Crest Four Singers/Minako Yoshida -- Rum wa O-Suki?（ラムはお好き？）

 

Although among my friends, I'm most likely the most teetotaling member of the group, I have enjoyed the odd beer, sake and shochu both here and in Japan. I even have a soft spot in my heart for the sweeter liqueurs such as cassis, Kahlua and rum. That last one is something that I've had in cake and Coke along with my cocktails.🍹

Therefore, if anyone in Japan asks me something like "Rum wa o-suki?", I can nod my head to a certain reluctant degree...in moderation, of course. Speaking of which, I have this song by the jazz vocal group Crest Four Singers with the very same title. "Rum wa O-Suki?" (Do You Like Rum?) is the B-side to the quintet's 1979 single "Hey! Mister Smile".

I've already posted up one other song by Crest Four Singers, the Big Band-friendly "Sun Shade"（サン・シェイド）and I found out about that one through the YouTube channel, New J Channel. Lightning has apparently struck twice since I've just discovered "Rum wa O-Suki?" in the same fashion, so my thanks to the channel administrators. In any case, compared to that first Crest Four Singers song, "Rum wa O-Suki?" is definitely another tune made in the mold of The Manhattan Transfer, specifically in the delivery by the group, but the Big Band feeling has been taken down for this particular song and there's a bit more in the way of cute little contemporary bleeps and bloops of synthesizers accompanying the laidback melody, strangely enough.

Well, the reason behind this is that two of the songwriters happen to be straight from technopop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra. Yup, Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）helped arranged the latter's music, and another surprise is that J-R&B queen Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）provided the lyrics. I gather that because of the title, "Rum wa O-Suki?" may be a second cousin to another booze-themed title a little over a decade down the line, "Whiskey ga O-Suki deshou?" (ウィスキーが、お好きでしょ）, which is a torch song by enka singer Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）.

Going further down the rabbit hole, I've discovered that Crest Four Singers' version is actually a cover of the Yoshida original from her March 1976 album "Flapper". The same jazziness is there but without the synthpop aspect. Instead, the original has a taste of Hosono's Tin Pan Alley sound. I actually feel like that I am sitting in a Tiki bar as I listen to it, although I hope that Yoshida was able to get rid of that over-insistent bartender at the end.

Crest Four Singers -- Sun Shade（サン・シェイド）

I swear that as much as Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers ought to be getting awards from the Japanese recording industry for their influence on the City Pop/J-AOR genres, the same can be said for the famed American vocal group The Manhattan Transfer on their contemporaries in Japan. Whenever I hear Circus'（サーカス）"Mr. Summertime"（Mr. サマータイム）or Hi-Fi Set's（ハイ・ファイ・セット） jazzy cover of Neil Sedaka's "The Diary" or my recent discovery of SOAP's "Roommate"（ルームメイト）, I hear The Transfer's songs coming over the car stereo again.

Well, through New J Channel a few minutes ago, I found out about another jazz vocal unit from around the same time by the name of Crest Four Singers（クレスト・フォー・シンガーズ）. According to Toshikazu Kanazawa's（金澤寿和）blog "Light Mellow on the Web", this group started up back in the 1970s and initially began life as a quartet led by Tsunehiro/Norihiro Uchida（内田典宏）. Back then, they had also been more into singing folk/Mood Kayo. But with the addition of the lone woman in the group, Kazumi Kaai（かあいかずみ）, Crest Four Singers went into that jazzier direction.

Two albums were released: "Crest Four Singers" in 1978 and then "Swing Age" in 1980. One track from the latter release is "Sun Shade" (the music starts from around 42 seconds), a classy and light swing tune that could crown any high-class afternoon tea party in the 1940s. I especially like the way everyone sings out the title in fine harmony. Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子）wrote the lyrics while Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）came up with the music. He and Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）arranged "Sun Shade" with Keitaro Miho（三保敬太郎）, a jazz pianist who had also started up the Group Sounds band The White Kicks with Akira Terao（寺尾聰）.

Just from looking at the video above, apparently "Sun Shade" was also the B-side to one of Crest Four Singers' singles "Santana e no Michi"（サンタナへの道...Road to Santana）from the same year.