Miki Asakura -- Living Together

 

I just saw singer Miki Asakura（麻倉未稀）a few nights ago on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）which came back after a month's respite for the Holidays, although the episode was more of a clip show. Still, there were a few performances including Asakura doing her trademark cover of Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero". Although she's been healthy for a few years now since her 2017 diagnosis of cancer, I'm still happy that she's doing well on stage.

As well, I'm also happy to have encountered this track from Asakura's 10th album of December 1986, "By Myself". Track 2 is "Living Together". According to the J-Wiki article on "By Myself", the themes covered in the album are elegance, freedom, partner and heart. For "Living Together", I gather that elegance and partner take dominance for this calm breeze of a song.

Written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composed by Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）, "Living Together" hits me like a tune concocted by Jay Graydon and David Foster (aka Airplay) as if it had been meant for another one of Al Jarreau's early 1980s albums such as "Breakin' Away". There's a cooling wind drafting into my room as I type this (yep, I'm Canadian) and it's perfect for the sentiments of this song. I love the keyboard work here as well as the chorus backing Asakura up. I wonder if Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）or Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）had anything to do with the chorus work. Unfortunately, Discogs, which would usually put up a lot of information about a Japanese album including musicians on each track, doesn't seem to have included "By Myself".