Hiroshi Takano/The Kingtones -- Yume no Naka de Aeru desho（夢の中で会えるでしょう）

 

This song is due to be a Yutaka Kimura Speaks entry in a few weeks so I decided to jump ahead of it with my own take. Honestly speaking, I hadn't heard of this one by singer-songwriter Hiroshi Takano（高野寛）but it has been included in the Top 100 in "Japanese City Pop", so I had to take a gander, especially with the late Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）handling its arrangement.

"Yume no Naka de Aeru desho" (We Can Meet in Our Dreams) had actually been meant as a Takano contribution to the vocal group The Kingtones（ザ・キング・トーンズ）as one of their singles, but as circumstances permitted, it ended up getting out as a Takano single in October 1994. Sakamoto and Takano have made it an early 1970s soul single and I can also hear why the latter had wanted to offer it to The Kingtones with their doo-wop balladry. The single reached No. 67 on Oricon and has been included as a track on his March 1995 album "Sorrow and Smile" which peaked at No. 49.

The Kingtones' take of the song did come out in April 1995 as their 29th single. Couldn't find an original recorded version but I did find this concert footage of the guys doing their doo-wop best. As heard here, it sounds a bit more lighthearted but the story is the same: a couple greatly enjoying each other's company on Earth and in the stars.

Ginger Root -- Only You

 

Dealing with "Kayo Kyoku Plus" music? Yayyy! Dealing with technology? Ughhhh. I haven't had much sleep over the past couple of days because folks in my community are looking forward to an upgrade in their Internet technology via new modems. I have never been very good with handling electronic devices and when I got my modem yesterday morning, I spent a good deal of time absorbing the installation instructions. Then, against my better judgement and in the vain hopes that a technician would miraculously beam in to help, I went to work. Not surprisingly, I got hung up with the Internet and television connections. After a couple of tries over twenty minutes, I cried "Uncle!" and reverted back to my current modem. Thankfully, everything is back to normal but later on today, I'm calling up the company and demanding a technician to come in.

Probably a lot of my friends and my brother, who are far more adept at technology than I am, would point an accusatory finger at me and say "Only you, J-Canuck! Only you can plug in an alarm clock and screw that up!". Yeah, guilty as charged. But that's me and my blog is my strength.

Hopefully, singer-songwriter and musician Cameron Lew and his Ginger Root project are faring much better in California. In August of this year, Ginger Root released their latest single "Only You", which is another sunny techno-light funky tune with a hint of 60s sweet pop as a topping. The video has Lew possibly getting yanked back into the Japanese corporatism of the music industry for that good money and fame. Compare that with his current circumstances of his own struggling business as a solo act.  Although I'm a music fan and not a musician, I can definitely relate to young Cameron.

"Only You" is also available in Ginger Root's latest album which came out a couple of months ago "Shinbangumi" (New Program). I wish him continued success.

Gamu -- Aki kara...（残秋(あき)から･･･）

 

It was over a decade ago when I wrote about folk duo Gamu's（雅夢）"Ai wa Kagero"（愛はかげろう）, the refined and wistful 1980 hit that bordered on Fashion Music, this side of France.

Some very tenderhearted oaken strings and Kazuto Miura's（三浦和人）resonant vocals come out of the woodwork to introduce the B-side of "Ai wa Kagero", "Aki kara..." (Since That Autumn...). Written by Hiroshi Yasusugi（保杉弘）and composed by Miura, once again I had initially wondered whether we were going into the realm of Fashion Music because of those strings, but the song goes into a more poignant if more laidback direction than "Ai wa Kagero". Yasusugi's lyrics talk of a man's bittersweet memories of a romance that went pear-shaped a couple of years previously. Once again, the season of autumn is the basis for romantic downfall and reflection.

Ippu-Do -- Chinese Reggae

 

I gotta say that when the Japanese music community discovered the way to mesh their combinations of notes with computer technology back in the 1960s and 1970s, they really loved to push some of the older genres through the filter of synthesizers and emulators. Yellow Magic Orchestra played with surf rock via "Cosmic Surfin'" and Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）melded some of that new French pop approach to the technopop in her album "Romantique".

It was also during that time that the synthpop band Ippu-Do spearheaded by singer-songwriter Masami Tsuchiya（土屋昌巳）was making its mark on the stereos and radios. Back in 1980, they came out with their second studio album "Real" and within it, there was the track "Chinese Reggae", written and composed by Tsuchiya, which was indeed as advertised. It was an English-language tongue-in-cheek ditty with a Chinese-sounding melody overlaying a reggae rhythm and Tsuchiya was able to make it work. Then in 1981, their third album "Radio Fantasy" included the Japanese-language version of the song. 

The above video provided by YouTuber Contain Yr Brain has both versions with the Japanese-language version before the original English version.

Chaka Khan -- Through the Fire

 

A few months ago, my Reminiscings of Youth post was on Chaka Khan's funky-as-all-get-out "I Feel For You" from 1984 which probably had the folks hitting the dance floor to do their breakdancing. It is one of two songs that I will always associate with her. But the other song of hers that is up there with "I Feel For You" is "Through the Fire", a wholly different animal. It's a romantic ballad from April 1985 that was created by David Foster (and yeah, it sounds so Foster), Tom Keane and Cynthia Weil which will always put me at ease as one of the most heartfelt examples of Quiet Storm that I've heard. She can hit it out of the park with her love songs as well as her party hits. Not surprisingly, this and its video were on heavy rotation on radio and TV.

I was a bit surprised and disappointed that "Through the Fire" didn't hit too high on the charts, reaching No. 60 on the Billboard Hot 100 and then No. 15 on the Billboard Hot Black Singles. I thought it was a Top 10 song for sure. The ballad had already gotten out onto the market some months earlier as a track on Chaka Khan's October 1984 "I Feel For You" album.

So, what else was coming out on the Japanese record store shelves in April 1985?

Yoshie Kashiwabara -- Machikutabirete Yokohama (待ちくたびれてヨコハマ）

Akina Nakamori（中森明菜） -- Bitter and Sweet (album)

Yukiko Okada -- Summer Beach

Miyako Chaki -- Anata wa Nani wo（あなたは何を）

 

There are a couple of reasons that I'm putting up this song by singer-songwriter Miyako Chaki（茶木みやこ）. One is that the last time I posted about her was back in October 2020 for her atmospheric "Maboroshi no Hito"（幻の人）. The other is that just a few days ago, underneath the article for that song, I had a nice conversation via the comments with a filmmaker and actor by the name of Tony Savo who had just completed a short sci-fi film titled "Shape of Things to Come". He actually used "Maboroshi no Hito" as the ending theme since the song rather fit nicely into what the story was all about. But if you're interested in taking a look, you can just go over to the article via the link and scroll down to the comments for his link to the movie.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at Chaki's "Anata wa Nani wo" (What Are You Doing?) which was the B-side to her March 1978 single "Azami no Gotoku Toge Areba"（あざみの如く棘あれば）. Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed by the singer, it's a bit of a potpourri of relaxing pop reminiscent of Gilbert O'Sullivan, some Asian influence and a bluesy saxophone. Compared with "Maboroshi no Hito", "Anata wa Nani wo" does feel lighter and more optimistic.

Isao Sasaki -- G.I. Blues

 

I wasn't around when Elvis Presley had been enjoying his first several years of fame and fortune before he was drafted by Uncle Sam into the army. Can only imagine how many women screamed in despair at their idol becoming a military man, but he didn't do too badly at all. "G.I. Blues" the 1960 movie was one result.

I remember Isao Sasaki（ささきいさお）mostly for his grand contributions to anison for epics such as "Uchuu Senkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト）, so it was with some surprise years later that when the Tokyo native had first started out, he was all about his rockabilly, and as much as I have dubbed the lyricist to "Yamato", the legendary Yu Aku（阿久悠）, as the Irving Berlin of kayo kyoku, Sasaki was once given the nickname of the Japanese Elvis Presley.

Case in point: one of his earliest singles was his cover of "G.I. Blues" which came out in 1961. He doesn't do too badly and he actually does sound like Elvis if he had been fluent in Japanese. Let's try to imagine Elvis singing "Star Blazers". Unfortunately, I couldn't track down who came up with the Japanese lyrics.