Patty -- Taiyo no Utopia（太陽のユートピア）

 

I only became aware of the aidoru named Patty（パティ）only in the last number of months but perhaps she was seen as the new Ann Lewis of the 1980s. Born Patricia Ann Fink in 1960 in what is now JASDF Iruma Air Base in Saitama Prefecture to an American airman and a Japanese woman from Asakusa, Tokyo, she grew up in that prefecture along with Okinawa and the Tokyo area.

Making her aidoru singing debut in 1979 under the name of Patty Fink, with her 2nd single "Taiyo no Utopia" (Utopia of the Sun), she took on the mononym of Patty when this was released in 1980. The theme song for an NTV special drama "Taiyo wa Shizumazu Umi yo! Chiisana Senshi no Uta wo Kike"（太陽は沈まず 海よ!小さな戦士の歌を聞け...This is the Sea Where the Sun Never Sets! Listen to the Song of the Little Warriors）, it has that mild combination of an exotic kayo which was popular at the time and a jaunty pop tune along the lines of what Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）was beginning to sing in the early 1980s, sans the synthesizers. It was composed and arranged by Toshiyuki Kimori（木森敏行）and as the song rolls along, it almost reaches City Pop levels of groove but settles down again just as quickly into what I will classify as New Music. The lyrics were provided by Casey Rankin and Noriko Iida（飯田則子）under her pseudonym of Shigeo Tanba（丹羽しげお）.

"Taiyo no Utopia" was Patty's biggest hit by reaching No. 18 on Oricon and selling 130,000 records. In total, she released 6 singles and 3 original albums into 1981. She's also been a tarento and an English teacher, and according to her J-Wiki profile, she was practicing the language with Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）and Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）. Patty was also apparently very impressed with the English ability by the members of Southern All Stars（サザンオールスターズ）.