The Works of Tsugutoshi Goto, Part 1（後藤次利）

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Happy Saturday! Well, according to the statistics on the blog, this is the 8,888th article and since the number 8 is seen as a lucky number in a lot of Asian cultures, I'm hoping that the subject of this article, Tsugutoshi Goto, will have a fortuitous day today although his birthday was back on February 5th. Seeing over the years that Goto has had a lot of influence on various singers through his songwriting, I figured that it was time to take stock of his output through a Creator article. Usually when I encounter his name, I usually associate him with Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）since he came up with a number of songs and hits for her such as her iconic "Mugon Iroppoi" (MUGO・ん　色っぽい）in 1988.

Goto was born in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo in 1952 and is a bassist, composer, arranger and producer who has an even bigger presence on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" than officially stated through Labels since I haven't mentioned him there in songs where he has been involved as a musician in the recording booth. According to his J-Wiki profile, in his junior high school years, he began listening to his sister's Beatles and Ventures records, and then when she took him to a concert by The Astronauts, he was captivated by their "Movin'" (above) and also by the warm-up act, Takeshi Terauchi & Blue Jeans（寺内タケシとブルージーンズ）, especially with Terauchi's technique. From that point, Goto began learning the guitar and joined the light music club in high school where he met drummer Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）at one event. As well, he also studied at the Yamaha Music School in Ebisu where he got to know musicians Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）and Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）.

A few years later, Goto got a phone call from Hayashi telling him "You're playing bass!" since a tour involving the folk/AOR duo Bread & Butter（ブレッド＆バッター）was missing a bassist. He'd been a guitarist until then, so there was a sudden learning curve to climb as he now picked up on how to play that instrument. After participating in Chu Kosaka's（小坂忠）backing band, Goto then went fully into the bass, and he even sold his Corolla to purchase a 100,000-yen Telecaster bass at Yamano Music in Ginza. Since then, he helped out other groups such as Tranzam and Sadistic Mika Band in the 1970s.

I've written about Shinji Harada's（原田真二）"Shadow Boxer"（シャドー・ボクサー）in 1977 which was also Goto's first try at arrangement, and apparently he felt like he was thrown into the deep end of the pool through doing so, but he managed to survive his trial by fire.

Well, he didn't only survive...he thrived. He won for Best Arranger at the Japan Record Awards in 1980 for Kenji Sawada's（沢田研二）"TOKIO".

Between his stint as a studio musician and songwriter/arranger, Goto also put out his several solo albums of which the first was "ON Bass" in 1978. One of the tracks there is "Choppers Boogie", an instrumental jam originally performed by Caramel Mama（キャラメルママ）and created by his old buddy Hayashi on the band's self-titled 1975 album.

Speaking of Sawada, before his hit "TOKIO", Goto had also arranged an earlier September 1979 single by Julie, his 28th, titled "Lonely Wolf"（ロンリー・ウルフ）which was written by Makoto Kitajo（喜多條忠）and composed by Katsuo Ohno（大野克夫）. It rather dramatically fits that personality of the go-it-alone type of guy who may be some sort of detective or drifter. The song reached No. 18 on Oricon.

Well, I've found that I'm going to have extend this profile with a Part 2. A number of other songs to go through by Goto.