Olivia Newton-John -- Twist of Fate

By Alan Light via Wikimedia Commons

The last time I brought Olivia Newton-John into Reminiscings of Youth was a little over a year ago when I wrote about her early 1970s ballad "I Honestly Love You". When I look back on her career from that time forward a decade, it's amazing how much she changed her style. And yes, I'm well aware that we are approaching the 4th anniversary of her passing.

From a well-scrubbed country lass back in those 1970s to a New Wave diva of the early 1980s (and a disco gamine in between...along with her time in "Grease"). Yep, I'm referring to the above music video for her October 1983 hit "Twist of Fate" which I saw a lot on the video shows. I'm not sure whether a lot of folks actually watched the movie that it was attached to, the 1983 "Two of a Kind", starring Newton-John and her old buddy from "Grease", John Travolta, but the song and the video sure were popular. 

As I mentioned, "Twist of Fate" was a synthpop/New Wave-y concoction produced by David Foster and created by Steve Kipner and Peter Beckett that was catchy and pretty much screamed "I'M OF THE 80'S!" in its arrangement. Maybe it could have gotten folks onto the dance floor as well. But it was the music video that got my attention at least with a glammed-up Olivia strutting into a seemingly futuristic court. I swear that she looked halfway to becoming a live-action version of Memphis Group art. I think even the singer mocked herself in a later interview about how much lipstick she spackled onto her mouth for the video, although I thought she looked dang hot to be honest.😉

In Canada, "Twist of Fate" reached No. 5 on RPM while in the United States, the song peaked at No. 5 as well. So, what was up on the Oricon charts on October 24th 1983, a few days after the release of this OJN hit? Just for fun, let's go with Nos. 18-20.

18. Tomio Umezawa -- Yume Shibai （夢芝居）

19. Yuki Katsuragi -- Bohemian （ボヘミアン）

20. H2O -- Omoide ga Ippai （思い出がいっぱい）

Jay Graydon & Marc Jordan -- Secret Love

 

One of my favourite tracks on Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Miss M" album from 1980 was "Secret Love". In fact, I love it so much that I gave it its own article a few years after posting about the album. One YouTube commenter even mentioned that "Secret Love" seemed to be the great connector between American AOR and City Pop in Japan.

The song does go down smoother than a Bailey's Irish Cream. However in the 1980 album, there were those horns which suddenly blasted a hole in my eardrums during the instrumental bridge. It was somewhat jarring; otherwise, I would have pegged it as the perfect AOR song.

But that seems to have been resolved when one of the two guys responsible for its composition, guitarist Jay Graydon (the other guy was David Foster, so it was Airplay behind the music), released his third solo album, "Past to Present - The 70s" in 2006. The horns are now gone but the rest of the music and arrangement has basically been untouched, and this time, the vocals are provided by the lyricist Marc Jordan who also does a great job. Still feel like bombing down the Ventura in a convertible during dusk or dawn while hearing this.

Boz Scaggs -- Jojo

 

In the past few years, there have been a lot of YouTube reactors covering the works of singers from long ago and enjoying them greatly. And in turn, being a fellow who has been appreciating the cool music from his childhood and adolescence (which is why I've been including ROY articles here on a Japanese music blog), I've been enjoying the reactions greatly myself. Furthermore, it seems as if the songs of Boz Scaggs and Steely Dan have been getting particular attention and joy. 

Boz Scaggs is a name (and it's a name that I can never forget) that has been synonymous with radio listening since I was that kid of the 1970s but it's only been within the last decade or so that I've finally appreciated his funk, soulfulness and balladry. In fact, I inadvertently ended up providing Reminiscings of Youth articles on his legendary "Lowdown" twice in less than a year here and here. Such is my love for that 1976 single and personally I think for any budding graduates who are heading for prom night and despite the nature of the lyrics, "Lowdown" is the type of song that should be accompanying the limos filled with high school seniors to the hotel ballrooms.

However, getting back to those reactors, they have been going ga-ga for not only "Lowdown" but also for his June 1980 single "Jojo". For instance, the guys on the YouTube channel Views from the 502 above went into total meltdown especially when Adrian Tapia did his sax solos on the song. I used to hear this one all the time on radio but it's been only within the last several years that this romantic-sounding tune about a dangerous pimp (and for some reason, I can only believe that Jojo lives in the Big Apple) being backed by a jazzy and sunset disco arrangement has been truly appreciated by me. The backing chorus, the horns, the groove, and of course Tapia's saxophone and Scaggs' vocals are splendiferous and it's a kind of a wonder that "Jojo" wasn't even made into a movie.

The other thing that makes this ROY stand out among the others is that I had actually introduced "Jojo" much earlier as a cover version performed by fusion band Chikara Ueda & The Power Station（上田力&パワーステーション）some months after the original had been released. I've provided some further information on the original song in that article but let it be said that it was Scaggs, David Foster and David Lasley who were the brains behind "Jojo". Also, though I didn't mention it in the Power Station article, Ueda unfortunately passed away in 2017.

In the United States, "Jojo" peaked at No. 17 on Billboard while in Canada, it hit No. 15 on RPM. Now, what else was being released in June 1980?

Juicy Fruits -- Jenny wa Gokigen Naname　（ジェニーはご機嫌ななめ）

Yellow Magic Orchestra -- Rydeen (雷電）

Off Course -- Yes-No

Chaka Khan -- Through the Fire

 

A few months ago, my Reminiscings of Youth post was on Chaka Khan's funky-as-all-get-out "I Feel For You" from 1984 which probably had the folks hitting the dance floor to do their breakdancing. It is one of two songs that I will always associate with her. But the other song of hers that is up there with "I Feel For You" is "Through the Fire", a wholly different animal. It's a romantic ballad from April 1985 that was created by David Foster (and yeah, it sounds so Foster), Tom Keane and Cynthia Weil which will always put me at ease as one of the most heartfelt examples of Quiet Storm that I've heard. She can hit it out of the park with her love songs as well as her party hits. Not surprisingly, this and its video were on heavy rotation on radio and TV.

I was a bit surprised and disappointed that "Through the Fire" didn't hit too high on the charts, reaching No. 60 on the Billboard Hot 100 and then No. 15 on the Billboard Hot Black Singles. I thought it was a Top 10 song for sure. The ballad had already gotten out onto the market some months earlier as a track on Chaka Khan's October 1984 "I Feel For You" album.

So, what else was coming out on the Japanese record store shelves in April 1985?

Yoshie Kashiwabara -- Machikutabirete Yokohama (待ちくたびれてヨコハマ）

Akina Nakamori（中森明菜） -- Bitter and Sweet (album)

Yukiko Okada -- Summer Beach

David Foster -- Winter Games

 

Tomorrow is the official opening day of the Paris Olympics although there has already been some action today, and I figure that it's time to put up some Olympic fare for Reminiscings of Youth this week. 

A reviewer from "Rolling Stone" once described Canadian record producer and composer David Foster as a "master of . . . bombastic pop kitsch". Like ouch! And nope, it wasn't even a tongue-in-cheek backhanded compliment. However, with all of his contributions to Canadian, American and Japanese pop music, I'd like to state that he is MY master of bombastic pop kitsch. There are songs that he helped craft for other singers that I still like to hear after so many decades.

One of them has even been mentioned before when I did an Author's Pick on the man himself back in early 2019, and that was "Winter Games" for the Calgary Olympics in February 1988. I'd already been aware of his works as an 80s pop song enthusiast but this one landed a 10 on the mat when it premiered because it sounded so epic, friendly, wintry and downright Canadian for some reason. That main piano melody has always reminded me of shushing down the ski slopes without a care in the world, and I believe that it probably hit the Japanese in a nice way, too, because over the years, my impression has been that they have always appreciated nimble-fingered piano pop from musicians like Foster and Richard Clayderman outside of Japan and their own Midori Karashima（辛島美登里）and Hiroko Kokubu（国府弘子）.

So, let's see what else was being released in Japan during the Calgary Games, according to the CD/record sales calendar for 1988.

Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi -- Kanpai （乾杯）

Noriko Sakai -- GUANBARE

Miho Nakayama -- You're My Only Shinin' Star

Airplay/The Manhattan Transfer -- Nothin' You Can Do About It

 

All these years, I knew about Canada's David Foster since the 1980s when he was coming up with these pop instrumentals such as "The Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire" and "Winter Games", and also songs for acts such as Earth Wind & Fire and Kenny Loggins. Then much later, I discovered that he helped out Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）for their own albums. Finally, I realized that he was part of a band called Airplay that was around for just 1980. 

A Canadian songwriting legend was paired up with one of the great American guitar icons, Jay "Peg" Graydon, and according to Wikipedia, their backing band consisted of the members of Toto and other session musicians who have had their own connections to Japanese singers such as Jerry Hey and Gary Grant. This is the ultimate AOR grouping!

In the aim for total transparency, this week's Reminiscings of Youth is actually a bit of a misnomer because I never found out about Airplay or its arguably most famous track "Nothin' You Can Do About It" on their lone self-titled album when it came out in 1980. It was only within the years that I've been working on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" that I first discovered this really snazzy song via YouTube and it's been the eternal earworm ever since. For some reason, I don't ever recollect hearing "Nothin' You Can Do About It" on the radio when I was a kid, and yet it sounds like the type of song that would have gotten heavy rotational airplay (pun fully intended) considering what was being played on the stations back then. The horns and the keyboards are amazing, and who knew that Graydon could sound that good as a singer? I'm just glad that I was able to finally come across it in my older years (circa 2018) and that one song was enough for me to order the album from Amazon.

The thing is that the song created by Airplay and Steve Kipner was originally recorded by The Manhattan Transfer as a track from their 1979 "Extensions". And "Nothin' You Can Do About It" fit hand-in-glove with the Transfer's move into smooth classy pop that time. Still, when I think of the arrangement, I have to go with Airplay's cover.

I'm just lifting this brief excerpt from a 2014 interview with Graydon via Wikipedia:

Interviewer: Did you guys ever envision Airplay becoming a full-time, touring type of band? 

Graydon: David wanted to tour and I didn't. A dumb move on my part.

Well, no worries Jay! It looks like you made up for that oversight with the above performance in 1994!

I gave my compliments to Neo-AOR Norwegian singer-songwriter Ole Børud about a month ago for "Find a Way". Well, he and his band gave his own tribute to the song a year ago.

Going with the Manhattan Transfer's October 1979 release of "Extensions", what other songs were coming out in Japan at that time?

Saki Kubota -- Ihojin （異邦人）

Yellow Magic Orchestra -- Technopolis

As a PS, I also read that Foster played for the band Skylark in the early 1970s. Me, I ate at Skylark! And the crazy thing was that the manager looked like a Japanese Jay Graydon!

J-Canuck's Morning Songs

 

Ah, yes. Morning at the R&B Hotel right by Otsuka Station on the JR Yamanote Line in Tokyo. I stayed there for most of my time in Japan in October 2017. I don't know about far more seasoned travelers but I've always enjoyed mornings abroad on vacation for some reason. Maybe part of the reason is that while other folks have to rush off to work, I can take my sweet time with things; you know, savor the coffee a bit longer and walk over to the station at a much more leisurely rate.

Some days ago, I had a suggestion from a friend about putting up a certain list as an Author's Pick, but the topic struck me as being a little too difficult for me to even concoct a short list. But then right after, the bulb suddenly glowed above my head and I thought about morning-based tunes. I know that I have written about such songs individually and they all have that similar melody line of hope and renewed energy.

Off the top of my head, then, I have brought over six such tunes including one from America that's especially dear to me.

1. Bread & Butter -- Monday Morning (1980)

I know that for most working people, Monday mornings can royally suck eggs. But this calmly arranged "Monday Morning" by folk/City Pop duo Bread & Butter can take the edge off. The feeling is that this title track from their 1980 album may have that specific day of the week title but the overall impression is more of Sunday morning.

2. Circus -- Petit Dejeuner ~ Nichiyoubi no Choushoku（日曜日の朝食）(1981)

Of course, the promise of a sumptuous breakfast or brunch will set off any gastrointestinal alarms so this song by vocal group Circus can help accompany that kitchen scene of prepping Eggs Benedict or a heaping stack of pancakes. "Petit Dejeuner" has that skippy rhythm which can set the pace for poaching those eggs in the boiling water.

3. Makoto Matsushita -- Business Man (Part 1) (1982)

Oh, that businessman...always doing his best! I've already mentioned in the Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）article dealing with his 1982 album "The Pressures and the Pleasures" that the whole thing about the snazzy track "Business Man" is the main character getting what needs to be done over the day that always seems to be too short. I think of him enduring the physics-breaking rush hours on the train in the morning and drinking his sole fuel of caffeine. If there were a movie about life in Tokyo, then I highly recommend "Business Man" as the insert song.

4. Toko Furuuchi -- Asa （朝）(1995)

When I first wrote the article on Toko Furuuchi's（古内東子）sultry "Asa" (Morning), it was back in June 2012, so very early in the blog's history, and I guess that it was OK back then to write one measly paragraph. Nowadays, ideally, I always try to go for three paragraphs. And since writing about "Asa" over a decade ago, my imagination regarding this appealingly woozy number has expanded a lot. I now think of the song setting the stage for a woman waking up alone, temporarily or permanently, but getting reassured by the sunrise that things will be OK. I always thought a sax solo was more of a nocturnal thing but the late Michael Brecker really makes the morning here.

5. Morning Musume -- Morning Coffee（モーニングコーヒー）(1998)

Morning Musume's（モーニング娘。）"Morning Coffee" is the only non-AOR entry here on the list, but it did hit my head hard when I was thinking up the list earlier today. It was the official 1998 debut single by the original group that probably made quite the splash considering that unusual title. Considering all of the different types of music that Morning Musume in all of its incarnations has tackled over the past quarter century, it seems almost poignant to have the beginning start out as a Beatles-ish guitar pop tune.

6. Al Jarreau -- Mornin' (1983)

As of this writing, the legendary Al Jarreau has already had a couple of his smooth tunes included in KKP as ROY articles, and now I'm adding his "Mornin'" as a special entry here. The song, created by Jarreau, David Foster and Jay Graydon as a single in March 1983, not only sounds like it has to be played in the morning as some aural orange juice (with fresh pulp) but its music video appears like those old cereal commercials. "Mornin'" made it up to No. 2 and No. 3 on the American and Canadian Adult Contemporary charts respectively. It's been over six years since he left us and I still miss him dearly.

Bill Champlin -- Tonight, Tonight/Ray Kennedy -- My Everlasting Love

 

Welcome to another Reminiscings of Youth session. Last Friday, I put up an article on a 1984 duet between one of the best voices in Japanese music Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）and AOR singer-songwriter Bill Champlin titled "Both of Us". Noticing that it sounded somewhat like Earth Wind & Fire's "After the Love Has Gone" (and I wasn't the only one, judging from the YouTube comments), I was reminded of yet another love ballad that had similarities with that EWF classic.

Back in my days as a callow youth of the 1980s, I was taping the heck out of songs off the the various radio stations, and those included the ones that would be considered AOR and Quiet Storm, genre names that I hadn't heard of yet, but I guess that I just had a predilection for the light and mellow. Anyways, one song that I taped but didn't bother with recording the DJ's iteration of the singer's name and the title is the one that you can see above you. Well, thanks to my lack of foresight, I would then take on a multi-year odyssey searching for this mystery tune (along with others, Japanese and non-Japanese).

First off, though, let me say how happy I was when I was finally able to track down the fact that it was Champlin who sang this classy and smooth Perrier-friendly ballad "Tonight, Tonight" and it was from his December 1981 album, "Runaway". When I hear those soft keyboards and the buttery horns and strings, despite the earliness of the release, I get images of hedonistic lifestyles of that decade portrayed through television and movies (there's always dinner on crisp linen and fine china in that penthouse). I wasn't at all surprised that it had been created by the singer, David Foster and Raymond Louis Kennedy.

The search took me around thirty years since I noted in a very early KKP article from 2012 that I had just found Champlin's cover via YouTube. And yes, I have just said cover version because "Tonight, Tonight" is a redux of the original by the aforementioned Ray Kennedy who recorded it for his 1980 "Ray Kennedy" under the title of "My Everlasting Love". Strangely enough, I had heard Kennedy's "My Everlasting Love" through one of those American AOR compilations that I bought in Japan but wasn't sure at the time which was the original and the cover. According to the article for the 1981 "Runaway", Champlin had sung background vocals for Kennedy's original. I liked Kennedy's take but it wasn't quite the Champlin cover that I really wanted.

As it has been for a number of lost songs that I finally found, I had to go through a lot of cheap Canadian Tire tapes, radio listenings, university, and two stints in Japan over three decades to finally know the truth about "Tonight, Tonight". I ended up buying "Runaway" because I had wanted to get my own copy of the ballad. It didn't score too highly on the charts (well, pretty low at No. 178) and one critic disdained the tracks as being a pale version of the band Chicago according to the Wikipedia article. To be honest, I've only given the album just that one listen myself but especially after reading the mediocre reviews, I'm willing to give it another go. I have a thing for underdogs.

Now, what was in the Top 10 of Oricon for December 1981? Well, I have Nos. 7, 8 and 9.

7. Toshihiro Ito -- Sayonara Moyo（サヨナラ模様）

8. Yoshie Kashiwabara -- Hello, Goodbye

9. Iyo Matsumoto -- Sentimental Journey (センチメンタル・ジャーニー）

Ami Ozaki -- Air Kiss (Follow-Up)

 

Almost a couple of years ago, I wrote an article on singer-songwriter Ami Ozaki's（尾崎亜美）December 1981 album "Air Kiss" which was one of her two album collaborations with Canadian music producer and musician David Foster that year. Taking a look at the Labels for "Air Kiss", it was a fair potpourri of genres being represented, and with Foster being involved (production, arrangement and keyboards), City Pop and J-AOR were definitely going to be in there. I finished the article off by stating that I would have to finish off the rest of the tracks, and so I will. By the way, besides the article for the album proper, I did provide individual articles for two other tracks "Sweet Christmas Song" and "Foggy Night".

So, by my reckoning, there are three tracks left to take care of here, and the first one is Track 4, "Ginmaku no Koibito" (銀幕の恋人...Silver Screen Lover). A melancholy AOR affair with Michael Landau especially going large on guitar here, according to Ozaki's lyrics, it's either about a woman treating a past romance (possibly her first relationship) as having been no more than special effects on a movie screen or realizing that it's time for her to get out of make-believe time with a motion picture hero that she'd fallen in love with. There's some feeling of Boz Scaggs in the dramatic "Ginmaku no Koibito", and Landau has been on tour with the singer.

"Heart no Iro wa Umi no Iro"（ハートの色は海の色...The Colour of the Heart is the Colour of the Sea） is the type of mid-tempo love ballad that Ozaki can whip up in her sleep. It's strong on the background chorus and the switch between congeniality and great pride. I can imagine a couple strolling on the beach at sunset, content with each other's company. At one point though, I thought that a Whitney Houston song was about to break out.

"Just Once Again" finishes things for the original album (before the addition of bonus tracks for future remastered versions). Ozaki's piano and Landau's guitar come to the fore as the singer relates a story of someone who starts off on the line between despair of a tough time between them and their significant other and hope at some kind of reconciliation. By the end of the song, though, it looks like the person is taking that first stride toward that better tomorrow.

As it turns out, it looks like that I'd left those heartfelt ballads as the tracks to follow upon but that's fine. It wouldn't be an Ozaki album without them.

The Works of Olivia Newton-John

 

Well, I knew that Dame Olivia Newton-John had been battling cancer for some time but it was still a shock to read on the news ticker tape on my local channel here in Toronto that she finally succumbed at the age of 73 earlier today. Not surprisingly, the televised tributes have been hitting the airwaves for the past few hours and all of them have featured "You're the One That I Want", her duet with John Travolta in "Grease" (1978).

For this article, I'm pretty much combining the personal Creator, Author's Picks and Reminiscings of Youth labels for Newton-John who had first stepped into show business a couple of years before I was even born. But it was on the radio in the early 1970s that I first heard about her. When I think about her discography, I have to say that I was never a big fan of her country music but there was that one ballad which stood out, "Have You Never Been Mellow" from January 1975.

I think that it could have been one of the big crossover hits from that time period...not just country but also soft rock or baroque pop. Written and composed by John Farrar who created many of Newton-John's hits, there was something of the Carpenters in "Have You Never Been Mellow". Listening to it again after so long while typing these two paragraphs has kinda put a thrill up my back since there isn't only the obvious softness in the vocals and arrangement, but when the refrain arrives, I also sense some strength and optimism emerging. "Have You Never Been Mellow" not only hit No. 1 in the United States and Canada but it was also nominated for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female at the Grammys. The single was also released in Japan under the title "Soyokaze no Yuuwaku"（そよ風の誘惑...Temptation of a Breeze） and it also did decently on Oricon by placing in at No. 26.

The first OJN Reminiscings of Youth article I did was for the beautiful 50s ballad "Hopelessly Devoted to You" from "Grease" and since I have already mentioned "You're the One That I Want", I'll bypass the movie and go further ahead into her discography (plus I can mention it in a future ROY). It was at this time that Newton-John jumped over to the pop and disco circuit, and one of my favourites by her was "Magic", her May 1980 single from the movie "Xanadu". Despite how badly the movie fared, this song, another Farrar creation, has stuck with me all these decades because it actually brings together the disco and the sentimentality of a pop love song. I can actually imagine someone soaring into the night sky like Peter Pan as I listen to this. 

"Magic" was another chart-topper in the USA and Canada, and it didn't too badly in Japan either as it peaked at No. 43. The song was the trigger for me to finally pick up that "Xanadu" soundtrack.

I'd like to make two quips here: Sandy is all grown-up and horny now! Welcome to the MTV generation, Olivia! Yeah, I guess that music video for "Physical" was perhaps controversial for its day although now it just seems like the goofiest and most 80s media phenomenon. But there's no doubt that "Physical" was another hit and another touchstone OJN tune for me.

This came out as a massive hit single in September 1981 which may not have garnered any music awards nominations but "Physical" was another chart-topper in America and Canada, spending 10 weeks straight at No. 1 in the USA and breaking the 2-million barrier in sales there. It ultimately became Newton-John's biggest hit. I remember my high school mates coming over to my place since one of them had just bought the album "Physical", and he just played it over and over again until I threatened to get physical with him...in a damaging way.😖 I mean, the song was catchy, but even so...

One more song that I'll mention is the New Wave "Twist of Fate", another hit song from a soundtrack to a failed movie "Two of a Kind". OJN and John Travolta joined up once more for the flick but I remember the music video far more than "Two of a Kind" to the extent that the first few times that I watched the former, I'd assumed that the scenes from the movie were actually just part of the heavy-rotation video with Travolta coming in as a special guest performer. I also remember the video for the fact that the singer had apparently decided to go full bore into 1980s supermodel cosmetics and even she mentioned in an interview that the lip gloss was fairly troweled on.

David Foster was the producer for "Twist of Fate" which was an October 1983 single that hit No. 4 and No. 5 in Canada and the USA respectively. In Japan, it was released under the title "Unmei no Itazura"（運命のいたずら）which is a direct translation. It peaked at No. 73 on Oricon.

The music world lost one lovely lady today. My condolences to her family and friends.

Kenny Loggins -- Heart to Heart

 

YouTube

Having done my usual self-imposed quota of four urban contemporary tunes today, I was quite ready to call it a day on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but having just completed a Skype lesson with my friend that got me all buoyed up, I did feel like putting this particular article up as a fifth contribution for Friday. Plus, I've been itching to do this Kenny Loggins song as a ROY piece for some weeks now. Another reason is that in the past few weeks, I've observed that Loggins has been getting that love again from Hollywood via "Danger Zone" returning to the "Top Gun" sequel and "Footloose" making a surprising, hilarious and super cool appearance in the third season of "The Umbrella Academy".

However, those two Loggins hits were his rock n' roll tunes later in the 1980s, and my favourite song by this well-coiffed singer-songwriter from Washington State is purely in the AOR genre. Yep, I'm talking about "Heart to Heart", his November 1982 single that came from his September album "High Adventure".

All these years, I'd assumed that "Heart to Heart", one of my favourite songs in any genre and language, was something from the late 1970s by Loggins so it was some surprise that it actually came out in the early 1980s. It was such a regular presence on my radio and it currently still is one of those soft rock classics that manage to send a thrill up and down my spine from intro to outro. It's amazing about the combination of fellows who came up with "Heart to Heart": Loggins, Canadian music royalty David Foster and Doobie Brothers' Michael McDonald, and together they created this love song of second chances and keeping the faith. All three, by the way, already have their representations on the blog, including Loggins' cover of Pages' "Who's Right, Who's Wrong".

"Heart to Heart" may be a love song but whenever I hear this one, I always think of a Cessna flying over the Grand Canyon at sunset. Pure freedom and joy! It's got a lot of wonderfully mixed influences in there: the elegance and romanticism from Loggins' alternately sultry/soaring vocals and the shimmering strings, David Sanborn's downtown saxophone solo, and McDonald's and Foster's funky/groovy keyboard work. I make it a point to listen to it now and then just to remind myself that amazingly moving music still exists here. 

The song hit No. 1 and No. 3 on the Canadian and US Adult Contemporary charts respectively. I've actually talked about "Heart to Heart" before on my "Radio Influences (City Pop/AOR)" article back in 2018 before I started up Reminiscings of Youth, and there are a few songs in that list which have become ROY articles since then along with at least one more song that will be getting its own ROY treatment in the near future. I felt that like those, "Heart to Heart" needed its own article since it is such a beloved reminiscing song from my youth.

One final reason that I've put up "Heart to Heart" is that the three Japanese songs that are following this paragraph are all from the similar City Pop/J-AOR genres. I think that's the first time that's ever happened in a ROY article. To be precise, these are all singles that made their premiere in November 1982.

EPO -- Uwasa ni Naritai (うわさになりたい）

Yasuhiro Abe -- We Got It!

Junichi Inagaki -- Dramatic Rain （ドラマティック・レイン）(October 1982)

Celine Dion -- To Love You More

 

Perhaps it was a thing back in the mid-to-late 1990s for some Japanese dramas to take on a theme song performed by a Western singer or band instead of a Japanese act. In 1994, Mariah Carey became the latest American singer to join the J-Xmas Music Hall of Fame (yes, I'm being sarcastic here) with her "All I Want For Christmas Is You" becoming a huge hit in Japan as it was used as the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "29-sai no Christmas"（29歳のクリスマス...My 29th Christmas）. Then in 1996, British sophisti-pop band Swingout Sister provided the TBS drama "Mahiru no Tsuki"（真昼の月...Midday Moon） with the introspective "Now You're Not Here".

In between those two shows, though, there was another Fuji-TV drama in 1995 called "Koibito yo"（恋人よ...The Lovers） starring Honami Suzuki（鈴木保奈美）of "Tokyo Love Story" fame and Goro Kishitani（岸谷五朗）whose wife happens to be the lead singer of pop/rock band Princess Princess（プリンセスプリンセス）, Kaori Kishitani, nee Kaori Okui（奥居香）. I only remember the first episode in which the two leads end up falling into a pond so for at least one scene, the two are wearing warm white bathrobes looking like they were supposed to be acting in a Stanley Kubrick movie. Then, there was the final scene in the final episode which was extremely bittersweet. Did quite well in the ratings, I hear.

Apparently, according to the synopsis on J-Wiki, Honami and Goro's characters were supposed to be getting married to other partners at the same wedding hall but they both found out that their significant others had been doing some cheating in the past. Still, the couples got hitched but in a plot twist that would happen on a J-Drama, they ended up living next to each other. Then the cracks in the relationships start appearing.

However, in a nice example of synergy, the theme song and the show helped each other out. For one thing, "To Love You More" was sung by Celine Dion. As you have probably gleaned from the above paragraphs, I didn't really bother with the drama for the most part, but I did end up getting the CD single by Dion for about 500 yen. It was only released as a single in Japan in October 1995, and it remained at the top spot on Oricon for a number of weeks, selling 1.5 million copies. By the end of 1996, it was the 20th-ranking single of the year. Of course, in the following year, Dion had an even bigger hit thanks to "Titanic".

I could use the term baroque to describe the pop here but I also think that there is also something very courtly and countryside about "To Love You More", thanks to the grand and dramatic contributions of the band KRYZLER & KOMPANY with Taro Hakase（葉加瀬太郎）on violin. And what can you say about Dion herself? The song was created by another Canadian legend, David Foster, with Edgar Bronfman Jr. under his pen name of Junior Miles. From what I've read on the Wikipedia article for "To Love You More", the song didn't do too shabbily overseas either.

Earth Wind & Fire -- After the Love Has Gone

 

This week's Reminiscings of Youth article is the second one to feature the great band Earth Wind & Fire. Of course, the first one I did was the celebratory favourite, "September" which I did, naturally enough, on the 21st of September. And in all likelihood, I will end up doing a few more ROY articles with EW&F over the next several months.

The first time that I heard "After the Love Has Gone", EW&F's July 1979 single, it wasn't on the radio. Actually, it was on a TV show about a radio station..."WKRP in Cincinnati", to be exact. In fact, it's in the above video of a second season episode called "For Love or Money" (go to 22:37...regrettably, the song sounds like it's been largely muffled due to the usual copyright issues), and though I don't really remember the plot for this season opener, I do recollect the scene of poor Bailey Quarters being stood up by Johnny Fever while "After the Love Has Gone" is playing. 

I know about Loni Anderson as the beautiful Jennifer Marlowe and how her posters were flying off the shelves while the show was on the air, but I was always drawn to (the just-as-beautiful) Jan Smithers as Bailey, and watching that scene while the EW&F classic was playing really had me wanting to stomp on Johnny for stomping on Bailey's heart. 

Although it's been over 40 years since "After the Love Has Gone" was released and that episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" was broadcast, whenever I listen to this ballad, at least during part of those 4 minutes and change that the song is playing, my memories unearth that particular scene at the radio station. It just seemed like the perfect match between scene and song for a TV show, and in fact, the Wikipedia article for the song mentions about that scene on "WKRP". Apparently, it's also been used by a number of sports teams whenever they lose at home.

And that's the crazy and amazing thing about this song. It's a beautiful and romantic creation about the loss of romance. With those soft horns and strings and the crooning by the vocalists, when I first heard this, I'd thought that it was all about a wonderful courtship between two people when it was actually about the separation of them. Maybe there is something very Japanese about "After the Love Has Gone".

That same Wiki article has plenty of information on the making of the song but suffice it to say that I couldn't imagine Hall & Oates singing "After the Love Has Gone". This is truly my favourite EW&F ballad, and it's truly a masterpiece by David Foster, Jay Graydon (aka Airplay) and Bill Champlin with Maurice White behind the production and main vocals. I'm glad that it got its Grammys.

So, what were three singles that got their release in July 1979 when "After the Love Has Gone" itself was released?

Miharu Koshi -- My Blue Summer （マイブルーサマー）

Circus -- American Feeling

Bread & Butter -- Ano Koro no Mama （あの頃のまま）

Chikara Ueda & The Power Station -- Jojo

It was just a little over two weeks that I'd made up the ROY article for Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown", and now I've got "Jojo" on the board. As with "Lowdown", "Jojo" was another song that I was able to hear on the radio for years although since I was never a lyrics guy, I hadn't been aware that this was all about a pimp on Broadway; the title had struck me as being about a French clown on Broadway.

Even to this day, I'm still picking up information about "Jojo" which was originally a track on the smooth-singing star's "Middle Man" LP released in April 1980, according to Wikipedia. For one thing, "Jojo" was created not only by Scaggs but also by David Foster and singer-songwriter David Eldon Lasley. For another, in the recording booth, joining the singer on guitar was Ray Parker Jr., while Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro from TOTO were on lead guitar and drums respectively, and then there Foster and Lasley themselves on keyboards and backing vocals respectively. All that musical goodness rolled up in one song!

Later in September of that year, Chikara Ueda & The Power Station（上田力&パワーステーション）released "Flying Easy" and one of the tracks just happened to be an instrumental cover of "Jojo" with the horns coming into play here (I swear, though, that I've heard those series of six horn blasts in the intro on various TV programs in Japan). I miss the smooth Boz vocals but still, Ueda's take on the soulful AOR classic is worthy of merit especially with some talented guitar. Incidentally, jazz drummer and record producer Harvey Mason was on those drums for the entire album.

It was also about a year ago that I first wrote about Ueda & The Power Station through their "Twilight Shadows".

Ryo Okumoto -- Crystal Highway

 

I remember when I first got Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）1980 "Miss M" album and marveling at the photos inside the liner notes since they showed proof positive that the band Airplay (David Foster and Jay Graydon) and some of TOTO (Jeffrey Porcaro and Steve Lukather) helped out in the arrangement and recording of half the album.

Well, those fellows helped out a number of other Japanese singers, and in that same year, all four of them also gave a good hand to rock keyboardist Ryo Okumoto's（奥本亮）album "Makin' Rock". They assisted in arrangement and songwriting on a majority of the tracks including the one featured here, the smooth "Crystal Highway". Specifically, according to the Tower Records description of the album, it was Porcaro and Lukather behind the creation of the song with Foster handling the arrangement. There's some fine meshing between the rock guitar and the gentle-but-not-diminished keyboard work by Okumoto, including a couple of solo passages.

Born in Osaka in 1959, Okumoto would later become known for his work in the band Spock's Beard when he joined the American rock group in 1996. He's been categorized as being someone performing progressive rock and experimental rock, but I think with "Crystal Highway", it's a bit more on the fusion side of things. And certainly, on the Tower site, the album has been given praise as an AOR/hard fusion work.

Ami Ozaki -- Air Kiss

 

A little over a couple of years ago, I managed to get my hands on Ami Ozaki's（尾崎亜美）May 1981 album "Hot Baby" which involved a collaboration between the singer-songwriter and David Foster with additional assistance from some prominent session musicians including Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro. If there are folks who've liked Ozaki and their AOR separately...well, "Hot Baby" is their Reese's Peanut Butter Cup revelation.

Guess what? I gather that Ozaki decided in that year that the entire year would be filled with the sounds of her and Foster since in December 1981, another album was released which had them together again in the studio. This time, this two-word album was called "Air Kiss". As with "Hot Baby", "Air Kiss" had Ozaki creating the songs while Foster took care of the arrangement.

First off, Track 1 is "Deep", which was also her 14th single released on the same day as the album. One of the bonus tracks is that original single version but the first track is the album version which seems to take things into the synthpop genre. It doesn't quite take things into YMO territory but we get a slight taste of New Wave Ami as she analogizes the search for love as a dive into a massive ocean.

For those who love Grover Washington Jr.'s "Just The Two of Us", I think you might enjoy the second track "Glass no Rouge"（グラスのルージュ...Rouge on the Glass） which rather grafts the opening bars of that famous song with some Ozaki heartbreak mid-tempo balladry. Ozaki's lyrics tell the story of a final dinner between lovers before the permanent parting with the only sign being some lipstick on the glass.

Well, it's at least better than the bunny suit.

"Junjou"（純情...Pure Heart） is a lighthearted affair about a man and a woman having a bit of a playful tete-a-tete of who's fooling who in a potential deepening romance. Neither of them are averse to it but they want to know the angles...sounds like the usual subplot in an anime. Considering how comfortable like a pair of well-worn slippers this track has felt, I think that "Junjou" was the song that finally got me to part with my yen for "Air Kiss".

Not 100% sure about what "Flash Back" is all about in terms of the lyrics; maybe the protagonist wants to do a YouTube Rewind on a particular romance. Still, there is an interesting juxtaposition between the mellow AOR beginning which sounds like an old relaxing river flowing past and the bopping TOTO-friendly refrain. In a way, the verses leading to the refrain sound as if "Flash Back" could have been made for an aidoru of the time such as Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）; they come off as that adorable.

My final song here is the single version of "Deep" which I referred to back above with the album version. I mentioned in that paragraph that the album version didn't quite approach Yellow Magic Orchestra but made a graze past New Wave. Well, the single version takes things into Art Pop perhaps; I gather that this take enters New Wave completely, and it comes off as being quite delicate like a crystal.

Perhaps I will do a follow-up on the album at a later date. I will most definitely write an article on the Xmas song that has been included as a bonus track on "Air Kiss" in the next couple of weeks since KKP is entering the Holiday season.

Ami Ozaki -- Angela

Welcome to Friday! The long history of pop music here has included songs with people's names as the titles, probably the majority being women's names. I remember "Laura", the title theme for the famous film noir of 1944 (man, that original rendition actually sent a wonderful shiver up and down my spine). Then, there is "Sherry" by Frankie Vallie & The Four Seasons that I used to hear when I was a kid...mostly through those K-Tel LP Greatest Hits commercials. Plus, I can throw in TOTO's "Rosanna".

But along with "Rosanna", there was another pop hit that became one of my touchstone songs for my beloved decade of the 1980s and that would be "Gloria" by the late Laura Branigan in 1982. I heard this on loud and heavy rotation from a radio that one resident in the townhouse complex where I had been painting fences during my summer job period. Recently, "Gloria" was adopted as the victory song for the NHL's St. Louis Blues in their successful march to the Stanley Cup championship last year. Nice to hear that one again after so long.

I've found that Japanese popular music has been no stranger to "name" song titles, either. Hirofumi Bamba（ばんばひろふみ）came up with his ballad for "Sachiko" and Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）provided her melancholy cautionary tale with "Natalie".

The tradition continues here with Ami Ozaki's（尾崎亜美）"Angela", a track from her 1981 album "Hot Baby". As I mentioned in that article, the album is a City Pop/J-AOR classic thanks to Ozaki's collaboration with Airplay (David Foster & Jay Graydon) and members from the aforementioned TOTO. My feeling is that Ozaki most likely went over to the United States for recording instead of the other way around. But if Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro had gone to a Tokyo recording studio and needed to use the washroom, would the staff member have cheekily said "TOTO, meet Toto"?😛

OK, well, we'll flush that down the toilet right now. Getting back to the main part of the story, I think the album really has that Airplay touch, and hearing "Angela" with that drum rush, those specific keyboards and those guitars, it's so Airplay/TOTO, it hurts! I have that sudden craving to either wrap a pink cardigan around my waist or get a mullet haircut.

Ozaki provided words and music with Foster handling the arrangement. And it's unmistakably her song due to her vocal style and the original melody. The really bouncy music is set alongside lyrics that describe Angela as a real handful. In fact, this may be a song about either a tsundere or the masochistic guy who adores her, despite her temper tantrums. I'd probably say the combination would make for an ideal theme song for some sort of rom-com live-action TV series or anime.

Who Influenced Toshiki Kadomatsu? (Post-Debut)

Continuing on from Part 1 that is "Who Influenced Toshiki Kadomatsu (Pre-Debut)", I bring you Part 2 with the singers and songs that helped in shaping this man's sound following his official start in 1981 as an entertainer. Again, as mentioned in that article, this is based on a section of Kadomatsu's（角松敏生）J-Wiki biography which has listed these pre-debut and post-debut influences. Unlike yesterday's pre-debut batch in which the majority of the songs have been well-known to me since my childhood, most of the post-debut entries coming up were fresh at the time.

(February 11 2023: That whole section on Kadomatsu's pre-debut and post-debut influences has been excised from the J-Wiki article, possibly since it was never sourced. Still, I don't think the person who put up all of these songs was simply picking names or titles out of a hat so at the very least, these choices can still provide a topic of discussion.)


Hiroshi Sato and Wendy Matthews -- You're My Baby (1982)

I mentioned this in the KKP article for Hiroshi Sato's（佐藤博）classic "Awakening" in which Kadomatsu gave his stamp of approval to this 1982 album, a release by the keyboardist and singer that is perfect as a cool-down AOR project. According to that section on his post-debut influences, Kadomatsu did listen to "Awakening" after his own debut and found it so polished that he felt that he could never match that level of goodness. He even said that as a fellow just barely into his 20s at the time, he didn't have the vocabulary to respond or express for the chords and melody, and didn't have any hope in replicating them. Geez! I can only assume that Sato gave him a pep talk to buck up.

My take on what I just read there is one of surprise considering that Kadomatsu had already released a few albums such as "Weekend Fly to the Sun" before "Awakening" came out in June 1982. I personally found "Weekend Fly to the Sun" a great album, so I can only assume that Kadomatsu was totally in awe of "Awakening". I wonder whether he had been searching for a certain leavening agent to help take his music into more dreamier and introspective circumstances.


Steely Dan -- Aja (1977)

This influence on Kadomatsu made me go "Ah...naruhodo". Considering how much Steely Dan's riffs have been incorporated into many a Japanese City Pop/J-AOR song, I guess that I wouldn't be surprised that Kadomatsu would see "Aja", one of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's greatest creations, as a factor in how he developed his own sound. He said that he underwent a major learning experience from "Aja" which amassed all of the important things in music including musical sophistication, composition, freshness and the challenge itself.

Kadomatsu may have found out about "Aja" a bit late into the party, but he was much better than me because I only...finally...purchased the album only a couple of years ago, much later than Fagen's splendid solo work "The Nightfly". However, I have known about "Peg" and "Josie" for decades since that got regular airplay on the radio, and I've totally fallen in love with "Deacon Blues" and "Black Cow".


Earth, Wind & Fire -- After The Love Has Gone (1979)

Once again, another blessed song from my youth and it's up there in my love for EW&F tunes alongside "September". I actually first heard "After The Love Has Gone" on an episode on an old American sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati" during a more contemplative scene, and that is perhaps the perfect scene in real life to hear this one by David Foster, Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin. For Kadomatsu, this was the first Foster song that he had ever heard, and found it had this amazingly sharp and sophisticated mood. He's even stated that "After The Love Has Gone" evokes the best emotion while hearing it during a summer evening. Works for me, too! And you know, I can now get the influence of this ballad upon some of his slower songs.


Christopher Cross -- Sailing (1980)

And perhaps that is also the case with Christopher Cross' "Sailing" when it comes to influencing Kadomatsu's mellower efforts. According to Kadomatsu, apparently when Cross' self-titled album carrying "Sailing" was released in Japan, it sold like hotcakes upon hotcakes, and when he, who at the time was listening to his fair share of disco, heard this number, he felt that AOR had also finally landed in his country.

Luther Vandross -- Sugar and Spice: I Found Me A Girl (1981)

This is the one song that I had never heard before today, and yeah, I'm Gibbs-slapping myself. But better late than never, and don't we live in a wonderful time (COVID-19 excepted) when we have access to decades of great music that we can discover via sites such as YouTube?

Kadomatsu was truly knocked out by the upbeat and funky "Sugar and Spice" when he first heard it, and once again, along with his experience with Yoshitaka Minami's（南佳孝）"Poolside" from the pre-debut entries, he felt that Vandross expressed a world that was far away...a world that he himself wanted to experience. The Shibuya-born musician-producer really desired to know that vibe in New York City where he felt that Vandross was bringing out that world view of his, and sure enough, Kadomatsu got his wish a few years later in 1984 when he went to live in The Big Apple (not sure if he still resides there, though).

With the pre-debut and post-debut influences on Kadomatsu over the past couple of days, I kinda/sorta have a handle on how his music developed, but there is so much there that it will probably take quite a bit longer to absorb and understand it all. Hopefully, your brains will be able to sift through all of it better than I can.

One definite benefit from doing these articles is that when I was exploring Vandross' wonderful song, I also discovered "Street Life" (1979) by The Crusaders, formerly The Jazz Crusaders. It's the type of tune that I've always loved.