys" from July 1983 which also has "August" as the final song. This time, though, I did check whether I'd already written about "Pacific", but luckily, this will be the one and only article. With lyrics by Yoshihiko Ando（安藤芳彦）, his comrade from the band AB's, Yoshino has come up with some summery and sunny music that reflects the title nicely, including a cutting guitar solo. I read up on a review of "Romantic Guys" on the Japanese music blog "Music Avenue", and those additional vocals are provided by Naoki Watanabe（渡辺直樹）, another AB's member, and he gives the song a bit of Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）. Just lay back in that hammock and relax!