Junko Ohashi & Minowa Central Station -- Kisetsufuu Tayori（季節風便り）

 

This is the first Junko Ohashi（大橋純子）song that I've posted since making the announcement of the singer's passing on November 9th last year. Still can't quite believe that she's left this mortal coil.

Personally, I'd like to keep the good old times going when it comes to Ms. Ohashi, so allow me to bring aboard "Kisetsufuu Tayori" (Tidings of the Seasonal Winds) which is a track on her June 1978 album "Shalom"（沙浪夢）. Along with her backing band, Minowa Central Station（美乃家セントラル・ステイション）, it's another song that we'd love to remember her by: big-hearted vocals, quick tempo, Latin flavours and those horns. The lyrics were by the prolific Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）with Ohashi's husband, Ken Sato（佐藤健）, providing that 70s City Pop melody line.

Although I was in Japan including Tokyo in the summer of 1981, I wonder what it must have been like in 1978 at the time when "Shalom" was released. Considering that three of the disco-inflected tunes on my latest Author's Pick came from that year as well, it must have been one heck of a time in the steamy capital especially in places like the discotheques in Roppongi or Shinjuku. I would have mentioned the Lexington Queen but that didn't open until 1980.