EVE -- Sugar Sugar

 

I figure that if I can get a Eurobeat song onto the blog last month, thanks to Yoshimi Yokosuka（横須賀昌美）, I can do so here in March as well.

And this time, it's by the group EVE that seemed to be omnipresent in the music world back in the 1980s since they popped up backing up a lot of other artists in the recording studio. This time, though, the Sisters Shinzato from Okinawa are front and centre with their second single as a group, "Sugar Sugar" which came out in August 1987. Written by two of the sisters, Clare & Leona, with Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）handling the arrangement under his nom de plume Mark Davis (man, he's been a busy man today after providing his services for the song of the previous article), I'm sure that he made Stock, Aitken & Waterman very proud with his Eurobeat tendencies. "Sugar Sugar" peaked at No. 77 on Oricon.

Yasunori Soryo & EVE -- I'm In New York

 

Some weeks ago, I put up an article for Shigeru Suzuki's（鈴木茂）"Kennedy Airport" and I waxed a tad on my second trip to The Big Apple in 2001, focusing on the unique New York drink, the egg cream. There are some of those memory engrams comings in as I start off this article since my mind wanders back to 1993 during my first trip there in the fall.

I have probably mentioned this in past articles, but when my friend and I went down to New York City to see another old friend who used to live and work in Toronto, I was frankly terrified because of all those years in my childhood and youth hearing that America's most well-known metropolis had also been known as The World's Most Dangerous City. But staying at our buddy's apartment in the Upper East Side and spending those few days there, I realized that things had vastly changed. It has ended up becoming one of my more treasured memories (although I agree that the subway system is spooky, to say the least), especially enjoying that fall weather while browsing at the Kinokuniya Bookstore right by Rockefeller Center. It was a lovely establishment and I even managed to get a few Japanese CDs there. After having lived in Gunma Prefecture between 1989 and 1991 and then being back in Toronto for a couple of years afterwards, I really did need my J-Pop fix badly so I was grateful to see that wooden wagon filled with those albums.

So, as was the case with Suzuki's "Kennedy Airport", I have begun this article with a personal memory of New York City to present a song with a Manhattan theme titled "I'm In New York". This was the first track from a 1981 album "Peyote" by the combination of composer-arranger Yasunori Soryo（惣領泰則）and the vocal trio EVE. 

That intro from "I'm In New York" hit me fast and hard since it wasn't something that I've heard in a Japanese pop song. I got more of that 80s Bruce Cockburn or Paul Simon cool folk-pop vibe but then when one of the EVE sisters started rolling some delectably velvety vocals, I could hear the melody by Soryo take on that certain 70s life-in-the-city feeling that I used to hear from Billy Joel and then the main refrain really brought home the downtown brass in a mix of jazz and fusion. Bill Crutchfield was responsible for the lyrics of which the phrase "Dancin'...in the streets, in the streets, I'm in New York!" has that celebratory feeling of hitting the big time in the Big Apple.

"Peyote" itself has got quite the cachet in musicians helping out. Jake H. Concepcion is back with his sax, Akira Inoue（井上鑑）is on the piano, Masahiro Ikumi（幾見雅博）is on the electric guitar and Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）has got his battery of horns supporting Soryo and EVE. Speaking of Soryo, you can also give his "City Lights by the Moonlight" from 1977 a spin as well.

EVE -- Joseph Joseph

 

Going back into the time vaults for this one since the first time that "Joseph Joseph" got its due from the record player was all the way back in 1938 thanks to The Andrews Sisters.

Actress/singer Nellie Casman and her husband, playwright Schlomo Steinberg, first came up with their big hit "Yossel, Yossel" in 1923 but it got a name change years later and popularized through The Andrews Sisters. The whole story involves a maid who's getting more and more frustrated over the fact that her beau Joseph won't state the obvious and settle down with her. Sounds like many an anime female character.

Back in late July, I noted that the Shinzato sisters under their vocal group name of EVE tackled an emotion-drenched Mood Kayo song with an 80s urban contemporary twist titled "Namida no Night in Tokyo"（涙のNIGHT IN TOKYO）. Well, this time around as their 7th single in October 1990, EVE decided to take a page out of The Andrews Sisters' playbook and go with some jazz in their own cover of "Joseph Joseph". 

With Japanese lyrics by Neko Oikawa（及川眠子）and arrangement by Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）, EVE's take on "Joseph Joseph" isn't just about the jazz. There is some of what sounds like New Jack Swing thrown in there and a growling electric guitar for a teaspoon of rock. Maybe this was one of the ancestors for all of that Electro Swing that got hatched years later just before I returned from Japan for good. "Joseph Joseph" was also included in the trio's 5th original album "EVE" released at the same time as the single.

Before I finish off, though, I also have to say that I really enjoy this gypsy jazz version of "Joseph Joseph" by the Gypsy Swing Revue through their "I Love Paris" album of October 2016.

EVE -- Namida no Night in Tokyo（涙のNIGHT IN TOKYO）

 

As I mentioned in the first article devoted to this chorus group consisting of the three Shinzato（新里）sisters, Leona, Clara and Lilika, EVE seemed to be basically part and parcel of pretty much every Japanese pop album created in the 1980s and perhaps beyond as the backup trio. I'd probably think that the one other super-prolific musician listed in many a liner note booklet, saxophonist Jake H. Concepcion, probably treated the ladies as virtual neighbours.

Yet, hearing them perform on their own is still fairly rare to me, thus the only other KKP article starring EVE is their 1976 cover of "Never Can Say Goodbye". However, I do have their second entry right here which is a track from their 2nd original album "Passion", released in May 1987.

I've heard "Namida no Night in Tokyo" (A Tearful Night in Tokyo) a number of times now, and to be frank, depending on my mood, I've taken the song as a slick Japanese urban contemporary number or I've cringed a bit at the somewhat overwrought delivery by EVE. But just to reiterate, that all depends on how I'm feeling. There's a bit of vocal cheese in there, but then again I do like fondue (yes, and chocolate, too). Moreover, fondue is a really rich and perhaps pricey dish in my eyes, and "Namida no Night in Tokyo" fairly gushes over with that Bubble Era sensation of living the crazy high life in the late 1980s version of the megalopolis.

Written by Ben Uozumi（魚住勉）and Brian Richy and composed/arranged by Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）with the arrangement being done under one of his pseudonyms, Mark Davis, "Namida no Night in Tokyo", through its title and the melancholy melody, comes across as a 1960s Mood Kayo brought forward and contemporized into a 1980s nocturnal West Shinjuku/Akasaka City Pop tune. Furthermore, Makaino's creation reminds me of a couple of other songs: there are echoes of WHAM!'s "Where Did Your Heart Go?" and Michael Frank's "Antonio's Song", both of which I have enjoyed. I will definitely have to give some attention to the latter ballad for a future ROY article.

Katsuhisa Hattori -- Secrets（シークレット）

Whenever I hear about the composer and arranger Katsuhisa Hattori（服部克久）, my mind thinks of TV themes and soundtracks along with lush orchestrations such as the ones that accompanied a number of tracks on Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）1993 Xmas album "Season's Greetings". My mind wouldn't usually think of him brandishing a glass of Perrier while a pink sweater is wrapped around his waist.

Now, why would I even think of such a yuppie image for Hattori? Well, I wouldn't have until I encountered this song titled "Secrets" that was actually composed by the fellow himself. At first listen, I went "Wait a minute! Hold the Pepperidge Farm here!". Hattori actually did Smooth Jazz and AOR?

Well, one song doesn't necessarily stamp a genre on a songwriter but still I was surprised enough that Hattori made this very Perrier-friendly "Secrets" that I had to make sure that I had the right guy. And sure enough, I checked his website and indeed, he did compose the song for the 2nd album (1985) titled "Juicy and Crispy" in his very long-running "Ongaku Batake"（音楽畑...Music Field）series of music.

The mellow beat, the soulful sax and the post-disco strings had me in its loving embrace right from Note One, and I had the sudden great need to buy a yacht in California (luckily, looking at my bank account brought me back to Earth). Then, the key shifts midway to have Linda Hennrick's lyrics sung by someone that I couldn't identify. I would love to know who sang this last half (June 11th 2020: Well, this is your lucky day, past J-Canuck! I managed to find out from Discogs that the vocalist is Clara Shinzato from the group EVE).

Tried to search for some more examples from any of the "Ongaku Batake" series and found music more along the lines that I had envisioned by Hattori...pop classical and music that I would connect to some sort of soundtrack. As for "Juicy and Crispy", it seems to be more of a mix of AOR and Easy Listening tracks. I'm not sure whether I have found a new series of CDs to delve into, but certainly the 2nd album has my attention now.

Apples (EVE) -- Never Can Say Goodbye

I'm not sure about the rest of you kayo kyoku fans out there, but in the 30+ years that I've been interested in Japanese pop music, I've gone through my fair share of liner notes in the records, audio tapes and CDs. And when it comes to the musicians and other people who have helped the main vocalist out, there are two entities which have popped up constantly from those liner notes. One is the saxophonist Jake H. Concepcion and the other is the chorus group EVE. I've listened to enough songs so that I know when they are there since their backup style seems to strike me as somewhere between operatic and disco. According to J-Wiki, through other singers' tunes and commercial jingles, they have supposedly participated in more than 2,000 songs over the nearly 4 decades they have been in the music biz. A microscopic sample of their participation include Yu Hayami's "Natsu Iro no Nancy" and Akina Nakamori's "Kazarijanainoyo Namida wa".

But I had no idea about their background until last night. Purely by accident, I found this video from YouTube. Now to begin with, EVE didn't start out as EVE. Once upon a time in Okinawa, there were three sisters from the Shinzato（新里） family: Leona, Clara and Lilika. Discovered by singer-songwriter Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）, the sisters moved north to Tokyo and made their debut as the singing group Apples in 1976.

There seems to be very little information on the Shinzato sisters, pre-EVE, but apparently this song came out in their debut year, presumably through that album shown above, "This Is Apples". And I was just stunned at how good they were (and probably still are) right at the lead microphone. Mind you, I've got my childhood nostalgia arming my old bias and affinity for disco music, but I was just impressed by Apples' cover of "Never Can Say Goodbye" which was originally performed by The Jackson 5 in 1971 and Gloria Gaynor in 1974. All of those splendid strings and horns had me bopping around in my seat (and at my age and weight, that's not too easy to achieve without bending laws of physics). I can only hope the video stays up there for a good long while since that is the only evidence I can find of the song.

A couple of years later in 1978, none other than 70s aidoru Goro Noguchi（野口吾郎） gave the trio their new name of EVE. The sisters gamely agreed to the change. The J-Wiki article doesn't particularly mention whether Noguchi had any Biblical references in mind when he suggested the change from Apples to EVE. Even with the debut of EVE at that time, their first album, "3 Faces of Eve" didn't come out until 1980 and their first official single under their current name wouldn't be released until 1987. Presumably, the ladies were just too busy helping out other singers for years.

For comparison's sake, here is the Gloria Gaynor classic. Disco ball, anyone?