Daichi Miura/The Gospellers feat. Penthouse -- Keep It Goin' On

Although there are probably plenty of celebrities in Japan who can sing and dance, I believe that entertainer Daichi Miura（三浦大知）is the contemporary version of the song-and-dance man that I often associated with the Golden Age of Hollywood in the early half of the 20th century. I'm kinda surprised, actually, that I hadn't included him up to now since I've been seeing him appear on consecutive Kohaku Utagassen for the past few years. For those who grew up in the 1990s or just had a chance to watch Japanese television regularly, he was part of the song-and-dance kids' group Folder originating via the Okinawa Actors' School.

I've already featured one other member of Folder on the blog, and she is actress/TV personality Hikari Mitsushima（満島ひかり）, so I figure that if she's up here, then I've gotta cover Miura.

His debut single in March 2005 was "Keep It Goin' On" which was written by Hiroshi "Jam" Yamada（山田ひろし）, and co-composed by Kaoru Kurosawa（黒沢薫）, a member of the vocal group The Gospellers（ゴスペラーズ）. His fellow composer was Hidefumi Usami（宇佐美秀文）, someone who has been so closely associated with the famed group that the members and fans consider him the 6th member of the normally five-member Gospellers. But getting back to the matter at hand, "Keep It Goin' On" is a pretty cool old-school R&B tune with an all grown-up Miura showing his fine moves and vocals. The video is a heartwarming one, too, as a young boy with his own dancing talents who was scoffed at by one dance team is fully accepted by Miura's crew. The song managed to reach No. 14 on Oricon and was also a track on his debut album "D-ROCK WITH YOU" from January 2006 which peaked at No. 18.

Now, the main reason that I chose "Keep It Goin' On" is that The Gospellers themselves performed their cover of it a few weeks ago on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, and I was interested enough that I decided to take a deeper look (on the same show, they performed the touching "Hoshikuzu no Machi"（星屑の街）). In fact, The Gospellers collaborated with the City Soul sextet Penthouse to release the cover in June this year. The tempo is slightly faster so the song actually clocks in at less than three minutes, but it definitely makes good use of its two minutes and change with more of a modern Latin jazz arrangement.

I've checked into a couple of songs by Penthouse and will have to write about them soon enough.