Ichiro Araki/Hiroshi Tachi -- Itoshi no Macks ~ Macks A Go Go（いとしのマックス 〜マックス・ア・ゴー・ゴー〜）

 

As is usually the case for me, I was doing my round of maintenance among the articles last night when I came across Noelle's 2016 article for "A rundown of the 48th Omoide no Melody (第48回 思い出のメロディー) Part 2". A few of the videos got taken down by YouTube so I had to replace them.

One such video was for Noelle's description of the performance by one of the guests on the annual NHK special who happened to be singer-songwriter Ichiro Araki（荒木一郎）. She had been expecting to hear Araki's "Itoshi no Macks ~ Macks A Go Go" (Macks, My Love) because she enjoyed actor/singer Hiroshi Tachi's（舘ひろし）cover version, but instead the original singer went with his debut single, "Sora ni Hoshi ga aru youni" (空に星があるように) . 

We're going with something from seven years ago, but I'm not going to see one of my friends and fellow writers be disappointed, so allow me to bring "Itoshi no Macks" onto the KKP screen. This was his fifth single from May 1967, and true to the Group Sounds boom that was happening in the latter half of that decade, Araki made some adjustments to the melody and arrangement so that he was jangling it like any GS band. The entire song is a love paean to some lady named Macks (get that red dress for her, Ichiro!), perhaps short for Maxine or Maxie. And yep, the lyrics have the name down as "Macks" and not "Max" which I had assumed at first.

"Itoshi no Macks" may have been Araki's first big hit as it sold 1.25 million copies by some time in 1968 and got him his sole invitation to the 1967 edition of the Kohaku Utagassen. This was before the Oricon charts came out but I could imagine that the song would have hit No. 1.

To commemorate his 10th anniversary in the music business in 1976, Araki released through what was once Trio Records a revised version of "Itoshi no Macks". This one still retains the GS flavour but as the song progresses, there is more of a silky Mood Kayo element added through strings and sax.

Ahh...here is the Tachi cover which was his 1991 single. I could only find this video but it sounds like there is a bit more of a rock sheen to this one.