I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
The Pacific Hotel Chigasaki（パシフィックホテル茅ヶ崎）had its time between 1965 and 1988 in Kanagawa Prefecture and seems to have been quite the resort back in the day. Certainly, its appearance stood out among the landscape although I'm not sure whether it attracted the celebrities. With the bankruptcy of its managing corporation in the late 1980s, the hotel closed down and for another decade, it apparently stood there crumbling away before it was finally demolished with a resort condominium arising from its ashes.
Again, I'm uncertain about celebrities staying there, but one future celebrity who had actually worked at the Pacific part-time was Satsuya Iwasawa（岩沢幸矢）, one-half of the brother folk/City Pop duoBread & Butter（ブレッド&バター）when he'd been thinking of a career in hotels. In 1981, the duo released the album "Pacific" from which one track was "Hotel Pacific".
"Hotel Pacific" is a fairly melancholy song about thinking of that lost love while at the famous hotel. Fuyumi Iwasawa（岩沢二弓）provided the laconic bossa-tinged melody while Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）wrote the lyrics under her pen name of Karuho Kureta（呉田軽歩）. All in all, it sounds like something that Michael Franks would sing, and I believe that it can now be used to think wistfully of the Pacific itself. Maybe even famous painter Hiroshi Nagai（永井博）could have been inspired by the old place. At least, one other band was inspired.
Welcome to a special Halloween version of Reminiscings of Youth.
I'm not sure whether the 1960s"The Addams Family" TV show ever made its way to Japanese channels like so many other American sitcoms and dramas of its time, but the 1991 movie adaptation did make its mark in Japan, spawning a half-decade campaign involving most of the cast from the movie to hawk the Honda Odyssey that I remember seeing all the time.
What connected the 1964 sitcom to the 1991 movie though was the famous theme song. Now, I was probably too young to remember watching "The Addams Family" in its first run (September 1964 - April 1966) but the show always showed up in reruns on the local ABC affiliate in Buffalo, New York in the late afternoons. And of course, I was greeted by the fun if gothic theme by composer and singer Vic Mizzy. Mizzy is already here on KKP due to his creation of the "Green Acres" theme a year later that I posted as a ROY article.
Until I looked up Mizzy on Wikipedia, I had no idea that he had been behind both the themes for "Green Acres" and "The Addams Family" and that he was the one singing the "ooky and kooky" lyrics for the latter song. The song wasn't only catchy but it was audience-participatory because of the need to snap those fingers. By the way, at the time that I first got to know Gomez, Morticia and the rest of the Addams clan, I hadn't known that they were based on the cartoons by Charles Addams in "The New Yorker". I think Raul Julia's Gomez from the 1991 movie looks to be the closest to Charles' depiction in "The New Yorker", but I will always have a softer spot for John Astin's slightly unhinged Groucho Marx-like portrayal of the suave Gomez on the TV series.
Yes, I was having too good a time in Roppongi at the time since obviously I really couldn't focus my late Casio camera too well in its sparkly mode. But at the same time, I can pretend that I had wanted to get that rainy feeling in the shot.
It's been six years since I last had singer-songwriter Etsuko Sai（彩恵津子）up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", so let's welcome her back with open arms. "Yawarakai Ame"(A Soft Rain) hails from her October 1986 album"Passio" and it was written and composed by Sai under Yuji Toriyama's（鳥山雄司）arrangement. When it first starts off, I thought that it was going to be a pretty hardcore soulful R&B City Pop number with that popular rhythm, but it ends up becoming more of a light and mid-tempo AOR tune. So perhaps less Shinjuku and Roppongi, more suburban bedroom town around Tokyo.
"Passio" also includes the track "Pygmalion"（ピグマリオン）which is one of the last songs that I wrote of her at the time. Glad to have her back.
The above thumbnail shot is a woozy photo of Roppongi Avenue with Tokyo Tower off in the distance. Not sure how popular it is as a Halloween get-together place but I can still imagine that it would be considering the numbers of foreigners that have conglomerated there on at least a weekly basis. I remember being there on October 31st in 2009 and saw a couple of ladies dressed up as gambling die walking down the avenue. Perhaps they should have been rolling down the avenue to keep up appearances.
Considering how bleary the above photo is, I can also imagine some guy moping down the street and wondering if and how he and his currently estranged love of his life can somehow get back together again. I think that's the premise of Yasuhiro Abe's（安部恭弘）"Fall in Love" which was composed by him with Goro Matsui（松井五郎）coming up with the lyrics. With a poignant minor-key arrangement leading the way, Abe dreamily relates the story of that young man planning to have a long-awaited conversation with the lady to give their relationship another try. The song was a track on his 11th album "Gallery" from October 1995. Despite the release date, "Fall in Love" sounds very 1980s.
From what I've heard and seen through NHK and the YouTube live camera footage, the annual Shibuya Halloween mayhem was somewhat washed out due to the heavy rains over the Tokyo area which probably relieved the shop owners and restaurant managers there and disappointed cosplayers and October 31st revelers. But according to the Video Street View Japan channel, folks did try to lighten the mood up as best as they could.
Usually Fridays are set for the urban contemporary stuff of Japanese music but because today is indeed Halloween, I've decided to mix in a couple of Halloween-themed songs here tonight with the usual City Pop and AOR tunes. First off, we've got a synthpop entry by the band Awesome City Club titled "Vampire" which was released as their 2nd limited digital download single in March 2016.
I don't think it sounds particularly Halloween-y but it's nice and sparkly as AWC member PORIN and former Chatmonchy drummer Kumiko Takahashi（高橋久美子）created the lyrics about a young lady falling for the titular Halloween character. Meanwhile, atagi took care of the melody. I would probably say that it was ideal as a theme song for a vampire anime which is a subgenre but it was actually used as the campaign song for HIS Travel...to Macao, of all places.
We're about five weeks into autumn now so things have chilled down significantly from the blazing summer that we had here. People are probably reaching for their pumpkin lattes and sweaters and the like. Or perhaps like Kayo Grace and Mr. Calico above, they may still be going for something cold. It's all good.
Earlier this year, I featured "Sweet Magic", the jaunty title track from jazz saxophonist MALTA's September 1984 album. Well, we're going down the list a little bit to show off his "Autumn Place", a more languid song to rake the fall foliage by...or better yet, to watch someone else rake the fall foliage by. With those strings in there, I also feel there's a bit of Mancini mixed in with MALTA's honey-toned sax playing. Enjoy the latte!
Of course, tomorrow is Halloween in every place that celebrates the Jack O'Lanterns, ghouls, goblins and Trick or Treat. So, I figure that I should put something to commemorate that fact and tradition. I'll have to see what Shibuya Scramble Crossing looks like on YouTube tomorrow morning.
Anyways, I've got one track from Nash Music Library's contribution to October 31st, the 2013 "Halloween". Above is "Spooky Creepy Monsters", an appropriately eerie piece meant to send shivers up and down your spine...if you're in a haunted dance club. The one below comes from a sequel album "Halloween 2" from 2018, "Horror Nights Street" which has more of a vibe reminiscent of an All Hallow's Eve march led by Danny Elfman.
A few weeks ago, one commenter asked about this one since the song is approaching its 50th anniversary in December. Yup, I am talking about Paul Simon's"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" which was released all the way back at the end of the year 1975.
My personal encounter with "50 Ways" happened back in band class in the early 1980s and it wasn't particularly an auspicious one. Our class was given the sheet music for it and we had to practice it. The first impression by us was how we could make a sardonic joke about nicknaming it "50 Ways to Love Your Lever". Aside from that, we didn't do a great job on it, not that many of us were all that interested in it or knew about it or Simon at that time. I knew about the famed New Jersey singer-songwriter mostly through his partnership with Art Garfunkel and for his many hosting appearances on "Saturday Night Live".
I finally got to hear "50 Ways" once I finally decided to drop my clarinet (figuratively speaking) for the last time and put a very happy sealed door on my music-playing career. That's when I said "Ah, so that's how it's supposed to sound!". Not too bad a song either with the key change between verse and chorus, the hip rhyming chorus itself, and the legendary Steve Gadd with his classic drum riff.
In Canada, "50 Ways" reached No. 7 on RPM while in the United States, it hit No. 1. As for what was pretty hot in Japan at the time, I'll go with the final Oricon ranking for 1975...December 29th.
I'd never heard of the 2000s duo Fonogenico before but when I encountered their May 2007 3rd single"Orange no Suna"(Orange Sand) some weeks ago, I figured that I had to put it up here on KKP. For one thing, the arrangement sounds so much like very romantic Tomita Lab（富田ラボ）and readers probably have already cottoned to the fact that I'm a fan of his, especially with those silky strings. It's quite the soulful pop ballad about a young lady holding the hand of the guy she's fallen for for the first time. Awwww!
The Kansai-born Fonogenico formed in 2002 with vocalist/lyricist Naoko Takayama（高山奈帆子）and keyboardist/composer Masaru Kawaguchi（川口潤）as they did live events and their songwriting. In the following year, they debuted as the duo Fonogenico and made their major debut in 2005 with their first single coming out in 2006. In total, they released four singles and a mini-album. Kawaguchi pulled out of the duo in 2008 and Takayama continued on as a solo act before calling it a day herself in 2010.
Kinda having the Microsoft Office activation blues right now. I tried to activate the key and it wouldn't open for me. In a way, I guess it's almost heartbreakingly romantic.
Well, for that reason and for the fact that it is Hump Day today, perhaps I can bring in a bit of blues. However, seeing that title "Osaka Big River Blues", one might think that this would be a Japanese band going for some of that American blues sound. But it's not quite that cut and dry.
By the way, the band behind "Osaka Big River Blues" is Ukadan（憂歌団）which does translate directly into Melancholy Song Group...namely a blues band. Consisting of vocalist/guitarist Atsuki Kimura（木村充揮）, lead guitarist Kantaro Uchida（内田勘太郎）, bassist Kenji Hanaoka（花岡献治）and drummer Kazuo Shimada（島田和夫）, the group originated with the first two members in 1970 with their first performance behind held at the cultural festival at Osaka Prefectural Technical High School where three of the members had been enrolled. After high school, Ukadan picked up gigs at local coffee shops.
Their first single was released in 1975 and their eleventh happened to be "Osaka Big River Blues" from May 1988, and at least with this single, the blues is mixed in with some other genres such as City Pop and AOR. It goes down very smooth (and late 80s) like a Bailey's Irish Cream (sorry, can't do straight whiskey) through the melody by Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志）and the lyrics of Chinfa Kan（康珍化）which involve a couple having one final stroll one evening in Osaka before breaking up for good. It's a sad situation to be sure, but at least the music accompanying these soon-to-be former lovebirds is fine and wistful.
Also, one other sad note is original members Shimada and Hanaoka passed away in 2012 and 2024 respectively. In addition, I'd like to thank podcaster Rocket Brown who first recommended "Osaka Big River Blues" on Discord a few months ago.
In Asakusa, you can throw a rock anywhere and it's more than likely, you'll hit a bar...or something associated with Senso Temple nearby. Probably in some of those bars on any night, there may be someone crying in their beer since life is patently unfair.
Maybe that's what young enka singer Shinichi Mori（森進一）was trying to sing through his "Koi ni Nakitai" (Want to Cry at Love) which happens to be the B-side to his debut single from June 1966, "Onna no Tameiki" (女のためいき). Noelle Tham wrote about the beginning record for Mori over a decade ago, and listening to "Onna no Tameiki" myself, it's quite the melodic tipsy stroll through the bar-lined alleys of Asakusa, Ueno or Kabukicho.
Well, "Koi ni Nakitai" has that same laconic feeling of heartbreak and willingness to drink it all down with heavy quantities of alcohol. Perhaps not surprising since composer Kosho Inomata（猪俣公章）was behind the melody of both songs with Ichiro Tone（利根一郎）handling the lyrics for the B-side. There's this nice addition of accordion (and the sax, of course) as 18-year-old Mori was probably wowing listeners already with that famous gravelly voice which elicited tears from many.
I don't know supremely much about singer, songwriter and DJ Yukari Fresh but it's interesting to note that her own Wikipedia article is a fair bit more detailed than the J-Wiki for her old unit, Snapshot. And for that matter, the Snapshot J-Wiki piece has only added Fresh's record as part of the article. Fresh, aka Yukari Takasaki（高崎ゆかり）, and her professional partner-turned-husband Yugo Katayama（片山祐吾）, formed Snapshot in 1992 with six releases to their names before disbanding in 1996.
Fresh started her solo career the following year, releasing albums up to 2008. Her last album to date was one of her BEST compilations, "Flammable Tapes", from October 2008 from which I offer her "Yukarin' Disco". Perhaps it's disco for The Smurfs, but for me, it's a really happy 1980s technopop piece that has a bit of Shibuya-kei, especially with the samples in the latter half of the song.
Y'know...I've come across a few song titles that involved ages such as Saori Minami's（南沙織）jaunty "Juu-nana Sai"（17才）and Shinji Tanimura's（谷村新司）elegant if haunting "Ni-juu-ni Sai"（22歳）.
Then I hear singer-songwriter Kohei Dojima's（堂島孝平）"Ni-juu-go Sai" (25 Years Old) which was the coupling song to his January 2002 16th single"Fuyu ga Tobichitta"（冬が飛び散った...Winter Has Flown Away）. As Dojima himself sings at the very beginning, "25 blues for you", and it's a pretty darn frenetic tune with some Jose Feliciano Latin guitar feelings, and according to him, being 25 can suck donkeys. The fellow in this song seems to feel that the mid-20s is mid-life crisis time. Everyone seems to be coupling up except him, he's had his bicycle stolen and he's going through the doldrums in Japan's capital.
But man, is the song popping all over the place with that guitar and percussion! You are just about obligated to run late to the subway station with a piece of bread in your mouth, just like that anime trope, if this song is running in your head. I also forgot to mention that the electric organ in there also brings in a bit of jet-set 1960s...almost tagged it with Shibuya-kei. When I was 25, I was teaching in the mountains of Gunma so didn't quite have that feeling of unfulfillment in life quite yet.
Welcome to the final week in October 2025. Folks are probably getting ready for Halloween at the end of this week; they should be happy that October 31st falls right on Friday this year. Plus, I'm pretty sure that Shibuya Scramble Crossing in Tokyo should be plenty packed with cosplayers and other Halloween celebrants if I check those live cameras on YouTube.
The above video has a few promos including the last one at about 45 seconds for the TV Asahi show "Sports Frontier" that had its run in the early 1990s. If I'm not mistaken, late-night sports wrap-ups are still one of the mainstays around the midnight hour in Japan.
"Sports Frontier" had a plethora of songs act as the ending theme for the Sunday night 55-minute broadcast including one that I hadn't realized was part of the list. Well, right after that one came this July 1991 third single by Mayo Nagata（永田真代）titled "Namida no Splash" (Splash of Tears). Written by Kenzo Saeki（サエキけんぞう）and composed by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）as they did for the coupling song, "Uwasa"（う・わ・さ）, which turned out to be the previous Nagata song that I wrote about, this one is a bit different in that it isn't a City Pop tune. It's a straight pop song but it also seems to incorporate an underlying rhythm in its chorus that reminds me of the disco classic "Love's Theme" by The Love Unlimited Orchestra all the way back in 1973 along with a bit of reggae.
Nakano in 1949 during the in-between period when he took a break from the music world. Fromアサヒグラフ (22/6/1949)
Feels like it's been a while since I've done a solo piece on Jazz Daddy Dandy Tadaharu Nakano (中野忠晴), what with me predominantly sniffing around for any crumb of information about his postwar activities as of late. But in between unearthing such random tidbits, such as him playing for the King Records baseball team in the 50s, and sampling a variety of his postwar compositions, I would have evenings where I'd dig around good ol’ YouTube for works from his stint as a singer.
With the exception of gunka and school/company songs, Mr. Nakano the singer was most known for covers of an assortment of western music, particularly jazz, and ryukoka with strong western flavours. But this trend seemed to have only began once he began dabbling in American jazz and putting together the Rhythm Boys & Sisters chorus groups from about 1934 onwards. Prior to that, as a new face of Columbia Records, he mainly did the standard ryukoka and the then-trending shin min'yo between 1932 and 1933. The jumps from 1932 Nakano to 1937 Nakano, and then back to 1933 Nakano, for instance, is pretty jarring, and can make you wonder if it's the same man singing all those songs.
A tune that I came across earlier this year from one of these expeditions was Haru wa Hohoemu (Spring smiles). This spring-themed jazzy number was released in March 1939. It’s got a cheerful melody with a chic piano solo that has a warmth like a spring breeze. To match the light tune, Nakano had also toned down his ordinarily powerful and resonant voice into a gentle lilt, conveying a protagonist reveling in the joys of spring and his youth - haru/spring seems to be a fairly common metaphor for youth in ryukoka.
Anyway, to me, Haru wa Hohoemu sounded like something one would hear on the other side of the Pacific, so much so that I had assumed that this was yet another of Nakano’s covers. So, seeing the names of Columbia Records (Japan) employees Toshio Nomura (野村俊夫) for the lyrics and Hideo Hirakawa (平川英夫) for the music on the record label had me doing a double-take - it’s a locally-produced original! Then again, Takio Niki (仁喜他喜雄) was on arrangement duty. If you ever see the name of this aloof-looking musician, especially under “Arranger” (編曲家), you're more often than not going to be hearing a cover of of western tune (a.k.a. jazz song), or a ryukoka that sounds uncannily like western music. As you'd expect, he's handled a number of both for Nakano, including this one.
I like Haru wa Hohoemu quite a lot as it showcases a side of Mr. Nakano I don't hear as often. As mentioned, he has a strong and bright voice, which lends well to the super upbeat ditties or dramatic numbers he's synonymous with. But I appreciate his softer, more intimate crooning as well. Honestly, though, Nakano could sing in any style and it'd still make my heart flutter (*´艸`).
Well, the more you know, eh? I was listening to this lovely tune by 70s aidoru and actress Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）titled "Lorelei". It comes from her March 1979 album of covers "Ai no Romance"（愛のロマンス...Love Romance） and indeed "Lorelei" is a cover that has been rendered into an adorable and silky folk kayo kyokuwith lyrics translated (decades previously) by Sakufu Kondo（近藤朔風）.
The original version is a German folk song that had been set to music all the way back in 1837 by composer Friedrich Silcher based on an 1824 poem "Die Lorelei" by Heinrich Heine, and all this literature originates from a huge piece of rock along the Rhine. According to the Wikipedia article, it can be spelled either "Lorelei" or "Loreley".
I have to say that the above ad is a pretty clever take on a key scene from Dustin Hoffman's"The Graduate", and it was all done for Nissin's Menkoku（めんコク）instant noodles. When it comes to passion in Japan, there is the significant other and there are noodles. Oh, by the way, the Hoffman character here was played by a future governor of Chiba Prefecture.
I'm not sure when the Kensaku Morita（森田健作）-starring commercial above was broadcast but in 1981, for another commercial featuring Menkoku, there was a pretty kickass jingle accompanying it titled "Girari Netsuai" (Glaring Passionate Love) by the band Hi-Way（ハイウェイ）. Hi-Way already has one article up on the blog for their 1982 "Black Coffee"（ブラック・コーヒー）which made it onto "Light Mellow ~ City", part of the compilation of City Pop and J-AOR created and sold in the 2010s.
So, I gather that there was a foodie thing with Hi-Way during its brief time. Anyways, how "Girari Netsuai" became part of instant ramen folklore was that there had been a contest sponsored by Nissin called "Happy Folk Contest" which Hi-Way vocalist and songwriter Yoshimitsu Kamiura（上浦容充）had won with one of his own entries, thereby leading to the group's major debut which was this very song. in 1981. "Girari Netsuai" was actually written by Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）and composed by Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）and it's a pop-rock song whose lyrics by Mori talk of love but can also be interpreted as something to be eaten with a whole lot of gusto as well. And when we're talking about a big hot heaping bowl of ramen...😋
In 1982, Hi-Way released their debut album "Age" and a slightly rearranged version of "Girari Netsuai" was recorded there. It kept its rock edge but there was more of a City Pop feeling in there as well, and I can't help but hear a little of Billy Joel's "The Stranger" in some of the guitar riffs. In addition, it was a guest vocalist, reggae singer Kaja（カジャ）instead of Kamiura, who was behind the microphone for some reason.
I was wondering who was celebrating their birthday today on October 25th and the only person that I recognized quickly enough in the long list on Wikipedia was legendary artist Pablo Picasso who would have been 144 (he actually passed away in 1973) on this day. If you wish, you can take a look at his works on WikiArt.
Almost two years ago, thanks to a tip from commenter Robert, I posted a song by the late singer-songwriter Chigiri Akiyoshi（秋吉契里）titled "Unmei no Tobira"（運命の扉）which was released back in December 1997 on her debut album"Sonzai"（存在...Existence）. Well, I also found her debut single from February that year, "Happy Birthday For You". It's quite the rollicking country rock tune although I'm not sure whether she had meant it to sound like a country song. There is no mention of her on J-Wiki pursuing a country line of music and country musicians haven't been all that plentiful or popular in Japan but there is something in the arrangement as I hear it here that makes me think Akiyoshi would have been pretty welcome in Nashville.
In any case, if any of you viewers are celebrating a birthday today, enjoy your day with your friends and family!🎂
I'll be honest with you...up to now, whenever I heard the name Mei Mei, the only image I got was the one for the little sister of Panda-kun on the early 2010sanime "Shirokuma Café"（しろくまカフェ）. As voiced by seiyuu Kana Hanazawa（花澤香菜）, her crazed excitement over her crush, the zookeeper Mr. Handa, was such that she made Sonny the Cuckoo, the mascot for all those Cocoa Puffs commercials, seem all calm and collected in comparison.
However, that's all changed now. Why? Well, I found out that Mei Mei is also the childhood nickname of singer-songwriter and 70s aidoru Agnes Chan（アグネス・チャン）, and as such, for her 1976 album "Mei Mei ~ Itsudemo Yume wo"（いつでも夢を...Dream All The Time）, the title track was indeed her nickname. Not surprisingly, "Mei Mei" is so Agnes Chan...an adorably sunny and sing-songy folk tune created totally by her describing what I think is a typical day in her life in Japan, and it seems as if she were a fine foodie with shoutouts to the patisserie, curry, and her favourite tea shop. Gastronomy is bliss! I've followed that philosophy a little too well.
Something that does make me go hmmm though takes us back to Mei Mei the panda. As a seiyuu, Hanazawa has a wide variety of voices at her disposal. So it is interesting that in my observation, her voicing of Mei Mei seems quite similar to how Agnes sounded back in the 1970s...well, without the manic screaming, that is.
The phrase "Think Pink!" may have popped up in some advertising campaign in America somewhere sometime but the only thing I remember is that it was used as the title for another "Pink Panther" animated series back in the 1970s. At the time, I had only known the Pink Panther as the suave and bumbling cartoon feline on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons with the cool jazz theme before discovering the original Blake Edwards movie in the 1960s.
Well, at around the same time of that particular cartoon series in the United States, singer Ann Lewis（アン・ルイス） released her 5th studio album with the same title, "Think! Pink!", in September 1978 with that extra exclamation mark attached. Now, before I go any further, I've always believed that Ms. Lewis has been a vivacious and pretty woman, but seeing that cover of her in very glamourous garb with that heavily made-up face made me think that she was trying to become a Monty Python cartoon by Terry Gilliam. I was half-expecting to see her eyes shift from side to side and her mouth clack away in a deranged British accent.
Anyways, allow me to lead you to one of the tracks on "Think! Pink!", "Please Tell Me" which was written and composed by Tommy Snyder who was the drummer for the band Godiego（ゴダイゴ）at the time. Bassist Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）arranged "Please Tell Me" into a pretty groovy West Coast AOR tune with Lewis in character as that mink-wearing glamour queen delivering those sultry English lyrics. Once again, gotta love the sax! Jake H. Concepcion?
For all those kayo kyoku lovers, Saori Yuki's（由紀さおり）"Tegami" (The Letter) is a breezy classic that first hit record store shelves and ears back in 1970. And Saori is still performing it on kayo programs such as "Uta Con"（うたコン）.
Well, what I hadn't known was that aidoru Hitomi Aki（秋ひとみ）, who had a relatively brief career in the limelight between 1976 and 1982, had her own cover version of "Tegami" in her second and final album"Omoi"（想い...Memories） from 1980. Although I've only featured a few of her songs on the blog, my impression is that Aki and the people around her thought that she could handle some of the more urban contemporary stuff with a Latin tinge as was the case with her "Summer Melancholy"（サマー・メランコリー）from 1979.
"Tegami" definitely takes the deep dive into the samba-influenced sector of City Pop through the original melody by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）and Rei Nakanishi's（なかにし礼）lyrics. It is recognizably "Tegami" by Yuki but with a good amount of 1980s Shinjuku disco oomph. Love the saxophone!
The summer has apparently receded far in the back mirror since it is currently October 24th, but perhaps we can bring back some of the more pleasant aspects of the heat and sun before facing the frost and snow once more. Geez, that read like something that Ian McKellen would say.
Anyways, this time I've gone far back into famed fusion band The Square's history for this article. In fact, I've plucked the title track from the group's September 1978 debut album"Lucky Summer Lady". Composed by guitarist Masahiro Ando（安藤正容）, it's over seven-and-a-half minutes long and yet it's a light and sunny skip on the beach...perhaps as that lady in black is doing on the album cover. I do like that flute in there; adds to the happy-go-lucky state of things in the song. This track along with the first track "A Feel Deep Inside" have been considered as the wellspring for all that The Square would create over the next five decades. Good heavens! To think that they will be celebrating their 50th anniversary next year!
It was a little over a year ago that I posted up a smooth City Pop tune by an obscure artist by the name of Makoto Ishida（石田誠）. There was very little information on him anywhere at the time and that hasn't changed unfortunately.
Having said that, I'm happy to see there is at least one more example of his work, and this time, it's the title track from his 1983 album"Moonlight in Your Eyes". It's not quite as Boz Scaggs or Bobby Caldwell as his "Lonely Girl", but it's no less AOR or City Pop either. I'd say that it's even more airy and the Kingo Hamada（浜田金吾）vibes are there in his delivery. Perfect for sunrise listening.
Now, what would be 7000 miles away from Toronto, Canada? Well, Casablanca and Lisbon are two such cities, but I've also read that Perth in Western Australia is also that distant. I had a student and friend who put up stakes there several years ago and she's been enjoying her time there like gangbusters. It's always wonderful when someone comes to a new place and declares "Yep, this is home for me!".
Let's start off a little gently for the weekly edition of Urban Contemporary Fridays on KKP. Once again, we have the good folks of Nash Music Library helping out and for today, we have their "7000 Miles Away". A breathy-voiced female vocalist comes on board this time to sing what sounds like the typical "absence makes the heart grow fonder" message. There's nothing like being 7000 miles away to push the melancholy knife deeper.
Still, this entry from the 2017 "Smooth & Groove" album is indeed smooth and groovy...and very relaxing. So the commiseration is heartfelt and comfy, preferably with a mug of cocoa. There's a hint of Xmas at the end, but I'd say that this is good for a cooling October as well.
Several years ago in 2017, I posted the first article on singer Yumi Seino（清野由美）, and it just happened to be "Katamuku"（傾く）, a track from her January 1983 album, "Continental". I would later find out from her earlier albums that Seino had been one for the City Pop boom but perhaps within "Continental" and specifically "Katamuku" itself, there was a transitional feeling between that City Pop and a more refined sophisticated pop with a European flair...along the lines of what Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）was doing at around the same time.
A little over a week ago, one commenter was wondering about the rest of "Continental" and I had to answer the person that I didn't know since at the time, there was perhaps only the one example of the album on YouTube, which was "Katamuku", and for some reason, other videos with the tracks simply didn't show up on my recommendations although at least a few of them have been around since 2020. But the commenter did point out that they are up now, and so I've opted to try one more track from "Continental" out.
I should have realized from the Impressionistic art on the cover and the title itself that this wasn't going to be a straight-out City Pop release from Seino. And indeed, the one track "Itte Mon Amour" (Tell Me, Darling) is far away from the streets of Tokyo and probably out somewhere in France, Italy or Spain in some techno cabaret. Masami Sugiyama（杉山政美）came up with the lyrics while a number of others including Seino herself had a hand in the composition of the melody which strikes up images of slow dances and tangos on the evening ballroom floor. Yet at the same time, in the chorus of "Itte Mon Amour", there is still something kayo kyoku in its heart since I could hear something like this on some old Japanese music-variety show from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Over the past few years, I've featured the underrated group P-Model which included musician and producer Susumu Hirasawa（平沢進）. In his button-down way, he has been quite the flamboyant artist all these years.
Well, a few days ago, commenter YMOfan04 was kind enough to leave me a link to the above YouTube video which has turned out to be quite the revelation. First off, it opened me to an earlier Hirasawa who had once been part of a 1970s progressive rock band called Mandrake. It lasted for about five years but it looks like the group was petering out of ideas and was undergoing a crisis of faith. Then in 1978, Hirasawa was hired via the Electro Sound Corporation to help out at the Yamaha Music Foundation teaching synthesizer.
Meanwhile, ESC's house band, Bach Revolution consisting of Kazutaka Tazaki（田崎和隆）and Akiro Kamio（神尾明朗）, then created the album "Synthetic Study" that year to help folks study and use the Yamaha CS-10 synthesizer. Hirasawa entered a contest which involved submitting synthesizer pieces to be judged by a panel which included Bach Revolution. His entry got quite a lot of accolades from the panel which also included the legendary Isao Tomita（冨田 勲）as the head judge.
Finally, Bach Revolution & Hirasawa collaborated on one song, the 1978 "Dummy no Sakuryaku" (A Dummy's Trick) which ended up as the B-side to a 7" flexi-disc whose A-side contained Jun Fukamachi's（深町純）"Ad-Lib Keyboard Take A". The overall disc was titled "Rock & Keyboard '79 Synthesizer Furoku Record"（ロック&キーボード'79 シンセサイザー 附録レコード...Supplementary Record） and it was released just some days before the target of this week's Reminiscings of Youth profile.
"Dummy no Sakuryaku" is narrated by Hirasawa via a vocoder as The Dummy himself who could be robot, android, cyborg or whatever artificial life you can think up of, but perhaps he's also quite the mastermind. There is something of that epic and fanfare-ish Tomita arrangement which launches the four-minute-and-a-half song but I also couldn't help feel that it could have also backed up any early 1980s episode of "Doctor Who" with Tom Baker or Peter Davison. As well, there are feelings of child-like curiosity and adult mastery as perhaps the Dummy is no longer such a dummy.
I have mentioned Gloria Gaynor and her definitive "I Will Survive" for one of the regular articles somewhere in KKP but I can't remember which one. However, this time, the song is getting the ROY treatment.
Released on October 23rd 1978, and yep, it is a total coincidence that I'm putting up this disco classic on its 47th anniversary today, I used to first hear this as a track being touted on one of those disco LP compilations that I saw on television all the time. And the first time I heard it in its entirety, it wasn't by Gaynor herself but actress Marilu Henner from the "Taxi" comedy series when she performed it on some TV special. In fact, I have to say that last night was the first time I got to see the entire music video with Gaynor and roller-skating dancers.
It was also interesting to find out that "I Will Survive" is the culmination of folks truly getting over some bad stuff in their lives. For example, according to the Wikipedia article for the song, co-songwriter Dino Fekaris came up with the song after having been suddenly fired from Motown Records following steady work there for many years. Gaynor herself recorded "I Will Survive" while wearing a back brace due to an injury on stage and having gone through the loss of a loved one. This is truly the anthem for defiance and overcoming adversity.
"I Will Survive" managed to reach No. 3 on Canada's RPM and No. 1 on America's Billboard chart where it kept popping up over non-consecutive weeks. Also, coincidentally enough, I managed to find the Top 10 Oricon chart for October 23rd 1978. What was up in the Top 3?
Not sure how a famed doo-wop group such as The Kingtones got to do a song regarding the often tear-soaked graduation ceremonies in the Japanese education system. But of course, the guys handled the task with their usual harmonic aplomb.
"Namida no Graduation Day"(Tearful Graduation Day) was released as the group's 19th single in February 1981, just around the time when those graduation ceremonies are about to launch. Written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Shunichiro Katsuyama（勝山俊一郎）, the song has that old-fashioned doo-wop delivery but with an arrangement that sounds more contemporary, kinda like another doo-wop group that was making the rounds at the time, The Chanels. Not surprisingly, the lyrics by Hashimoto have to do with the tearful goodbyes from students, knowing that they will not be seeing their beloved tough-but-fair teacher ever again on a regular basis. Being a former JET Programme teacher, I got to see that up close and personal.
Recently, when I was teaching my student, our textbook showed us how to make 6-word descriptions of people to practice adjectives and small phrases. I gather that it's like coming up with an English version of haiku poetry. Well, when it comes to veteran singer-songwriter Anri（杏里）, I feel like saying: beautiful, summery, breezy, city, pop and Hawaii.
So, with that list in mind, perhaps some of us KKP old-timers remember that article I posted of Anri's September 1981 third album"Kanashimi no Kujaku"（哀しみの孔雀）way back in 2013. It was definitely an outlier from how I just described her as the singer tried out some other genres for size. "Kanashimi no Kujaku" will never go down as one of my absolute favourite albums by her, but it's interesting for how she sounded back then.
I did get a used copy of the album a long time ago, so I actually missed out on the remastered version which contained bonus tracks including Anri's 6th single which had never been placed onto an original album. "Kawaii Pauline"(Cute Pauline) from September 1980 was written by Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）and composed by Keiichi Suzuki（鈴木慶一）of The Moonriders and it sounds like a 1960s pop tune filtered somewhat through Paris. The song was used as a promotion for a women's weekly magazine.
I have to say that seeing young Anri on the cover, she looked like a junior high school student happy to be on a holiday vacation. Well, she wasn't a junior high school student at that time but perhaps a college co-ed and she was technically still a teenager at 19.
There are no doubts about where the B-side,"Maui Moon", is located in terms of title and music. It's just a short-and-sweet luau jam session after some poi that was whipped up by the same folks behind the A-side. It only showed up on an Anri BEST compilation from 1982, "Omoikiri American ~ I Love Poping World, Anri"（思いきりアメリカン 〜I Love Poping World, Anri〜）. The lass definitely looked more grown-up on the cover of that one although I'm not sure what that gerund in the title is referring to aside from pop music or the Pontiff.
Today (22nd October) is Hachiro Kasuga's 34th death anniversary, and just a couple of weeks ago, on 9th October, was his 101st birthday. Since I had nothing planned for this Hachi-filled month, I shall commemorate it with a Kasuga Bushi that I've been resonating with as of late: Kaze ga Yobu kara (Called by the Wind).
This one was a slow burn for me. I encountered Kaze ga Yobu kara some time last year and thought it was a pleasant enough listen, especially with the distinctive shifts between the major and minor scales in each of its 3 stanzas. I've also always thought that the phrase "I'll go where the wind takes me" was really cool. It's probably because a lone wolf character I admired from a super sentai series I watched as a kid. This song's title, as it is, already sounds like said phrase. Yet, the song as a whole never really stuck around in my head. That was until I began to sing it at the Kasuga Enka Denshokai karaoke gatherings, which had me paying greater attention to it, and eventually gaining a greater appreciation for it.
Let's take a closer look at Kaze ga Yobu kara. It was released as the B-side to Ore to Kageboshi (俺と影法師) in November 1956. Its lyrics, penned by Takashi Umemoto (梅本たかし), has Hachi singing from the perspective of a wanderer who, seemingly on a whim, found himself in parts unknown in vague pursuit of something - a dream, someone to love, kindred spirits... A carefree vagabond-like figure with just an acoustic guitar on his back (he's likely a drifting nagashi), he seems to have hope in fulfilling these abstract goals, as the swelling strings and accordion played in the major scale Susumu/Shin Yamaguchi's (山口進) composition suggest. Yet, the dramatic dips in mood, caused by the abrupt, albeit temporary, shifts to the minor scale seem to show that our protagonist has his moments of sadness and loneliness. It ain't all sunshine and rainbows. Hachi, with his emotive high tone, effortlessly conveys both of the protagonist's contrasting states of mind.
As one of the Denshokai members aptly put, it can be seen as a song about hope (kibo no uta). Kaze... was released during a time when young hopefuls from all over Japan flooded the major cities for work, play, perhaps, to achieve big aspirations. So, it's possible that some of said demographic might've found some resonance in the tune should they have come across it. Perhaps Hachi may have related to it on some level too, considering he himself was one such figure who came to Tokyo for school and work, and eventually to pursue his dream in spite of the hardships.
Despite coming into contact with Kaze ga Yobu kara almost 70 years after it hit the shelves, I feel like I see a part of myself in it. Often times, I wonder how I got here. More than being called by the wind, it feels as though I'm a tumbleweed being tossed around by said wind, sometimes going forward, sometimes going backward, sometimes getting caught in trees and rocks. But amidst the trial and tribulations, I guess I never really lost that desire and hope to pursue what I thought were abstract dreams and to encounter kindred spirits. For now, I'm glad that I managed to find some of what I came in search of. Naa, Hacchan?
What further cemented my fan love for singer Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）was my purchase of her 1986 LP "Main Course". Not surprisingly, the KKP article for "Main Course" was one of the first ones I did on the blog for an album. Right from the first track, it held me in its thrall with its mix of sophisticated pop, jazz and City Pop.
And speaking of that first track, "Koi Hitosuji ni"（恋ひとすじに) is one prime example of sophisticated pop that felt like Kurahashi singing from some late afternoon or early evening balcony overlooking the French Riviera. With lyrics by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and the melody by American keyboardist Tom Coster, I'd assumed for years that Coster had contributed the song just for Kurahashi as a single and then as the track to begin"Main Course", and nothing was noted about it on the American side of things.
Well, I was completely wrong about that. It turns out that "Koi Hitosuji ni" was a cover version of Coster's original "I Give My Love to You" from his 1983 album"Ivory Expeditions". And the original, though the basic melody is intact, still gives off something very different in its arrangement. For one thing, it's an instrumental that is fusion with a heavier emphasis on the jazz side of things, and for another, there is an electric guitar solo by Joaquin Lievano that had me thinking Santana, and as it turns out, Coster did work with the band Santana on many occasions. In fact, one of the commenters for the above video remarked that the original "I Give My Love to You" is basically a Santana song. I'm trying to imagine that...a Fashion Music chanteuse covering a Santana ballad.
Last month, I introduced brief-careered 80s aidoru Chiaki Ogami（尾上千昌）and one of her singles "Tokimeki Highway"（ときめきハイウェイ）from July 1983 which is so typically 1980s aidoru-tastic that it makes my memories shiver like an ice cream headache on certain head muscles (haven't felt one of those in a long time).
Ogami and her songwriters, lyricist Ikki Matsumoto（松本一起）and composer/arranger Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）, were at it again for the B-side, "Glass Shojo" (Glass Girl). This song is a bit more fleet-footed thanks to those thrilling strings and the wailing electric guitar but it's still very much an aidoru tune of its time (especially with that off-tune plaintive delivery in the chorus), and I actually prefer it to the A-side.
Yesterday's main topic on NHK's morning variety information show "Asaichi"（あさイチ）just happened to be on the how-to-do's and etiquette surrounding a visit to the popular all-you-can-eat buffets in the country. During that computer part purchasing frenzy yesterday, my friend and I had found a Japanese eatery called The Ohiru Café and we stuffed our pie holes full of tonkatsu sandwiches so I was pretty immune to all that "viking" on television last night. Still, back in the day, when my gastrointestinal tract was ravenous and more pliable to all that food, I had my time in the buffet circuit including the weekly cake buffets at the Hilton Hotel in Shinjuku. Not so much though that I had my face on warning signs for the staff.
I thought therefore that a song with the title of "Hirusagari no Selection" (Afternoon Selection) would be ideal for such a preamble ramble. It feels like two words optimal as a description for cake, tea or other gastronomic choices at a restaurant during the weekdays.
However, I'm not sure whether lyricist Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子）or composer Kingo Hamada（浜田金吾）had ever meant for this particular song to be emblematic of such foodie pursuits. A track from the latter's 6th album"Heart Cocktail" from March 1985, it's a song that doesn't actually fall under his more common genres of City Pop and jazz. It's really a fancy-free and breezy pop tune that hints at music from way before even the 1980s. Both people were also responsible for "Yokaze no Information"（夜風のインフォメーション）, a fellow track mate on the album.
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