Yutaka Kimura Speaks: Yumi Arai/Matsutoya（荒井由実・松任谷由実）

 

Head arrangement was said to be the preferred method of recording for Yumi Arai and the band Caramel Mama（キャラメル・ママ）, and it involved deciding on an arrangement as recording went along on a case-by-case basis while swapping opinions without any detailed meetings beforehand (producer Kunihiko Murai（村井邦彦）, who had been the initiator of the technique in Japan, had witnessed this at a Carole King recording session at A&M Studios).

Incidentally, the musical background of Caramel Mama, which was a hybrid of the bands Happy End（はっぴいえんど）and Four Joe Half, followed the American rock of groups such as The Band and The Section (which backed up James Taylor). In contrast, Arai had a deep interest in British progressive rock bands such as Procul Harum along with European music and bossa nova. 

This led to the evergreen masterpieces of "Hikoki Gumo"（ひこうき雲）, "Misslim" and "Cobalt Hour" which were born from these different combinations of music, and when speaking of the history of Japanese City Pop, these are extremely important elements.

There's no doubt that almost all of the albums introduced here in this book more or less can be thought to contain these elements of different combinations. Rock and pop, to be sure, but also soul, jazz, bossa nova and so on. City Pop was born from this masterful fusion of different genres of music, and especially the refined pop created from the collaboration between Yuming（ユーミン）and Caramel Mama should be considered to be the very first appearance of this. Certainly, this would be the brilliant and shining monument to the dawn of Japanese City Pop.

Afterwards, when Yuming became the First Lady of Japanese Pop once she turned into Yumi Matsutoya, what would become the core of her music can be said to have been nurtured during her days as Yumi Arai.

The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).