Dr. Dragon and Oriental Express/Duke Aces/Pedro and Capricious -- Carib no Yume（カリブの夢）

 

Welcome again to Urban Contemporary Fridays on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I was searching around for another song by 1970s disco soul band Dr. Dragon and Oriental Express（Dr.ドラゴン&オリエンタル・エクスプレス）to post up here. Just to remind readers, the band was led by Dr. Dragon himself, composer and arranger extraordinaire Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, and it had Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）on keyboards, Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）on bass, Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）on guitar, Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）on drums, Kentaro Haneda（羽田健太郎）on piano and Michiru Maki（槙みちる）as background chorus (which was also shared by Yano). Maybe in the mid-1970s they hadn't been quite as famous but of course later on, all of them would get their share of fame in the music industry.

In June 1976, Dr. Dragon and Oriental Express put out their album "The Birth of a Dragon" and the last track on Side A was the instrumental "Carib no Yume" (Caribbean Dream) which was composed by Dr. Dragon. Although there is a feeling of some tropical tempest, I think most of "Carib no Yume" makes the song an ideal theme tune for a Japanese drama regarding a private detective or a branch of police. Yup, it all takes place in Tokyo with a stentorian narration describing the hard streets of the metropolis which can only be tamed by even harder law enforcement officers. I can easily imagine the LEOs running all over Shinjuku to the rhythm of this one.

Now, I would have ended the article right then and there, but I then found out that cover versions of "Carib no Yume" had been created, starting with the one by the long-running vocal group Duke Aces（デューク・エイセス）. It was a surprise realizing that this kayo kyoku group had ever tackled a high-energy disco number but they did record it as their 61st single in 1977. And of course, this time they got lyrics by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）. Slightly shorter in length than the original, the Duke Aces' version was tweaked a little bit to fit their style but hey, it's still disco.

What hasn't surprised me is that the band Pedro & Capricious（ペドロ&カプリシャス）covered "Carib no Yume" as their 15th single in 1978. The band was already showing signs that it was growing beyond its original folk roots and trying other genres far afield, and for those fans of hers, yep, it's indeed Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）behind the mike. And since I see his name in the thumbnail, I will assume that Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）gave his own arrangement. In terms of length, this version falls nicely in the middle between Duke Aces' take and the original by Dr. Dragon and company. I can also see P&C's version being used as a special ending theme for my imagined police drama that I whipped up in the paragraph talking about the original.