The Works of Chika Ueda（上田知華）

 

Just before I went for dinner before 5 pm today, I noticed a tweet stating that singer-songwriter Chika Ueda, a name that has had plenty of representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" almost as long as the blog has been in existence, had passed away last September, but the news was only coming out right now through an online article on the Asahi Shimbun. The article itself had only been up for just some minutes itself and it was the only one stating this sad news, so I decided to wait until coming back onto the computer tonight at 7 pm.

As of this writing, there hasn't been any report given on television news via YouTube, but I've now noticed that her J-Wiki article has been updated to reflect her passing along with some other news sources such as Yahoo News and 2Channel. She died at the age of 64 from pancreatic cancer.

Chika Ueda was born Chikako Ueda（植田知華子）in Tokyo and began studying piano at the age of 3. While studying at the Tokyo College of Music, she brought her talents in songwriting, vocals and piano playing and meshed them with a string quartet to form Chika Ueda + Karyobin which made their debut in 1978. KKP contributor nikala provided an article on a 1980 song by the group, "Purple Monsoon"  (パープル・モンスーン) that I think is one of the more quintessential examples of Fashion Music, or the Japanese version of baroque pop, that I ever heard. Although I didn't know who they were at the time, I distinctly remember this song being played on an episode of "Sounds of Japan" on the radio.

Following the breakup of the group around 1982, Ueda continued to provide some of her own solo material in the form of albums and songs for other singers. My take on her songwriting is that her music was often very soft and romantic, and not surprisingly, she was an ideal fit for singers like Miki Imai（今井美樹）for whom she came up with a large number of tunes in the latter half of the 1980s going into the 1990s. In fact, one of Imai's biggest hits was "Piece of My Wish" from 1991 which was composed by Ueda and written by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂） .

In that same year, Ueda released her very first single as a solo artist "I Will", a theme song for a Fuji-TV drama. Wilton Felder of The Jazz Crusaders added his saxophone to Ueda's velvety vocals to create a ballad magical enough to entrance me into buying the CD single and even her album with the same title. This was the first time that I had ever heard of Ueda and after realizing that was making a lot of Imai's wonderful songs, her name was something that would always gain my attention whenever I saw it in anyone's liner notes.

Ueda's list of clients, as it were, is a very long one, and one such singer is Kanako Wada（和田加奈子）for whom the songwriter provided "If" for her 1989 album "dear", one of my favourites for easy listening J-Pop.

One thing that I was surprised about as I delved further into the history of Ueda was that she did have her 1980s solo albums although no singles were released from any of them. I was especially struck by the album "Classiest" from August 1984 because one of those tracks "Madogiwa no High Heel"（窓際のハイヒール）was pure Donald Fagen-inspired City Pop. However, from the same album, I found this gem titled "Starry Night" which is actually more of the wistful pop concoction as if filtered through Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. This was written and composed by Ueda.

Marcos V. introduced pop-rock singer Saiko SAICO Suzuki（鈴木彩子）through his article on a compilation album "I Love Dance Number". Ueda wrote and composed a track, "Denwa Dekinakatta"（電話できなかった...Couldn't Make the Call） for her on her March 1992 3rd album "Juu-kyuu Sai no Kodou"（19歳の鼓動...Heart Beating at 19）. I can hear the rock gruffness in SAICO's voice but the music accompanying her does sound like an Ueda composition.

One other new song created by Ueda that I'm introducing here is "Umi wo Miteiyou"（海を見ていよう...Let's Look at the Ocean）, a languid bluesy ballad performed by the veteran vocal group Pedro & Capricious（ペドロ＆カプリシャス）with Naoko Matsudaira（松平直子）as the main vocalist. This was the final track in the band's April 2006 album "Cadena".

My final song for Ueda is the one that she composed with lyricist Masami Tozawa（戸沢暢美）, "Boogie Woogie Lonesome High Heel" for Imai's 1989 album "Mocha--Under A Full Moon". The title might be loopy as all get out, but it stands as one of my favourites by either Ueda or Imai. It's just so calming and so representative of one of the things that I loved about the music of the late 1980s and early 1990s: the female singer-songwriter which of course includes Ueda. 

It is very sad to hear of her departure from this mortal coil but once again, we have this wonderful legacy of her compositions, and I'm hopeful that many of them inhabit YouTube. All of my condolences to her family, friends and fans.