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| From YouTube |
NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）gave a poignant tribute to the late singer-songwriter Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）who had left this world rather suddenly a year ago today. We didn't get the news until a week after his death but on hearing about his departure, I wrote up my own little tribute to the singer with one of the smoothest voices.
The tribute article includes his biggest hits which were also performed on "Uta Con" including the epic "Subaru"（昴）and the hit song that he provided Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）, "Ii Hi Tabidachi" (いい日旅立ち) . However, I also heard a song that I hadn't gotten the privilege of hearing before, "Santo Monogatari" (A Tale of Three Cities).
Released in June 1992 as his 28th single, "Santo Monogatari" had been created by composer Tanimura and lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）as a campaign song for the West Japan Railway company for boosting tourism to the three cities of Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto which are in relative proximity to each other. As an artist who I'm just about to dub "Mr. New Adult Music", "Santo Monogatari" pretty much seals the deal with an arrangement by Yasuo Sakou（佐孝康夫）that combines the emotion of a typical enka tune and the classiness of a sophisticated pop song, and tying it all together is the buttery voice of Tanimura. The song reached No. 41 on Oricon.
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