Yasuhiro Abe -- Steppin'

 

I'm rather surprised that I hadn't posted this track from Yasuhiro Abe's（安部恭弘）November 1985 album "Frame of Mind" when I wrote up on it back in 2019. But that just means that I can provide a single article for "Steppin'" all on its own, happily enough.

As would appropriately be the case for a song with this title, the Abe-penned sunny "Steppin'" has got a nice shuffling or strutting beat throughout the tune, and again as I mentioned in my earlier article regarding Mikiko Noda's（野田幹子）entry today, I do love me some horns. Plenty of lovely horns here. I'd been wondering early in "Steppin'" whether this could be one of Abe's rare pure pop songs but when I heard the horns, the electric guitar and those keyboard chords, I was reassured that the singer-songwriter was back with his appealing brand of AOR and City Pop.