Dr. Dragon and Oriental Express -- The Birth of a Dragon

from Good Free Photos

 

2024 is the Year of the Dragon and as such, I was wondering what I could post on here to commemorate this observation. Well, it didn't take too long because my mind was able to pop out the late great composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. You see, he had a couple of nicknames, one of which was Jack Diamond and then the other was Dr. Dragon.

In gradually learning more about Tsutsumi, I realized that he had quite a sweet tooth for disco and R&B back in the day, and in fact, under his Dr. Dragon name, he even released a June 1976 album titled "The Birth of a Dragon". Well, the band's full name was Dr. Dragon and Oriental Express and it was quite the band with Shigeru Suzuki/鈴木茂 (guitar), Tsugutoshi Goto/後藤次利 (bass), Tatsuo Hayashi/林立夫 (drums) and Akiko Yano/矢野顕子 (keyboards).

Dr. Dragon was responsible for the composition and arrangement of all of the songs, and arguably the most famous track is the oddly-titled "Sexy Bus Stop" which was originally an instrumental but then given lyrics by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and then given over to then-70s teen aidoru Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子） to be made into a hit. It has its own article and when I posted it over ten years ago on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I even gave viewers a glimpse at another track, "The Theme of Dr. Dragon" which is now above this paragraph. It starts out with a bit of a brass explosion, sounding like the intro to a Bruce Lee movie (remember "Enter the Dragon"?) before it gets into the funk underlain by a rumbling rhythm which reminds me of something similar from the American cop show "SWAT". The urgency gives way in parts for an upbeat Asian riff.

Hashimoto would provide lyrics to some of the tracks including this one, "Peanuts", although he never got credited for his work on the album. Yup, "Peanuts" goes heavy into the disco, rather like Van McCoy, as the vocalists (perhaps EVE?) give their full-throated love for the goobers. It's all rather light-hearted though overall and I could even imagine the aidoru trio The Candies tackling this one.

One more tune that I'll provide here is "Hustle Jet" which has Goto going hard into the bass and once again, the happy-go-lucky nature of the disco here makes it friendly for any aidoru and even any soundtrack for a television drama or comedy. Hashimoto once again gives his few lyrics to "Hustle Jet". I've yet to hear the remaining tracks but I gather that they will also sound like disco with some of that added kayo kyoku-ness, thanks to Dr. Dragon.