Minako Ito -- Velvet Blue（ベルベット・ブルー）

 

Well as of this article, it looks like I'm going to end up writing on half of Minako Ito's（伊藤美奈子）2nd album "Sasoegyotou" or "Yuu Gyotou"（誘魚灯...Inviting Fish Lights） which was released in March 1984. I've already provided individual articles on four of the tracks from Ito's sophomore effort and this is No. 5. I'm not sure how available the album is at the stores, online or otherwise, although her debut album "Tenderly" will be popping up at CD Japan from November 23rd in a few weeks. At the same time, I'm additionally uncertain about the pronunciation of the album title although YouTuber Kayo Wave Plus says that it is "Sasoegyotou" while website Rate Your Music has pegged it as "Yū gyo tō". If anyone can break the tie definitively, I would be most appreciative.

Anyways, this time I have the first track "Velvet Blue" which involves romance and the ocean. It's a mid-tempo to uptempo beginning to "Yuu Gyotou", and the scene that "Velvet Blue" evokes is a sunset seaside resort area with plenty of stylish hotels and restaurants built up by the shore. There is something in the arrangement that reminds me of what Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）was singing during her City Pop phase, and unsurprisingly I found out that her husband Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）was on the keyboards.

In fact, according to Sony Music Shop, the album has quite a few famous session musicians helping out including Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）on drums, Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）and Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）on electric guitar, and Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）and Jake H. Concepcion on the brass. Lyricist Shun Taguchi（田口俊）was also responsible for the lyrics behind "Velvet Blue" as he has for every other track on "Yuu Gyotou" that I've covered while Ito came up with the music.