Kyu Sakamoto -- Benkyo no Cha Cha Cha（勉強のチャチャチャ）

 

As I've mentioned before, "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (上を向いて歩こう) will always be Kyu Sakamoto's（坂本九）most famous kayo kyoku but close by in second place is his "Miagetegoran Yoru no Hoshi wo"（見上げてごらん夜の星を）which can rival the Sukiyaki song in terms of how many tears it can wring out from listeners.

"Miagetegoran Yoru no Hoshi wo" was quite the emotional ballad for Sakamoto, so I gather that the producers for the May 1963 single figured that the B-side had to be somewhat lighter in tone to compensate. Well, the same creators of the A-side, lyricist Rokusuke Ei（永六輔）and composer Taku Izumi（いずみたく）, came up with this cheery slice of Latin-infused kayo called "Benkyo no Cha Cha Cha" (The Study Cha Cha Cha). Short and sweet with an arrangement that Perez Prado would be proud of, it's good enough for those cramming students to get off their duffs for a couple of minutes to do a cha cha throughout the major high school subjects. Hopefully, it was enough for them to pass those dreaded entrance exams. Incidentally, Danny Iida and the Paradise Kings（ダニー飯田とパラダイス・キング） provided background chorus.

Of course, many years later, a beautiful long-legged singer would give her own thoughts on studying.

The Peanuts/Danny Iida & The Paradise Kings -- Kanashiki Kangaroo（悲しきカンガルー）

I've been continuing to go through the additions to my kayo record collection and found one such record by the beloved kayo duo The Peanuts（ザ・ピーナッツ）. And yep, I'm quite happy that I finally have a platter by Emi and Yumi.

The record I have is a 33 1/3 maxi-single with two songs on each side, one of which is titled "Kanashiki Kangaroo" (Sad Kangaroo), a cover of a popular 1960 single, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" released by the (now notorious) Australian singer-entertainer Rolf Harris. The Peanuts' cover came out in January 1964 with the Japanese lyrics written by Kazumi Minami.

However, a few months previously, the group Danny Iida & The Paradise Kings（ダニー飯田とパラダイス・キング）provided their own more country music-feeling cover of "Kanashiki Kangaroo" as another example of their Yakushi Pop（訳詞ポップス）, Japanese-translated versions of Western tunes. In both the Kings' version and the one by The Peanuts, the wobble board from Harris' original is applied. And I think with both covers, the happy-go-lucky jingly-jangly nature of the song would probably have made it quite popular in Japan and on Japanese TV as well.

And here I thought that there was only one Japanese pop song with a kangaroo in the title.

Danny Iida and the Paradise Kings -- Bikini Style no Ojosan (ビキニスタイルのお嬢さん)

I'm gonna end up sounding like that ol' K-Tel record guy on TV but do you remember this oldie? Yep, this is "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" and it was one of those really ancient bubblegum pop novelty tunes from June 1960 that I would hear only on those K-Tel commercials and episodes of "Happy Days". That title line is the only line that I remember but I finally found out who recorded this. It was by a fellow named Brian Hyland and the record hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in the USA and did very well in other countries as well. The song with the very descriptive title was created by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss.

And last night, I was surprised to find out on "Uta Con"（うたコン）that the Japanese had covered this one as well with their own lyrics. Titled slightly shorter as "Bikini Style no Ojosan" (The Bikini-Styled Young Miss), translator/lyricist Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）provided the Japanese words to this song covered by the band Danny Iida and the Paradise Kings (ダニー飯田とパラダイス・キング) in October 1960.

Since the record was released in the pre-Oricon era, its measure of success was through the journal "Music Life" via its section on the songs that were selling the most in Tokyo. "Bikini Style no Ojosan" ranked 2nd in December 1960, just behind the No. 1 "Kanashiki Rokujuu Sai"（悲しき六十才...Sad at 60）which just happened to be another hit by the Kings. A month later, "Bikini Style no Ojosan" finally hit the top spot.

The main vocalist for the song was the late Susumu Ishikawa（石川進）. As for the band itself, it started its history in 1955 when it was known as Danny Iida and the Paradise Harmony and mostly centered on Hawaiian music. The band took on its current name the following year and made its switch to rock n' roll in 1958. It also built on its reputation as a band that established the genre Yakushi Pops（訳詞ポップス）or Translated Pop and at around that time, a lot of the Japanese popular music consisted of Japanese-language covers of some of the big hits in the USA and the UK. What is also notable about the band is that it has had a lot of members come and go over the decades, but early on, the Kings had also included singers Hiroshi Mizuhara（水原弘）and even Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）for a while. Danny Iida, by the way, was the band member on the steel guitar.