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Being raised in the 1970s, I not only got to experience the genre of disco, but I also got to see all those wacky trends such as pet rocks, mood rings, pyramid power and talking to plants. During my time in Grade 6 in elementary school, our teacher made us sit down on Fridays for fifteen minutes with assigned philodendrons to talk to them like pets. I named mine Henry (why I never named him Phil escapes me) and for several years, although I never bothered to commune with him again, I set him in my room and he literally expanded all over the walls. Philodendrons are a hardy and gregarious species, I guess.
Unlike Henry, I never had a pet rock but when I came across this duo a few weeks ago, my memories of botanical ownership returned to me. Pet Rock（ペットロック）was a pop duo consisting of two singer-songwriters, Takeo Nakanishi（中西健夫）of Kyoto and Mitsuko Shiramine（白峰美津子）who hails from Ehime Prefecture. The only information that I could get on Pet Rock was through "idol.ne.jp" in which they may have gotten together as early as 1972 but their lone single and album were released in June 1979.
The album was titled "Fashionable Lady" and Track 1 happens to be the song of note here today, "Ai no Shuppatsu" (Departure of Love) which was elegantly composed by Nakanishi and written by Yuusaburo Ohashi（おおはしゆうさぶろう）. As sung by Shiramine, it's a relaxing New Music tune with a touch of blues, and once again, visions of hammocks and beachsides invade my brain.
Not sure when the end came for Pet Rock or whatever happened to Shiramine, but Nakanishi joined concert promotion company Disk Garage as a part-time employee the year after releasing their records, and gradually ended up as its president in 2012. His J-Wiki file mentioned that he was involved in a band but the name Pet Rock isn't mentioned.
"白峰美津子、中西健夫のポップ・デュオ。
ReplyDelete1972年に活動を開始した京都の学生アマチュア･バンド「ピロティー」のリーダーだった中西健夫とリードヴォーカルの白峰美津子が卒業を契機に結成。" DeepL(translation) "Pop duo of Mitsuko Shiramine and Takeo Nakanishi.
Takeo Nakanishi was the leader of the Kyoto student amateur band "Piloti," which started its activities in 1972, and lead vocalist Mitsuko Shiramine formed the group (Pet Rock) upon their graduation." Over the decades Mitsuko Shiramine has continued to write songs lyrics. I can find about 88 or 89 songs that are accredited to her. So she has been very busy, but in the background. Mitsuko Shiramine wrote the lyrics for Akina Nakamori's 'LIAR'. As long as I am not misunderstanding something this what I think happened.
Morning, Brian. Good eagle eyes there about the Nakamori credit. I'm surprised that her name hasn't popped up all that often despite the number of songs to her name.
DeleteAs always thank you J-Canuck for posting such fascinating mysteries. I kind of liked Mitsuko Shiramine's voice and wished she had continued singing, but non-the-less she is a fascinating lady. She seemingly vanished from the music scene but yet was always there writing lyrics.
DeleteThanks for reading, Brian. I gather that there have been people in the music industry who do have the vocal chops but never enjoyed singing in front of an audience or even in a studio and were happy to stay in the "back office", so to speak. Shiramine is probably one along with songwriter and musician Etsuko Yamakawa of Tohoku Shikansen fame.
DeleteI ran across another page that claims Mitsuko Shiramine wrote of 199 songs. https://vgmdb.net/artist/3131. and here is the page that list 88 song by Mitsuko Shiramine: https://www.uta-net.com/lyricist/35585/ .
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