I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Yes, it was back on December 30th 2023 when we reached the nosebleed level of 1100 articles for the year (with KKP finishing at 1103 articles in total). As I said back then, I doubt that we'll reach that number ever again so I was (and still am) glad that we achieved it. For No. 1100, I wrote about "Ore to Omae"（オレとおまえ）, a 1980 ballad and the lone single by the little-known trio Do! with Ryohei Yamanashi（山梨鐐平）.
We seem to be going backwards in time when it comes to the Do! file since we're now here at the first track of the group's debut album"Do! First"（Do! ファースト）from October 1979. Composed and written by Yamanashi with arrangement by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）, "Kyo wa Nomiakaso ne" (Let's Have a Drink Today), it's quite the upbeat and driving song, powered by a battery of horns that has had me thinking of the many bands that have been on the NBC show "Saturday Night Live" (the electric organ helps, too). It feels like Yamanashi wanted to have that drink at the local honky-tonk, especially on hearing that piano solo midway. Let the good times keep rolling!
Welcome to the 1100th article for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in 2023. Not a day too soon either since New Year's Eve is tomorrow and frankly I don't think we'll ever reach this milestone again. However, I'm pretty content with that although I'll be happy with any extra articles that we put up before the year is nigh. Incidentally, according to the website iPublishing, numerology posits that the number 1100 asks that people be more self-aware and take responsibility for one's actions. Perhaps that would align with those New Year's resolutions that we often make and never follow. I for one will try to show more responsibility and not binge so much on Pringle's potato chips. Yeah...right!😜
Anyways, for our 1100th article, I'm going with the pop trio Do!. A few years ago, I first heard singer-songwriter Ryohei Yamanashi（山梨鐐平）on one of those "Light Mellow" CD compilations and then eventually learned that he used to belong to Do! along with Takaaki Fujioka（藤岡孝章）and Hideo Itagaki（板垣秀雄）between 1979 and 1981. During their run, they released 6 singles and 2 albums. You can take a listen to their exotic 1981 "Yoake made Tenshi"（夜明けまで天使）.
The only single that Do! released in 1980 was "Ore to Omae" (You and I), a gallant New Music tune with an arrangement reminiscent of a contemporized 1950s or 1960s style love ballad. It is indeed pretty laidback considering the rougher versions of the pronouns involved in the title but I take it that the folks in Fujioka's lyrics are a very close couple. Fujioka and Yamanashi took care of the melody with Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）arranging everything.
My previous article dealt with my return to the 90s pop band My Little Lover where I remarked on the melodic guitar pop that was one of my observed trends during that decade. Coming to this article, I realized that among the City Pop, frilly aidoru, enka and synthpop that liberally made themselves at home during the 1980s, there was also room for male bands that had their own their merry mellow melodies which skirted the line between light kayo and AOR. I'm talking outfits such as H2O and Picasso. Now, I've found another one.
Back in early May this year, I wrote about singer-songwriter Ryohei Yamanashi（山梨鐐平）and his "Taiyo ga Shitteiru"（太陽が知っている）, a snazzy and brassy City Pop tune about the good life that he recorded in 1982. I was able to find about it thanks to a purchase of a "Light Mellow" album, and upon reading the liner notes, I discovered that he used to belong to a trio called Do! that lasted about a couple of years perhaps between 1979 and 1981. Considering how impressed I was with "Taiyo ga Shitteiru", I decided to investigate Do!...after all, it isn't every day that I come across a band whose name consists of one consonant, one vowel and an excitable punctuation mark.
My whole knowledge about Do! came from two lines of text in the article for Yamanashi in J-Wiki (so I guess this was more about Don't! or Can't!). Basically, the trio consisted of Yamanashi and members from other bands: Takaaki Fujioka（藤岡孝章）from the comical band Mari-chans（まりちゃんズ）and Hideo Itagaki（板垣秀雄）who originated from another comical band Salty Sugar（ソルティー・シュガー）, famous for the cheerfully heroic "Hashire Koutarou"（走れコウタロー）. Do! released 6 singles and 2 albums during their time together, which is pretty prolific considering it was just a few years.
One of those releases came out in 1981 and it was titled "Yoake made Tenshi"(Angel Til Daybreak). It's listed on Amazon as a 7" EP record. I have to say that the three of them on the cover look like they're posting as a new breed of Tokyo cop in their own show. The song itself though is pretty grounded despite the comical background of Fujioka and Itagaki. Written and composed by Fujioka and arranged by Kimio Mizutani（水谷公生）, at first, I wondered whether this would be considered to be a New Music tune because I felt that there was something kinda European with Mizutani's arrangement, but with the probable influence of the strings, the melody brought me back onto the side of regular kayo. Still, because of the tug-of-war, I'm also throwing in the New Music label.
Referring back to my first paragraph, based on what I've heard in "Yoake made Tenshi", my impression is that Do! could have belonged to that type of male group with that distinct melange of harmony (and there is some nice harmony in the chorus...somewhat reminiscent of Anzen Chitai and Alfee) and mellow melody. I have to listen to more of their work to make sure, though. My initial thought was that Do! was a City Pop act based on Yamanashi's "Taiyo ga Shitteiru", but that's not the case here.
