Last night, I listened to Scott's latest episode for his podcast "Holly Jolly X'masu" which features the great wealth of Japanese Christmas songs. The 1988 compilation album “The Night Before Christmas” was the target and it's a pretty good one with entries by Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）, Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）and Hitomi "Penny" Toyama（当山ひとみ）among others. Zaitsu provided two Xmas tunes, one of which I will definitely cover in a few months when KKP's annual Xmas season is upon us, but there was another one by a singer that I had never heard of before by the name of Midori Hara（原みどり）, and her Xmas tune was "Very Merry Christmas To You" which is a sad and somewhat bitter ballad about ending up alone during the Yuletide. As I mentioned to Scott, Japanese singers seem to enjoy singing about very blue Christmases to a near-masochistic degree.
Alas, I couldn't find "Very Merry Christmas to You" on YouTube, but hearing Hara's fine vocals, I decided to make another dive into the rabbit hole. Such dives have unearthed an aural treasure of riches in the past, and happily, this one is no different. Incidentally, Hara hails from Utsunomiya City in Tochigi Prefecture, a metropolis that has been known for its plethora of gyoza restaurants and its gyoza statue by the main train station. The singer-songwriter got a kickstart to her career when she won the Grand Prize at a Nippon Columbia audition in 1986.
Man, what a payday she received. Her very first single released in January 1987 had her paired up with the veteran lead singer of Tulip（チューリップ）, the aforementioned Zaitsu, and was written/composed by none other than Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）. Now, just as a brief aside, J-Wiki and even Hara's own website haven't been able to decide definitively whether "Tsugunai no Hibi" (Days of Atonement) came out in 1987 or 1989. But for the sake of argument, let's go with 1987.
Getting back on track, soulful Hara's duet with Zaitsu, "Tsugunai no Hibi", is a most interesting and lovely 80s power ballad. Perhaps it's because the arrangement was by Zaitsu and Seiichi Kyoda（京田誠一）, but it doesn't sound like the usual Yuming（ユーミン）tune. I think it sounds more like something that David Foster had created for the band Chicago when they were in their love song phase back in the early 1980s. Those keyboards were really key there.
Scott goes into detail about Hara's career on the podcast when he plays "Very Merry Christmas to You", but I can also let you know that she joined up with the pop group Spank Happy in the 1990s when it was first formed though she left in 1998. According to her J-Wiki article, she is also a narrator for commercials as well as a vocal trainer. I'll definitely have to talk about Spank Happy in a separate article shortly.
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