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.
Considering the title of this song, it's perhaps a tad early especially because I'm typing this after Saturday Lunch (which consisted of a couple of hot dogs, a blueberry muffin, and yogurt). Still, it's a fine opportunity for me to show off this photo of my breakfast at the famous family restaurant Royal Host in Japan. Good golly, they like making their toast nice and thick over there.
Once again, Nash Music Library cordially brings over their menu of whimsical musical delights including "Sunday Breakfast" from their February 2024 collection known as "Morning Chill". It sounds like a very languid version of Burt Bacharach style as if good ol' Burt were waking up way too early after a large night and stumbling about in the kitchen trying to make the usual Sunday breakfast. Perhaps he was only successful in making a cup of coffee by the end.⛾
The first time I ever saw Shigeru Izumiya（泉谷しげる）on television was years and years ago when he still had that fully black hair and full beard and moustache. Unlike the usual entertainers who were goofing and gabbing about, Izumiya rather scared me with his grumpy countenance and angry outbursts, and though it's hard to remember specific incidents at this stage in my life, I think he really was annoyed with his fellow entertainers, but that was his stock-in-trade and I believe that he was standing up for those viewers who were getting tired of the usual shenanigans.
It wouldn't be until years later that I found out that Izumiya hadn't been hired to be the Grumpy Old Man of the geinokai. He actually started his career as a folk singer in the 1970s. And earlier this morning, he had appeared on NHK's annual "Live Yell"（ライブ・エール）music extravaganza which has been treated as a summer version of the year-end Kohaku Utagassen. My impression is that it's an even more heartful music special dealing with specific issues of the year and for 2024, the show was addressing the tragic earthquake in the Noto Peninsula on New Year's Day and the growing isolationism among young people.
My impression of Izumiya is that he's mellowed out considerably and his frequent annoyed utterances are now delivered with a bit of a wink and smile. He performed his 2nd single from April 1972, "Shunka Shuutou" (Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter) with words and music created by him. Describing a man coming from very humble circumstances, he still invites the listener over for a bit of counseling and that although hard times have come in the past and may still come in the future, it's not the time to give up. I'd say that "Shunka Shuutou" is the perfect song for "Live Yell".
Not sure how long this video will stay up, but this is the actual performance by Izumiya on "Live Yell" today. "Shunka Shuutou" was also the title track for the singer's debut album which came out in the same month as the single. Izumiya made his first appearance on the aforementioned Kohaku in 2013 to sing this song with the purpose of giving his good tidings to all those getting their start in the working world in 2014.
"Dreaming Love" is a sweet soul ballad that is right up the alley of soul freak Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and makes effective use of the electric sitar. As soon as the arrangement was done in the manner of Thom Bell who had helped produce The Delfonics and The Stylistics, there was probably no one in Japan who could match Tats. And within that, the horns and strings arrangement along with the precise positioning were magnificent.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised"(2020).
Looks like Kayo Grace has gotten dolled up for a night in the big city. Meanwhile, someone else has chosen to try out a hotel on the beach.
Well, specifically "Nagisa Hotel"(Beach Hotel) by aidoru Mayumi Hara（原真祐美）. This was actually the B-side to her 5th single from April 1984,"Wakatte My Love"（わかってマイ・ラブ...Understand Me, My Love）, and this one is a rather interesting tune in terms of the key and chords. Plus, there is this combination of the disco strings and 80s rhythm that skirts with City Pop. Written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）, Hara gamely sings in a soundscape that has its dramatic and doubtful verses which shift into a hopeful pre-chorus before things revert to a determined and perhaps heroic chorus. It sounds like one of those gang girl dramas on TV centering on one lass trying to get out of the life but having to literally punch her way through to the light.
As with my previous Hara outing, "Yuugure wa Love Song"（夕暮れはLove Song）, "Nagisa Hotel" was also a track on her 2nd album"Vert Clair"（ベール・クレール）from February 1984.
Kenji Haga（羽賀研二）is a long-standing tarento on Japanese television whom I've seen go through all sorts of trials and tribulations, and certainly a lot of his media exposure was due to his romantic relationship with fellow tarento and model Anna Umemiya（梅宮アンナ）beginning from the 1990s. What I hadn't known until I was well into doing the blog was that he basically got his start as one-third of the Ii Tomo Seinen Tai（いいとも青年隊...The Ii Tomo Youth Brigade） , the first group of song-and-dance men to perform on Fuji-TV's long-running noon time variety show "Morita Kazuyoshi Hour - Waratte Ii Tomo"（森田一義アワー・笑っていいとも....The Kazuyoshi Morita Hour: It's OK To Laugh) . Apparently back then, he used to put on the glasses to show off that intellectual beefcake look.
Eventually with his rising profile in the geinokai in the 1980s, one of his powers-that-be probably gave the order "OK, Kenji, you gotta cut a record!" as usually was the case with any entertainer. And indeed, Haga released a number of singles between 1982 and 2004 but with only two albums in 1984 and 1985. The first album was "Kouha Bigaku"（硬派美学...Hardline Aesthestics） and the glasses-less Haga looked all of fourteen years old (he was well into his twenties) on the cover. Maybe it was a Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）syndrome or something.
Anyways, one of the tracks on "Kouha Bigaku" is "City Alone" (and the above version seems to have been truncated). Haga appears to have taken on that bespectacled dandy-esque character from the top video when he recorded this one. His vocals sound a bit like crooning Yosui Inoue（井上陽水）while the City Pop melody by Kingo Hamada（浜田金吾）provides the atmosphere of the big, bad and lonely if fascinating metropolis. Yumi Yoshimoto（吉本由美）was the lyricist here.
Took a while to track this down. It was nine years ago that I posted "Refrain"（リフレイン）by Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）which was the B-side to the song of note for this article.
And this A-side was "Nagareru Mama ni ~ Rakka Ryuusui" (As It Flows ~ Mutual Love), Kokubu's 2nd single from April 1986. A ballad that was used as the theme song for the movie "Kizu darake no Kunshou"（傷だらけの勲章...Scarred Medal）, this is a Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）composition and it sure sounds like it: the soft flugelhorn and the wailing guitar solo; maybe the new thing is the additional flute. I can imagine Hayashi's other major client, Omega Tribe（オメガトライブ）doing their own version of the song. Singer-songwriter Kumiko Aoki（青木久美子）provided the lyrics. Incidentally, the footage above is probably not from "Kizu darake no Kunshou" since the movie didn't star the whirling dervish that is vivacious actress Yuko Tanaka（田中裕子）as seen in the video, but I'm not complaining.
An 80s Hayashi ballad is always welcome here. Both "Nagareru Mama ni" and "Refrain" ended up on Kokubu's reissued "Steps +2" album from 2014 (the original had been released in 1987). And guess what? I see that I already put in my two cents on "Nagareru Mama ni" in that one, but hey, I can exercise my prerogative to take another look at it. And of course, I can simply mutter to myself about how my long-term memory is starting to deteriorate again.
Hello there. It's J-Canuck with Part 3 of the translation of music journalist Toshikazu Kanazawa's（金澤寿和）liner notes for Tohoku Shinkansen's（東北新幹線）one-and-only album"Thru Traffic" from 1982. Today's excerpt goes over the actual production of the album.
After Yamakawa’s entry into Yamaha, she joined Hiroko Taniyama’s（谷山浩子）band as a keyboardist just when Taniyama had debuted as a singer-songwriter. A little later, she also joined Junko Yagami's（八神純子）band because she was recognized for her ability to sing with a similar voice to Junko's. Later on, Narumi, who had become a university student by then, was starting to come to Yamaha frequently, and came to support the bands for Taniyama and Yukio Sasaki（佐々木幸男）. It was around this time that Makoto Matsushita（松下誠） (of the band AB’S and so forth), who was like a senpai to Narumi, began to notice him and gave him an electric guitar (up until then, Narumi just had the acoustic guitar). Then, Kazuo Nobuta（信田かずお）, who had provided support for singer-songwriter Akira Inaba（因幡晃）, had been an instructor at Nemu Music Academy (Yamaha Music Foundation’s original name) and Seiko Matsuda’s（松田聖子）first arranger, brought Narumi aboard for the recording by the band that Matsushita and Nobuta had formed, Milky Way. This was Narumi’s first official involvement in a recording. His strong admiration for guitarist David T. Walker, someone who the connoisseurs would know, came from Matsushita.
One day, there was an opening in Yagami’s band which Narumi filled at Yamakawa’s recommendation. Close in age and musical preference, Narumi and Yamakawa were influencing each other and they gradually came to lending a hand in the stage arrangements while both were in the band. A Yamaha director who was watching this suggested the following: “How about the two of you become a duo?”. This launched Tohoku Shinkansen.
The musical concept would be mostly based on AOR and Black contemporary music of the time. First and foremost, the aim was high-quality and refined urban music. Basically, they were looking at Gino Vannelli, Bobby Caldwell, Earth Wind & Fire, Quincy Jones, George Benson and Eumir Deodato. As well, the two of them, who liked the addition of chorus, shared an admiration for the jazz chorus group The Singers Unlimited. Moreover, neither of them loved songs with simplistic progressions and preferred something with cool tension chords.
Narumi:At the time, rather than us writing the songs, the melodies and the arrangements just seemed to materialize at the same time. For something like the first track, “Summer Touches You”, the song was born right from the intro.
Yamakawa: “Up and Down” was showing its influence from Earth Wind & Fire. Listening to it now, I think that part when the sound clicks out is a bit unnatural but I thought I sang it well.
Narumi handled all of the guitar playing. To him, this album was his starting point as a guitarist and for him to play the instrument on all of the tracks was a great source of confidence. Even on the instrumental track “Spell”, his David T. Walker-style of play was on full display. He would always use Walker’s favourite guitar, the Gibson Byrdland, which revealed an emotional depth of play that couldn’t be imagined within someone who was in his mid-20s. As well, he handled some of the keyboards where he showed some extraordinary prowess. Yamakawa was in charge of all of the keyboard arrangements as well as those for the horns and strings. While the basic arrangement was done between the two of them, Narumi was more than happy to rely on Yamakawa when it came to the score since that was her strong point. However, the biggest strength that the pair had together was their harmonizing. What showed that to its maximum was the jazz ballad version of “September Valentine”. This track was the only one created by a different artist, J-AOR singer-songwriter Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘）. The song had been chosen as one where they wanted to make it sound like something by The Singers Unlimited. It had originally been recorded by Yukio Sasaki, and Narumi, who had been his support band member, was the first to notice the song. Kentaro Haneda（羽田健太郎）played the piano for the Tohoku Shinkansen version.
As well, bassists Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）and Kenji Takamizu（高水健司）, drummer Hideo Yamaki（山木秀夫）, percussionist Motoya Hamaguchi（浜口茂外也）, saxophonist Jake H. Concepcion along with several other famous musicians participated, but it was Yamakawa and Narumi who discussed and set the lineup, and it was through the former’s personal connections that the number of session musicians grew. Junko Yagami herself also joined in the backing vocals. A singer by the name of Chrissy Faith who was on backing vocals had been a backing singer for Rupert Holmes, an AOR artist who also provided Yagami with a song, “Koi no Magic Trick” (恋のマジックトリック...Magic Trick of Love) on which Yamakawa and Narumi also joined in on. The duet track “Tsuki ni Yorisotte” (月に寄りそって...Getting Close to the Moon) with its faintly wistful feeling sounds just like a Yagami song.
Yamakawa:Back then, we were together 100 to 200 days out of the year and we all got along so it’s no surprise that we naturally sounded like each other. Obviously, when we were in the backing chorus, we made an effort to follow each other and so we got accustomed to that.
Narumi:For “Last Message” (the final track), the lyrics came out first and as we read through them, our image for the song expanded, and we nailed down the melody within 3 minutes. Etsu sang this for us since they were a woman’s lyrics.
Toshikazu Kanazawa
September 2007
Next week will have the fourth and final part of the liner notes.
