Back in June 2019, so a mere three years ago, I wrote up something on Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）1981 debut album "Good Times" that I purchased on not only the merits of a couple of tracks that I'd covered individually, the happy-go-lucky "My Last Lady" and "Crescent Night"（クレッセント・ナイト）, but also because of Nishimatsu's 1985 second very different album "Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）which had that cabaret-on-Tatooine feeling.
Now the copy of "Good Times" that I got came with six bonus tracks consisting of Nishimatsu's singles and a couple of songs that he did for the soundtrack of the anime movie "Crusher Joe"（クラッシャージョウ）. I was able to cover a couple of those in the original "Good Times" article, but I could still only find one more bonus track on YouTube.
Back then when I did the 2019 article, I rather lamented that there weren't any more tracks for me to cover. Well, that has changed over the past three years for which I want to thank the YouTuber, Minmo. One reason for having good times with the eclectic "Good Times" is that it's not just a straight City Pop album but it also has elements of other genres in there, too, such as New Wave and some hints of that techno jazz that would be part-in-parcel for the later "Bouekifu Monogatari".
Track 3 is "Sasurai City"（さすらいCity...Wandering City） which was created by the sibling songwriting team of Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）with guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）arranging it (along with a number of the other tracks). It's an interesting tune since it has Nishimatsu singing with that falsetto that I've come to associate with his cabaret style on "Bouekifu Monogatari" although Takao's melody and Kon's arrangement result in a sports car-driving West Coast AOR style along the Ventura.
"Swan" is a gentle pop ballad of coming to terms with a romantic situation with Nishimatsu and Kon working on the melody while Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）wrote the lyrics. It becomes further tenderized thanks to those slow and shimmering strings and the old-timey piano. Again, due to Nishimatsu's high-toned vocals, we get hints of what's to come with that second album. The way that "Swan" ends with those key shifts in the instrumental shows that there is hope over the horizon.
"Gosan"（誤算...Mistake） is a nice slice of light Latin Resort Pop written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, composed by Takao Kisugi and arranged by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）. Despite the ominous warning of that title, the music by Kisugi and Inoue certainly don't show any foreboding. If anything, everything seems very copacetic on the boardwalk.
Let me first get the name of Seabornia out of the way. I automatically did get some marine vibes from the word, and when I checked it out in the search engines, I found out that there was a yacht club and a restaurant with that name in Kanagawa and Tokyo respectively. I gather then that Nishimatsu must have truly savored his "Seabornia Lunch" (it likely included one fine vinaigrette on his salad) . The song itself has got more of that West Coast AOR with a side of rock, and the singer even puts on a bit of a growl in the delivery. Ohtsu provided the lyrics while the melody was another Nishimatsu and Kon collaboration.
Some soft-shoe French jazz finishes the original album before all of the bonus tracks thanks to "Michelet Dori"（ミシューレ通り...Av. Michelet）. Now I'm not sure if that's the romaji that Nishimatsu was aiming for since I couldn't find anything online that corresponded with the katakana of 「ミシューレ」. However there was 「ミシュレ」without the bar which did lead to 19th-century French historian Jules Michelet. And when I punched in "Av. Michelet" into the search engines, I did get a few hits of streets with that name in a number of French municipalities. On the other hand, I did throw in the title verbatim into Google Translate and got "Michele Street" which actually exists in Dearborn, Michigan, but I rather doubt that Nishimatsu was pondering about the Midwest when he came up with the song (for instance, I did hear "bonjour" in there along with some other French words).
Ah, good heavens. My apologies for making the above sound like a CIA intelligence briefing. Getting back to "Michelet Dori", Chii Uchida（内田栞）, who was the lyricist for the title track of the album, came up with the words for this one, while Nishimatsu and Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）worked on the romantic French music (aside from a bit of City Pop midway) together with Inoue once again providing arrangement. I could imagine if there had been a music video, it would have had Nishimatsu dancing around in tuxedo, hat and cane like Charles Boyer. Once again, there is that hint of what he would do on "Bouekifu Monogatari" except that "Michelet Dori" is a straight jazz interpretation without the synths.
As I mentioned all the way up at the top, I could only find one more bonus track which was, "Hishou ~ Never End"（飛翔...Flight）, the theme song to the 1983 anime motion picture treatment of "Crusher Joe". Although I wouldn't say that this would have been a fit for "Bouekifu Monogatari", it does have that epic ballad vibe to span the cosmos. The singer is officially known as Kazuhiro Nishimatsu by ARAGON and he was responsible for the melody. Meanwhile, the lyrics were by Fukuoka Prefecture-born poet Ryuichiro Fujiwara（藤原龍一郎）under the pseudonym Tsukihiko Fujiwara（藤原月彦）.
Yes, those were indeed good times with "Good Times", but I'm now going through tired times after today's bunch of articles so I will call it a night. See you tomorrow!
"Av." Michelet in a short form that stands for Avenue Michelet in french. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks kindly, Solarriors!
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