Earlier this year, my last Kumiko Hara（原久美子）article was based on one of the tracks, "Chance", from her 1981 album "Unhappy Birthday". Well, I've got another track from the album to show you.
This time, we have "Sentimental Balance" which launches with some beefy bass and a cool keyboard intro. Plus, there's a hint of reggae in there, too. The title is interesting since the kanji title (which I had to search through a few websites until I came across it on Tacto so that I could track the songwriters down on JASRAC) has a fairly different meaning: "Crazy Balance". Maybe there's something of a split personality.
Written by Namiko Saki（﨑南海子）and composed by Makoto Yano（矢野誠）, "Sentimental Balance" is quite a button-down City Pop tune with Hara exhorting those lyrics in relatively bite-sized pieces like a mantra. Aside from the 80s instrumentation, there's something of a 1970s Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）vibe within this one.
From my translations about her it seems like she was a nightclub singer for a time. I could be wrong, though.
ReplyDeleteIs there any way that there were recordings of that?
Hi there. She was a jazz singer although there is no listing of any of her works in the genre, so following the release of her City Pop singles and albums, she may have just worked at the various clubs without putting any of her songs onto any recording media. That's a pity since some of us would have loved to have heard some of her jazz works.
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