Welcome to Family Day in Ontario. I guess that this could be called a semi-statutory holiday since although a lot of the stores are closed, the post office is still running.
Anyways, we're going to start the last full week of February 2023 with a little something from over 50 years ago. Last year in September, I discovered this singer by the name of Kyo Nishimura（西村協）who's run the gamut from folk to rock to pop to jazz in his career. Well, I'm heading back to the beginning when he was a part of a trio called The Glee Men（グリーメン）along with Keiji Asano（浅野啓児）and Akio Ichikawa（市川章夫）. The group came out of a folk chorus club at Meiji University in 1969 and according to one site, it has been compared to the New Christy Minstrels from the United States, a folk music band that I often heard on radio as a kid.
In November 1970, The Glee Men released a single "Koi Shitara" (When I Fall in Love) that was written by Osamu Kitayama（北山修）and composed by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, two members of The Folk Crusaders in the 1960s. The song about a man's plans when he meets the love of his life has got that orchestral kayo arrangement which probably had them appearing on various music-variety shows but it's underlaid by that undulating folk rhythm and I wonder whether there is a straight guitar-only folk version of the song. The harmonies among Nishimura, Asano and Ichikawa are also very pleasing to the ear.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find much else on The Glee Men, so if there is any other information about them that you have found, please let me know.
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