The Edwards -- Cry, Cry, Cry（クライ・クライ・クライ）

 

Well, just a couple of days following an article on the very famous Group Sounds band The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース）, I've got another GS band that is perhaps not all that well known. I wasn't able to discover how this quintet of rock n' rollers got the name The Edwards（ジ・エドワーズ）...I keep thinking that perhaps one of the guys was a British Royal watcher.

Formed in June 1967, The Edwards had apparently wanted to bring back the sound of the early Beatles. However, they only released two singles and broke up in October 1968. Both of those singles were handled by lyricist Haruo Hayashi（林春生）and a young songwriter named Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平） whose legendary run as composer was still way ahead of him. Their debut single from February 1968 was "Cry, Cry, Cry" with Takeshi Maki（麻紀タケシ）as the vocalist and keyboardist. Yup, I can hear an amped-up version of The Beatles in there, although the fuzzy guitar makes me wonder whether The Edwards was trying to aim for The Fab Four around their "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" period.

Another member of The Edwards, guitarist Satoshi Sakakibara（榊原さとし）whose real name was Yoshio Hatano（秦野嘉王）, entered entertainment company Geiei Productions（芸映）once the band broke up, and became the very first manager for Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）. After he and Saijo had split up, Sakakibara set up his own company Office AtoZ where he was instrumental in giving comedy duo Tunnels（とんねるず） their push toward stardom. Of course, composer Tsutsumi made his breakthrough some ten months following the release of "Cry, Cry, Cry" with a totally different kayo kyoku.