Kyohei Nishida -- No Return My Love（ノーリターン・マイラブ）

 

I managed to find another rather obscure singer-songwriter in the annals of kayo recently. Kyohei Nishida（西田恭平）hails from Fukuoka, which has apparently been dubbed the Liverpool of Japan for its plethora of musical artists such as Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi（長渕剛）and Chage & Aska. In fact, Nagabuchi is a very close friend of Nishida, with the former even writing a song for the latter when Nishida decided to come home to Fukuoka after deciding to give up on the singing.

From what little I could dig up on Nishida, he was apparently connected with a couple of bands, White House II（ホワイトハウスII）and Crystal（クリスタル）. It was with the latter band that he entered the 1979 edition of Yamaha's Popular Song Contest.

Nishida also had his time as a solo singer. His career at that time resulted in at least one single, "No Return My Love" and one 1981 album, "Kyohei ~ Medium Star"（恭平・ミディアム スター）. "No Return My Love" is a pretty bluesy/folksy City Pop tune with lyrics by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and melody by Nishida, and I like it for its downtown rhythm and the silky strings accompanying it. The singer also reminds me a tad of the late Kozo Murashita（村下孝蔵）who was another singer with experience in both folk and City Pop.