Yoshitaka Minami -- Tsukiyo no Ban ni wa（月夜の晩には）

 

My previous article was dedicated to Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）birthday via her 1983 "Me wo Tojite Excursion"（目をとじて小旅行）. I found out there that the melody had been composed by one Yasuhiko Shigemura（茂村泰彦）who had once been part of the vocal group Circus（サーカス）before they came up with their most famous song "Mr. Summertime", so count me intrigued.

Shigemura left the group since he had wanted to go into a more rock direction when it came to his musical preferences, and Circus was most definitely not that. But apparently, he was there for the recording of the group's debut single "Tsukiyo no Ban ni wa" (On a Moonlit Evening) which was released in March 1977. Now, try as I might, I couldn't find any sign of Circus' first song online which was too bad because I had been interested in hearing what they sounded like before "Mr. Summertime".

But all is not lost. I then discovered that "Tsukiyo no Ban ni wa" had not only been written and composed by Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）but the Circus debut was a cover of the track that Minami had recorded for his second album "Wasurareta Natsu"（忘れられた夏...The Forgotten Summer） back in September 1976. As much as I would still like to hear the Circus version, it's still fine to listen to the Minami original which is mellow and playfully dance-persuasive during a tropical moonlit evening. This is entirely complimentary, but I could imagine Minami in his early days doing the hotel and cruise liner circuit playing this to get the folks onto the floor.