Rie Hiki -- Koi no Roller Boots（恋のローラーブーツ）

 

Wow! That was quite the time with disco. Fashion-wise, folks were running the gamut between bell-bottoms and hot pants in the 1970s. Then, there were the roller skates trundling along at the roller discos. I used to see them on television all the time but I was still too young to get into those places.

Not sure how the disco roller skate boom did in Japan, but I gather that it was enough to spawn at least a few songs about the phenomenon. Par example, there was a briefly known late 1970s aidoru by the name of Rie Hiki（比企理恵）with her debut single "Koi no Roller Boots" (Roller Boots Of Love) released in December 1979. 

I have to say that those disco strings doing the drop down from heaven made for quite the impressive introduction, and then the jaunty beat came in for Hiki. My impression is that the teenybopper tunes at the end of the decade were fully imbued with the disco rhythms, and that was also the case with "Koi no Roller Boots" which did very modestly on the charts by peaking at No. 199 on Oricon. I thought that the song seemed quite similar in arrangement to Ikue Sakakibara's（榊原郁恵）more successful "Natsu no Ojosan"（夏のお嬢さん）from about 18 months earlier. And as it turns out, both songs were composed by Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉）with Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）providing lyrics for "Koi no Roller Boots".

Hiki, who was born Rieko Nakakoshi（中越理恵子）in Tokyo, only released a total of five singles including "Koi no Roller Boots" and one album for that one year until the end of 1980. Instead, she had a far more prolific career as an actress including a six-year stint as Wendy in "Peter Pan". Ironically, the aforementioned Sakakibara became famous for her long rendition of Peter Pan himself. One of her best friends is 80s aidoru Yoshie Kashiwabara（柏原芳恵）.

Ikue Sakakibara -- Ikue Jishin（郁恵自身）

 

A few years ago, I never would have thought that I would have a single Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）album but in the past few years, I have been able to come into possession of a number of them now, some thanks to Michael who needed to unload a few LPs. One of those records happens to be the former 70s/early 80s aidoru's 5th album "Ikue Jishin" which can be directly translated into "Ikue Herself" but I'd like to go with "Ikue In Her Own Words" because after a couple of listens, it's fairly evident that this is an album that was produced to get up close and personal with the lass raised in Atsugi City, Kanagawa Prefecture.

On the obi for "Ikue Jishin", which by the way was released in August 1979, it notes that Sakakibara herself transcribed the lyrics into the liner notes (continues with that personal touch) and that the record itself is transparent and green (and I'm doing this article just before St. Patrick's Day, too). It's been quite a long time since I've come across a record that was other than the usual basic black.

Side A begins with "My Seventeen"（マイ・セブンティーン）which is a mid-tempo but still pretty bouncy number with the just-as-bouncy vocals of Ikue happily flowing out of the headphones. Written by Konosuke Fuji（藤公之介）and composed by Yuki Mizuno（水野ゆき）, the feeling is of a happy-go-lucky teen in the big city thanks to that bright and optimistic City Pop arrangement through the horns and guitars.

Track 3, "My Hometown Atsugi"（マイ・ホーム・タウン厚木）is what it says on the label...a love song devoted to her hometown Atsugi, and she says it plainly enough through Jun Hashimoto's（橋本淳）lyrics. In a way, she may also be talking about how much busier she became after entering show business; she'd love to come back to Atsugi but simply can't. Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉）provides the still-cheerful aidoru melody further mellowed out by that trumpet or fluegelhorn under Reijiro Koroku's（小六禮次郎）arrangement.

"Sugao no Mama de"（素顔のままで...Just The Way You Are） is the penultimate track on Side B, and though Hashimoto is once again behind the lyrics, this time singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）is handling composition and arrangement duties. Yep, I can hear that this is still aidoru but I can't help but feel that the producers and Ikue-chan may have wanted to go for something a little more mature and sophisticated along urban contemporary levels for "Ikue Jishin" overall. Especially with "Sugao no Mama de", although it's about a young teenage girl waxing romantically about that future guy on her arm, there is something rather Margaritaville and even Bread & Butter（ブレッド＆バッター）of that time associated here.

YouTube channel The Sound of Vinyl - LP Analog has actually put up Side A and Side B of "Ikue Jishin" so you can take a listen to all of the tracks there, but I wanted to give listeners a little sampler of what to expect on this album. To be honest, when I first went through the album, I didn't particularly think that "Ikue Jishin" was going to be a heavy rotation record because I thought that all of the tracks rather adhered to a certain "bandwidth" of melody and arrangement, and I think they still do to a certain extent. However, with a few more listens, I think that I'm getting to hear some of the more subtle features within each song so that most of the tracks are starting to stick onto me. Still, give the album a go and see what you think.

Ikue Sakakibara -- Do it BANG BANG

 

The last time I wrote about Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）, it was for her 1982 "Ame no Requiem"（雨の鎮魂歌）, which was about as City Pop as one could get.

Well, it's time to get back to her early aidoru late 1970s period and to start off the last few days of September 2021, let's go to the cheerful 8th single, "Do it BANG BANG" which hit the record shop shelves in October 1978. In all honesty, when I first read the title, a very naughty part of me suddenly envisioned the words "Wham" and "Bam", and then the phrase "Thank you, Ma'am". This had to have been some innocently giggle-worthy double entendre.

Ahhh...actually, the answer is a resounding no. Thanks to Jun Kasama's（笠間ジュン）lyrics, "Do it BANG BANG" is a straight-out demand by an impatient young lady to her boyfriend to ravish her. Stop with the kind and polite courtship, she's yelling. All that sexual frustration is swaddled in a cute aidoru melody from Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉）and an arrangement by Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）. Not sure whether Nippon Columbia's switchboard lit up like a Xmas tree with a ton of complaints about the message being sent here...not that I'm having any complaints myself.

Whaddaya know? She even got to perform it on the music shows, but then again, Ikue's star as an aidoru was definitely on the upswing because her previous single was the July "Natsu no Ojosan"（夏のお嬢さん）, her defining hit which had also been created by Kasama and Sasaki. There was no way that she was not going to appear on the shows and the stage from now on especially with that cute countenance of hers. "Do it BANG BANG" didn't do quite as well as "Natsu no Ojosan", but it was still a good earner by hitting No. 15 on Oricon and selling around 125,000 records.

Nozomi Inoue -- Shadow Boy/Prima Donna（シャドー・ボーイ & プリマドンナ）

 

Currently as I write this, the Ontario government is announcing the careful and slow three-step process in reopening the economy, so perhaps there is hope that the summer will be at least salvageable although all of the usual events and festivals have been cancelled this year.

To commemorate a happier summer then, I bring you the full 6th single by aidoru Nozomi Inoue（井上望）, "Shadow Boy" and its B-side "Prima Donna" (both are in the video above at 0:00 and 19:57 respectively) which was, oddly enough, actually released in October 1980. "Shadow Boy" is a pretty jumpy and cheerful song about a girl who has feelings for that titular boy but cannot really confess to him quite yet. In that case, I kinda wonder the tune should have been titled "Shadow Girl" instead, but that's all academic since I like the throw-in of some of that doo-wop and West Coast into this aidoru number. Singer-songwriter Keiko Maruyama（丸山圭子）provided the lyrics while the composer was Masamichi Sugi（杉真理）and Tadashige Matsui（松井忠重）was the arranger.

"Prima Donna" makes for a fairly solid B-side since it's a song that seems to meander around with its arrangement by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）. The song by lyricist Kazuya Senke（千家和也）and composer Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉）initially begins with that hint of classy baroque waltz as Inoue sings about a singer hitting the stage for what could be the performance of her life. Then, the refrain seems to melt into something more country-like in melody. It's almost a sudden shift in visual setting from a French castle into a Kentucky field. Considering the more adventurous arrangement, I couldn't really see "Prima Donna" as an A-side.

The Savage -- Itsumademo Itsumademo (いつまでもいつまでも)

Almost a month ago, I featured Akira Terao's（寺尾聰）debut album as a solo artist, "Futari no Fuusen ~ Koibito to Issho ni Kiite Kudasai"（二人の風船 ～ 恋人と一緒に聴いて下さい）from 1970 where I also mentioned about his membership in the Group Sounds band, The Savage（ザ・サベージ）.

Well, I managed to track down The Savage's debut single "Itsumademo Itsumademo" from July 1966. Realizing that the word itsumademo can be translated as always or no matter what, I've decided to go with "Never Ever" according to how it's used in the lyric "Itsumademo, itsumademo, hanashitakunai" (いつまでも、いつまでも、離したくない...I never ever want to let you go). From that line, you can guess it is an ardent love song.

Although Terao was a co-vocalist for the band, guitarist Yoshio Okujima（奥島吉雄）was the lead vocal here for "Itsumademo Itsumademo" and I have to say that I really like his deep resonant tones. Considering that The Savage started out in 1963 as an instrumental band, it must have been quite the find that both Okujima and Terao could hold a tune rather nicely.

The president of the talent agency Hori Productions at the time, Takeo Hori（堀威夫）, asked Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉）to compose and write a song for the up-and-coming The Savage since Sasaki himself was seen as an up-and-coming songwriter with his eye on the genre of garage folk. It was Hori's intriguing plan to have a nice folk song start off the Group Sounds phase of The Savage in line with some of the folk ballads sung by Yuzo Kayama（加山雄三）and Mike Maki（マイク眞木）. I'm not quite sure how Okujima, Terao and the rest of the band felt about their boss' plan but as it turned out, "Itsumademo Itsumademo" became a hit and a standard in both the folk and Group Sounds genres. And to be honest, for my ears, its arrangement still strikes me as being quite firmly as a GS ballad. Perhaps, it can still be a song to be played at Japanese wedding receptions.

As for The Savage, the band shifted in its lineup a fair bit but in the beginning it was an electric guitar group fronted by Okujima, Renkichi Hayashi（林廉吉）on guitar, Shuurou Matsuda（松田守朗）on bass and Takashi Kondo（近藤タカシ）on drums although he was eventually replaced by the late Yoshio Oba（大場吉雄）. In 1965, Oba and Matsuda left the band with Terao coming in at bass and Junichi Watanabe（渡辺純一）becoming the 3rd drummer.

Supposedly the name of the band originated from a hit song by the British band The Shadows "Savage" and that was about as close to wild as Okujima and company would get. Even the J-Wiki article pointed out that their appearance on stage was more on the gentlemanly side. Judging from the cover of their first single, I think they would be the guys who would be warmly welcomed by any bobbysoxer's mother with milk and cookies.

As for Ben Sasaki, he was the same fellow behind hits such as the Mood Kayo classic "Wakarete mo Suki na Hito"（別れても好きな人）by Los Indios and Silvia（ロス・インディオス＆シルヴィア）, and "Natsu no Ojosan"（夏のお嬢さん）the 70s aidoru hit for Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）. Unfortunately, he passed away at the young age of 46 in March 1985.

Hiroshi & Kibo -- San Nen-me no Uwaki （３年目の浮気）

I first heard this song purely by accident due to a mistake by the co-hosts on "Sounds of Japan". They were supposed to have played Mariya Takeuchi's "Fushigi na Peach Pie", but instead they put on this 45".

Years and years ago when I was back in high school, I used to listen to a radio program called "The Dr. Demento Show" which featured a whole bunch of bizarre oddities such as William Shatner's deathless cover of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds". The good doctor also ran a classic radio feature called "The Bickersons" starring Don Ameche and Frances Langford as a (barely) married couple locked in eternal hilarious argument.

"San Nen-me no Uwaki" (The 3rd Year of the Affair) reminded me of a Japanese version of "The Bickersons" set to song. In the J-Wiki article for the tune, it is listed as a kayo kyoku but I think it does have that enka flavour and since there have been a goodly number of duets in this genre, I have also labeled it as such. Basically the debut single of Hiroshi & Kibo（ヒロシ＆キボー） from August 1982 has the two sparring with each other over some implied extracurricular activity by hubby. Lyrically, Hiroshi has the upper hand at first but then by the end of the song, Kibo has the jerk on his knees.

Written and composed by Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉）, "San Nen-me no Uwaki" gradually became a huge hit as it stayed at No. 1 for about a month between December 1982 and January 1983. It ended 1982 as the 96th-ranked single but a year later it was the 12th-ranked song of the year. In terms of sales, the record sold over 700,000 copies. Methinks the lyrics may have hit a fairly sensitive and knowing chord amongst the population which would explain its popularity, but it was also for that reason that Hiroshi & Kibo didn't get invited onto the Kohaku Utagassen. I guess NHK figured that a song about marital discord wouldn't have set the right tone on the program. NHK's loss. The above video, by the way, has Hiroshi, but his partner is none other than Rumiko Koyanagi（小柳ルミ子）.

As for the two singers themselves, Hiroshi is Hiroshi Kurosawa（黒沢博） who was a guitarist and vocalist for the Group Sounds band Takeshi Terauchi and Bunnies（寺内タケシとバニーズ）. Kibo is Kiyoko Yamada（山田喜代子） who came up from Shizuoka Prefecture up to the nation's capital and spent 6 years there working before her debut, using that time for voice training. The pair ended up releasing 4 singles altogether during their time in 1982 and 1983 with the 2nd single being a sequel of sorts to their hit debut single titled "Go Nen-me no Hakyoku"（５年目の破局...The 5th Year of the Split）.

Ikue Sakakibara -- Natsu no Ojosan （夏のお嬢さん）

Last year, I put up a post for Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵） called "Shining Love" which was her 1981 hit and my first musical introduction to her via the Kohaku Utagassen of that year. But I think probably her trademark song had come out a few years earlier as her 7th single, "Natsu no Ojosan"(Summer Young Lady). Sakakibara has long left her aidoru career behind and is now known basically as the beaming face on many a Japanese variety show, but in the rare cases that she's asked to sing again, "Natsu no Ojosan" is the go-to song.

Written by Jun Kasama（笠間ジュン）and composed by Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉）, "Natsu no Ojosan" was released in July 1978. Sakakibara was also quite famous for her stage portrayal of Peter Pan in Japan, but when this song was created, Kasama and Sasaki had based their composition on what the public image of the aidoru was at that time....and that was her wearing considerably less, prancing about in the sea. Even if most people don't remember the title anymore, they probably catch on when they hear that one particular lyric: "I scream, you scream". Apparently, the line was put in merely as a cute example of English euphony more than anything else.

The song peaked at No. 11 on the Oricon weeklies and was the 72nd-ranked song of 1978. It was a hit for Sakakibara, and it launched her popularity on TV which has continued right up to now. And the song helped her to get that very first appearance on the 1978 Kohaku Utagassen. Strangely enough though, she was quoted as saying, "This song set the image for me as someone who likes summer, but actually I prefer spring and autumn."

Los Indios & Silvia/Purple Shadows -- Wakarete mo Suki na Hito （別れても好きな人）

For couples of a certain age who still like to hit the karaoke box circuit, this is still one of the must-do songs to choose on the PADD (the modern karaoke box chains now have the "Star Trek" Geordi LaForge displays....saves time, paper cuts[from flipping those pages in those tome-sized karaoke menus] and calloused thumbs [from pressing the oversized remote controls]).

Los Indios has been around since 1962 playing their izakaya & bar-friendly Mood Kayo and Latin-tinged music. In 1968, they had a huge hit with "Como Esta Akasaka", and then 11 years later, the group had an even bigger hit with "Wakarete mo Suki na Hito" (Even If We Part, I'll Still Love You). And for the first time, Los Indios invited a female vocalist to sing with them, Silvia.

Silvia, who was born as Rieko Matsuda（松田理恵子) in 1958, was scouted while singing at an establishment owned by another singer/TV personality, Mitsuo Sagawa（佐川満男). Her first known assignment was with Los Indios, and the pairing was a fortuitous one since "Wakarete mo Suki na Hito" ended up becoming the 8th-ranked song for 1980 after its release in September 1979. Listening to it (along with similar songs of the genre) reminds me of some of those high times Tokyo must have been having back then, and this was even years before the Bubble Economy.

The pairing of Los Indios with Silvia started a tradition that has lasted up to the present day. Besides Silvia, 7 other female singers have worked with the group, and the 9th singer, Nina, a jazz singer, will be joining as of December 15 2012 according to J-Wiki.

As with a number of songs in kayo kyoku (such as Hiromi Iwasaki's "Sumire Iro no Namida"), the successful version has often concealed its previous versions. That has been the case with "Wakarete mo". Originally, singer-songwriter Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉) had created the song for the Group Sounds band, Purple Shadows, as their 5th single in November 1969. That version is above. It wasn't a hit for them, and some years later in 1975, the leader of Los Indios, Shizuo Tanahashi（棚橋静雄), did his own solo version of the song without it becoming a hit.

Its popularity as a duet song hasn't been lost even on the professional singers. I'm sure a lot of them on the various TV shows have gotten together to do their take on the Mood Kayo classic. Here are Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ） and Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）.

And heck, how about a real surprise? Not sure which show or when this came up, but even the boys from B'z and comedienne Kuniko Yamada（山田邦子) did their take. Enjoy!