Keiko Toge -- Beautiful Dreamer/Yume no Iriguchi（夢の入口）

 

I remember when the marvelous singer-songwriter Akiko Kobayashi（小林明子）came onto the music scene with her debut song and 1985 hit single "Koi ni Ochite"（恋におちて）, and people were marveling at how much she sounded like the late Karen Carpenter of Carpenters' fame. The fact that the legendary American singing duo is basically seen as music gods in Japan amped Kobayashi's profile considerably. Just a few years after that, Kobayashi even got to work with Richard Carpenter on the album "City of Angels".

Well, Kobayashi wasn't alone when it came to the Karen Carpenter comparison. Singer-songwriter Keiko Toge（峠恵子）who hails from Saitama Prefecture was scouted by CBS-Sony perhaps around the end of the 80s or early in 1990 when she was a university student and subbed for a friend who was supposed to perform at a live house and she just happened to sing the Carpenters' "I Need to Be in Love". According to her own Facebook page, at around the same time, Toge was also chosen to be the lead vocalist for the Group Sounds band The Wild Ones when they were commemorating their 25th anniversary.

Between 1992 and 1997, Toge released eight singles and two original albums. Her penultimate single released in December 1996 was "Beautiful Dreamer". Although nothing has been written in her J-Wiki profile, this particular song was used as the theme for some sort of world fair which took place in Japan at around that time according to a few comments under the video. It does have that very sunny and optimistic outlook in its arrangement which was handled by the late composer/arranger Katsuhisa Hattori（服部隆之）. To be honest, I can not only pick up on the Karen Carpenter similarity but also the observation that the song sounds a bit like something that the Carpenters could have tackled back in the day. Fumiko Okada（岡田富美子）provided the lyrics.

Toge's Carpenter-ness becomes even more pronounced on the coupling song "Yume no Iriguchi" (Dream Gate). I'm not sure if this tune had ever been used in media but it would have made a fine commercial tune for the Brazilian tourism board. There's some bossa nova and jazz in there and those two have always been welcome in my ears. Hattori and Okada were also responsible for "Yume no Iriguchi".

The singer has had quite the interesting life. Dropping out of high school, she opted to study in America for a year before returning to Japan and later graduating from the Faculty of Law at Seijo University. Toge also has a 1st-class certification in the Ski Association of Japan. Some years following her release of singles and albums, she even went on a yearlong expedition in 2001. First, she went with several others over 45 days on a yacht to head down to the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya on the island of New Guinea. Apparently, Toge was also the first person to reach the top of the northern face of Puncak Trikora, the 2nd-highest mountain on New Guinea. Then, she even spent life in the jungle for many months searching for the remains of Japanese soldiers and any signs of the supposedly extinct Thylacine. After returning home in 2002, she would eventually write about her own experiences in New Guinea. I wonder whether she deserved a John Williams soundtrack to her journey.

On top of all that, she's also behind the sound logo for Morinaga. This reminds me of Takako Minekawa's（嶺川貴子）contribution to PlayStation.

But let's finish this all off by going back to the beginning.