The Works of Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）

 

I first saw the announcement on singer-songwriter Mioko Yamaguchi's（山口未央子）Twitter account last night, and unfortunately, it was regarding the fact that arranger and keyboardist Hiroshi Shinkawa had passed away on January 8th 2025 at the age of 69 due to heart disease. Yamaguchi had relayed the news from Shinkawa's wife. The above YouTube video shows Shinkawa playing some blues piano.

Shinkawa may not have been quite as prolific as Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）or Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）, but his name and his works have been a solid addition to "Kayo Kyoku Plus" over the years so I wanted to pay some tribute to him through this Creator article. Born in Tokyo in 1955, his mother was the poet Kazue Shinkawa（新川和江）, who had just passed away last August, and he started playing classic piano at the age of 5. At 11, he and his classmate Char would form their own band. Some years later, Shinkawa had a part-time job at a music publishing company while being taught by composer and producer Kunihiko Murai（村井邦彦）. He later graduated from Nihon University College of Art and made his professional debut at 20 as part of the backing band for Hi-Fi Set（ハイ・ファイ・セット）. He would participate in Yumi Matsutoya's（松任谷由実）concert tour as the music director and then at 28, he became a full-fledged arranger.

I've found that a lot of his works for other singers were in the aidoru, pop and City Pop fields. Here is just a mere sample of what he arranged, a lot of it in the 1980s.

(1982) Seiko Matsuda -- Lemonade no Natsu（レモネードの夏）

(1984) Meiko Nakahara -- Kimi Tachi Kiwi Papaya Mango da ne （君たちキウイ・パパヤ・マンゴだね。）

(1984) Hideki Saijo -- Kagirinaki Natsu（かぎりなき夏）

(1986) 1986 Omega Tribe -- Kimi wa 1000% （君は1000％）

(1986) Yoko Oginome -- Roppongi Junjouha （六本木純情派）

Although he had his main arranging work, in the 2000s, Shinkawa set up his own label Aosis Records covering the genres of jazz and AOR. He would also produce four of his own solo albums including the 2001 "Shinkies". I'll leave this article with a track from "Shinkies", the smooth "Altogether Alone". My condolences go to Shinkawa's family, friends and fans.