Aru Takamura/Tatsuro Yamashita/Minako Yoshida -- Last Step（ラスト・ステップ）

 

Yes, there was that cringey scene in "Spiderman 3" in which evil Peter Parker was shuffling on that New York street into meme legendry, wasn't there? When I caught this in the theatre, I had to turn my face away in embarrassment.

Not that the song "Last Step" is cringey whatsoever but when I hear it and the lyrics by Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）, I get that image of poor Peter shuffling off to Hell. The reason is that Yoshida's words express some fellow getting over a failed romance on the same street where the once happy couple walked with that titular last step being the final one in a dance on the pavement to commemorate the affair. Not sure how that would be possible on a Shinjuku or Ginza main street on a regular day but imagination is good. Incidentally, I first heard about "Last Step" through Aru Takamura's（高村亜留）cover of the song in her debut album "Aru First" in 1985. 

As I mentioned, Takamura performed the cover based on the original recording by Yoshida in her March 1976 album "Flapper" with Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）providing the music. The magical partnership between Yoshida and Yamashita ended up in a lightly funky strut-fest that was reminiscent of Rickie Lee Jones. 

(I'm sorry but the video has been taken down.)

Tats himself did a cover of "Last Step" through his "Circus Town" LP which was released some 9 months after "Flapper" on Xmas Day, and his version is more of a Motown doo-wop shuffle. Takamura's take on the song is OK but even though her vocals are top-notch, I personally found the arrangement a little too sparse and tinny although I did like the instrumental break which reminded me of some of the techno-jazz of Kazuhiro Nishimatsu（西松一博）.

Aru Takamura/Makoto Saito -- Koi no Yaritori（恋のやりとり）

Commenter Chasing Showa gave me a great tip on an Aru Takamura（高村亜留）song from her 1985 debut album "Aru First", and since it's been some months since I mentioned about the late singer, I've decided to cover it. Showa first found out about it through the Future Funkified version done by Moe Shop (with Android52) as seen above.

The original version is known as "Koi no Yaritori" (The Give and Take of Love), and it's a pleasant mid-tempo about someone playfully chiding his girlfriend for being a bit overly shy on the emerging relationship. It's a song that hits the right spot, and I'm kinda wondering if this would be most ideal to be listened to in the morning due to its breeziness. The horns in there are splendid and they might be reminiscent of British soul...perhaps even a harbinger of Shibuya-kei.

"Koi no Yaritori" was written and composed by Makoto Saito（斎藤誠）, and Takamura's track is actually a cover version of Saito's original song from his 1983 debut album "LA-LA-LU". I gotta say that listening to this version, I think that it eclipses even Takamura's cover due to Saito's vocals and the slightly more powerful arrangement. Now, I have to think about getting not only "Aru First" but also "LA-LA-LU". Thanks for the tip, Chasing Showa!

Aru Takamura -- Ta Ta Ya My Love〜ARU 2nd.〜

Forgive me...just sorting out my geek thoughts after watching the season premiere of "Doctor Who" with Jodie Whittaker and the first episode of "Short Treks", a series of vignettes before Season 2 of "Star Trek: Discovery". The feeling is not unlike that of a post-regenerative crisis.

Anyways to get a bit grounded again, I'm here at the blog and yesterday commenter RideZeLitenin mentioned that the 2nd and final album of Aru Takamura（高村亜留）, "Ta Ta Ya My Love〜ARU 2nd.〜" has been put up on YouTube. I certainly hope that the powers-that-be will keep this one up for a good long while since it's probable that this January 1986 release hasn't been remastered yet. It's not available at Tower Records or CD Japan and the one copy at Amazon.jp is selling for about a nosebleed 8000 yen!

I've taken a listen to most of the tracks and enjoyed it as a Japanese singer's voyage through what I was listening to in the genre of R&B throughout the 1980s here in Toronto. There is soul, funk and dance stuff in there. Case in point: the first track above, which is a cover of Tomoko Aran's（亜蘭知子）"I'm In Love" (interesting to point out that Takamura also sang a different "I'm In Love" on her debut album). It's got that American dance remix arrangement, and although I will still go with Aran's original City Pop take, Takamura has got a stronger handle on the vocals.

Track 2 is the deliciously smoky "Saigo no Tenderness"（最後のTenderness...Last Tenderness）. Written by Takamura herself and composed by pianist/arranger Yoshinobu Kojima（小島良喜）, there is definitely something urban and spacey at the same time here. Dancing in the clouds is an image that comes to mind.

Here is "Kaigi Gesshoku"（皆既月食...Total Lunar Eclipse）, another winner. This time, it's soul that Takamura is expressing here with some guitar licks which had me thinking of George Benson. Cosmic phenomena couldn't sound cooler. Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）, who had handled Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）early hits, came up with the mellowness here while Kazunori Sonobe（園部和範）who provided the lyrics to Anri's（杏里）fun "Innocent Time", wrote the words.

"Ta Ta Ya My Love", the title track is a trip through the dance-funk of an 80s disco. For some reason, I couldn't help but think up of many a dance scene in an action movie starring Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger while I was listening to this. Takamura once again wrote the lyrics with Masatoshi Nishimura（西村麻聡）, the same fellow behind Aran's "I'm In Love", taking care of the music. The guitarist here was Takahiro Matsumoto（松本孝弘）, i.e. one-half of the future B'z.

The final track is "Good Luck Again", a nice mellow way to finish things up. Sonobe was the lyricist here with Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）weaving a pop/AOR melody similar to many a ballad that I used to hear on radio back in my high school and university days.

It's too bad that "Ta Ta Ya My Love" is not readily available right now, but since Takamura's first album is out at Tower Records and CD Japan, here's hoping that the 2nd album may not be too far away from getting its re-introduction. The album is not just for City Pop fans but also for anyone who has enjoyed the R&B from America in the 1980s.

Aru Takamura -- I'm In Love

Another discovery on YouTube the other night, I had never heard of Aru Takamura（高村亜留）but I really like this track, "I'm In Love" from her debut album "Aru First" which was released in May 1985. I guess she belonged to the underwater nine-tenths of the iceberg. It's short but sweet (although with that very abrupt ending, I wonder if there was actually more to the song), and it has that funk n' horns which I always enjoyed in a good R&B tune of the day although sometimes they threatened to cover up her slightly whispery voice. The lyrics were written by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）and the strutting music was by Masao Nakajima（中島正雄）.

The late Takamura was born in 1961 and when she was 16 years old, she declared to her mother that she would become a singer and soon entered a rock band. They covered all of the Aerosmith and KISS hits but then started exploring soul music. Finally, Takamura would come out with her first album in 1985 followed by her second, and last, album a year later. Unfortunately in August 2014, she passed away from cervical cancer.