Edd Kalehoff -- The Price is Right

 

Welcome to another round of Reminiscings of Youth this Thursday to start off today's songs on KKP. Of course, I like to cover some of those pop hits from the West and of my own yesteryear as ROY articles but as I've also done in the past, I've also covered some of my beloved theme songs from television programs in America, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Earlier this week, I heard about the passing of legendary American game show host Bob Barker at the age of 99 and I first got to know the man through his work taking care of "Truth or Consequences" (on the old black-and-white TV set) which ran between 1956 and 1975. To me, he was the template of the American game show host: charming, friendly, pretty fast-talking and unflappable, and he and a lot of his brethren struck me as the modern-day version of the old-fashioned traveling salesmen who went from town to town selling their wares, whether they were honest or not.

Then, Barker got what would be his longest and biggest gig as the host of "The Price is Right", one of the most famous game shows in American history, taking care of the show for about 35 years from September 1972 to June 2007 (it's still going on strong today). He smoothly handled each episode as the contestants went through the bidding phase on a product and then got into the various imaginative price games which sometimes inspired my own imagination for games in English classes.

Naturally, being one of the longest-running game shows in America and Canada, the theme song is also one of the most recognized. It was composed by Edd Kalehoff who has come up with music for a lot of other TV programs such as ABC's "Monday Night Football" and CBS' "60 Minutes" (yes, the ticking stopwatch). What I hadn't realized was that "The Price is Right" theme had a goodly amount of Moog and other synthesizers in there so I guess maybe it can be considered to be a technopop piece. In any case, my condolences to Barker's family, friends and many fans.

For the comparative part of the article today, I'm going to go with the three Best New Artist prize winners of the Japan Record Awards for 1972.

Aoi Sankaku Jougi -- Taiyo ga Kureta Kisetsu （太陽がくれた季節）

Hiromi Go -- Otoko no Ko , Onna no Ko (男の子女の子）

Masako Mori -- Sensei （せんせい）

"This is Bob Barker reminding you to help control the pet population – have your pets spayed or neutered."

The Works of Keisuke Yamakawa （山川啓介）

This may go down as one of the sadder years for Japanese songwriters. In the wake of the passing of Toru Funamura（船村徹）in February and Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）last month, I only heard a couple of nights ago of the death of lyricist Keisuke Yamakawa. He passed away on July 24th 2017 at the age of 72 from lung cancer, just three days after Hirao's departure and only five days after I had written an article for a song that he wrote for Hiromi Ohta（太田裕美）, "City Lights".

I'm uncertain whether the announcement of Yamakawa's passing made the major newscasts that night, and I could only find something like the above "homemade" announcement on YouTube, although there was a very short news story about it on TV Asahi without any footage shown.

So, for the second time this year, along with Funamura, I'm writing this Creator article also as a eulogy of sorts to a departed songwriter. Going over the songs created by the Nagano Prefecture-born Yamakawa, I found that there were a number of tunes that I have yet to cover on the blog that I feel deserve their own articles. Therefore the songs below will be ones that I've already talked about but at least putting them together here, readers may find out how wide his range was when it came to the songs he helped write.

Keisuke Yamakawa was born Takao Ide（井出隆夫）in October 1944 in the city of Saku, Nagano Prefecture. It is a city that I have visited since a couple of my old friends now live there. He graduated from Waseda University's Department of Literature and became active in songwriting, screenwriting and translating from English lyrics. Unfortunately, that was pretty much most of what I could glean from his J-Wiki bio but it does provide a comprehensive list of the singers and songs that he was involved with, so perhaps those will do more of the talking. Of course, I can only give a thin sliver of his output.

In the couple of news reports I saw regarding Yamakawa's death, the one song that got mentioned was "Madonna Tachi no Lullaby"（聖母たちのララバイ）which he wrote for Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）in 1982. It turned out to be Iwasaki's greatest hit and probably his crowning achievement.

Unfortunately the J-Wiki article didn't give a chronological order about his output. However, I think one of his earliest creations was the flashy "Taiyo ga Kureta Kisetsu"（太陽がくれた季節）for the folk-pop group Aoi Sankaku Jougi（青い三角定規）in 1972.

In comparison to Funamura who focused on enka and Hirao who stayed on the traditional side of kayo through aidoru and Mood Kayo, I think Yamakawa tipped a bit more to the other side of Japanese pop including the genres of City Pop and the more far-ranging New Music. I realize that he was a lyricist and not a composer but he did get into a wide range of music.

That also included anison. Perhaps one of his most famous sets of lyrics in this area was for the ending theme song for the first "Galaxy Express 999" （銀河鉄道999）movie in 1979 as performed by Godiego（ゴダイゴ）. He and band vocalist Yukihide Takekawa（タケカワユキヒデ）made it very inviting to hop aboard the most famous train in anime.

One of my personal favourites, though, is Junko Yagami's（八神純子）"Naturally" (1983) which had that sweet/sultry tang.

And even into the 20th century, Yamakawa was even able to provide words to one of the most cheerful and earworm-y commercial jingles for a company, "Hello, Sofmap World" in 2004. Groovy 80s composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）came up with the happy melody so it was quite the atypical creation for both veterans.

Yamakawa has now left this mortal coil but there are still many songs left by him for me to delve into.

Aoi Sankaku Jougi -- Taiyo ga Kureta Kisetsu （太陽がくれた季節）

Been trying to find this one for ages although I think it's somewhere in one of my compilations. Aoi Sankaku Jougi (青い三角定規...Blue Triangle [as in the one in your school pencil case]）was a short-lived folk group that managed to sing one of the evergreen songs of the 1970s. "Taiyo ga Kureta Kisetsu"(Season of the Sun) was the theme for a yearlong high school drama "Tobidase! Seishun"(飛び出せ！青春...Break Out, Youth!) that was shown on TBS.

It has stuck in my head all these years since the song's arrangement is so anthemic, almost along the lines of a superhero serial, and also because it represents the sound of early 70s Japanese pop with the strings and orchestral brass, despite the fact that it's been labeled as one of the big folk songs of all time.

Here is the group consisting of Kumiko Nishiguchi（西口久美子）in the middle, and Shigeru Iwaku and Mari Takada（岩久茂・高田真理）. Aoi Sankaku Jougi first formed in 1971, and released 6 singles and 3 albums before their breakup in 1973 due to creative differences. "Taiyo", released in February 1972, was their only big hit, written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介） and composed by Taku Izumi（いずみたく）. The song hit the No. 1 spot and won the Newcomers Award at the Japan Record Awards while selling over a million copies.

I'd think people in their 50s back in Japan would be swooning about this one.