Rainy Street by Tchabows (1976)

I don't remember exactly when or where I first heard this song, but I do remember discovering it sometime last year. I was already familiar with Masami Yoshida thanks to his 1980 solo album My Tune, My Turn, but I had no idea he had been making music before that.

What initially caught my attention was the band's unusual name: Tchabows. Written in Japanese as 茶坊主 (Chabōzu), the term traditionally refers to a Buddhist temple attendant or, historically, someone who served tea to a feudal lord.

To be fair, the mellow sound of their 1976 album Tree of Life actually feels pretty appropriate for sitting indoors with a warm cup of tea while the rain comes pouring outside your window.

"Rainy Street" quickly became my favorite song on the album. It has this wonderful pseudo-bossa nova groove, a folksy, down-to-earth acoustic guitar, and a quirky yet strangely endearing synthesizer floating around in the background.

To top it off, vocalist Mami Kikuchi could honestly give Taeko Ohnuki a run for her money. Her voice has that same wonderfully soft, warm, and inviting quality—the kind of vocal performance that doesn't need to overpower the music to grab your attention.

While a few other songs on the record venture into more  Progressive Rock territory, everything about "Rainy Street" feels gentle and unassuming.