A couple of nights ago, I caught the penultimate episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）for the year. Usually, the NHK music show alternates venues between Tokyo and Osaka, but for the first time, it held its performances in Fukuoka at a new hall. Not surprisingly, a lot of the guests, if not all of them, were from that particular area such as Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）and Fumiya Fujii（藤井フミヤ）, formerly of Checkers.
My long odyssey down the kayo kyoku/J-Pop path can be described as one where stretches of that road were populated by certain regular singers and bands, so the 80s part was filled with folks such as the aforementioned Checkers, Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）. That started with my trip to Japan in 1981 and continued throughout my high school and university years. But when I got to Japan to start my first post-university job as a teacher in Gunma Prefecture in 1989, I felt that there was a phasing out of the "old guard", so to speak, from my perception, to be replaced by acts including Princess Princess, Wink, Kome Kome Club（米米CLUB）and Miki Imai（今井美樹）.
Fujii performed a song that I hadn't heard in decades on "Uta Con" on Tuesday. It was the Checkers' 23rd single from June 1990, "Yoake no Breath" (Breath of Dawn). My impression of the popular band has always been stuck in those mid-1980s when the band was doing their 50s rock-n-roll stuff but I also realize that Fujii could come up with the emotional ballads such as "True Love" later in the 90s, and such was the case with "Yoake no Breath".
Written by Fujii and composed by Checkers' keyboardist Masaharu Tsuruku（鶴久政治）, it's been described as a straight love song although I can pick up on some of the old Checkers' proud swagger and perhaps a bit of gospel soul as well. On Oricon, it reached No. 2 and eventually became the 34th-ranked single of the year.
According to the J-Wiki article for "Yoake no Breath", this song and one other were vying to get that position of getting released as a single, and what ultimately got "Yoake no Breath" the brass ring was the fact that Fujii was getting married at around the same time, so why not have a love song come out next for Checkers? Well, it did more than that. It also got the band their 7th invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen and was also used as the campaign song for the movie "Tasmania Monogatari"（タスマニア物語...Tasmania Story）.
This is a nice change! When video of The Checkers appears on TV it is usually from the early to mid-1980s and nothing from the late 80s or 1990, 1991, or 1992. When TV does feature the 1990's it is only of Fujii Fumiya as a single artist.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I guess the early 90s signified the transition of Fujii from Checkers vocalist to a solo artist in terms of his music.
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