"Los Angeles" Tunes

 Since J-Canuck did a list of New York themed songs, its only fair I do one for Los Angeles. Being an LA native I have a pretty good ear for what captures the essence of LA (the good and the bad lol).

L.A. Night by Yasuko Agawa (佐藤康子)

This is what we like to call a "certified hood classic". Recorded in 1984 for jazz singer Yasuko Agawa's album Gravy, this was written and produced by Augie Johnson, who also wrote Light of the World's 'London Town'.  If it wasn't for a few key differences, their practically the same song. but L.A. Night is definitely better out of the two, with stronger bass & drums and a catchier hook. LA Night captures the laidback G-funk energy perfectly all while taking a snapshot of an LA that no longer exists, she even gives a shout out to the Raiders! 

Streets Are Hot by Miho Fujiwara (藤原美穂)

The very appropriate theme from the obscure OVA movie California Crisis. Super funky, upbeat with some soulful singing from Fujiwara, this a great song for riding your bike down Manhattan Beach. 

Hollywood Illusion  by Himiko Kikuchi (菊池 ひみこ)

As someone who used to work in Hollywood as an intern for a few big studios, I cant definitely say that Hollywood is in fact an illusion.  But this song captures the idea of Hollywood perfectly. Kikuchi manages to capture the glamourous veil of tinsel town perfectly, to the point where this would be the perfect intro to an 80s sitcom filmed in  front of a live studio audience. If Hollywood had a theme song... well to be fair I think it already has a few. But I think this song should be it.

Painted Woman by Eric Tagg & Masaki Matsubara (松原正樹)

This one was another tough choice, but I think Painted Woman the euphoniums album is another great choice for a Hollywood anthem. on top of that it's also a peak specimen of West Coast AOR sound. 

The final song in my list deserves its own article. In the meantime, enjoy my Los Angeles themed City-Pop mix.

Lee Ritenour with Eric Tagg -- Is It You?

 

I couldn't quite believe it when I realized that I had yet to cover this particular AOR classic, especially since I did post Ambrosia's "Biggest Part of Me" all the way back in 2021. Time to give myself a Gibbs slap up the back of the head!

Both "Biggest Part of Me" and this song were included on those BRIO compact disc compilations of those nostalgic radio-friendly AOR tunes that I'd bought years ago in Japan. And this song here is "Is It You?" by jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour and his languid playing, with Eric Tagg providing the mellow vocals. Ritenour, Tagg and another AOR veteran Bill Champlin created "Is It You?" for Ritenour's 1981 album "RIT". And indeed, the song saw some fairly high rotation on the radio stations here when I was a teen. It hit No. 35 on Canada's RPM charts while in America, it reached No. 15.

Ritenour was a name that had kept floating here and there within my musical consciousness for years before I finally found out who he was...kinda like Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）whose name had possessed this rather legendary presence before I bought her BEST compilation years later. He, like many other folks in the American music industry, had also helped a lot of Japanese artists such as Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and the fusion band Casiopea（カシオペア）.

Masaki Matsubara featuring Eric Tagg -- Silly Crush

Continuing on with my listening of those CDs I purchased last month, I picked up another of the "Light & Mellow" series (this time titled "Dream") solely on the cool and groovy "Somewhere in Tokyo" by comely Toko Furuuchi（古内東子）. And I think I hit the jackpot with this particular edition since there are some more gems in this compilation.

Case in point: Masaki Matsubara's（松原正樹）"Silly Crush". Now I've seen Matsubara's name through liner notes of many an album over the years and apparently according to the liner notes for "Light & Mellow: Dream", he has the reputation of being Japan's No. 1 session guitarist with over 10,000 songs that he has participated in starting from 1974 backing up Hi-Fi Set（ハイ・ファイ・セット）. I can only imagine the callouses on those fingers.

However, he has released his own albums since 1978, one of which was his 4th album from 1983, "Painted Woman". "Silly Crush" is one of his tracks on the album, and when I heard the vocals, I automatically thought Kenny Loggins. But actually, the voice belongs to Eric Tagg, a name that has shown up in the pages of this blog when he provided the original "No One There" which was covered by Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）on his 1995 "Cornerstones" album. Both Matsubara and Tagg worked on "Silly Crush".

Indeed, I am a sucker for a good tight horn section and this one has the prolific Jake H. Concepcion on sax once more.

Chikuzen Sato/Eric Tagg -- No One There

I wrote an article several months ago about Chikuzen Sato's（佐藤竹善）cover of the AOR classic "What You Won't Do For Love" originally by Bobby Caldwell and the fact that it came from Sato's first album of covers, "Cornerstones" from 1995. Having become a fan of his work with Sing Like Talking, I just had to see what the smooth-singing Sato could do on his own.

Well, here is the opening track from "Cornerstones", "No One There". And it looks like Sato was rarin' to get crackin'. Starting with what sounds like a bit of steel drum calypso, he just gets into some of that wonderful AOR groove with that great voice of his. From this song, there isn't much different (at least, at that time) between his solo stuff and his work with SLT, but that's not a bad thing at all. He knows a great hook when he hears it, and I do love that electric guitar during the bridge.

As I said, "Cornerstones" is a cover album, and "No One There" is a cover of a song by singer-songwriter Eric Tagg. Released also as the first track on Tagg's 1982 album, "Dreamwalkin'", I only heard this for the first time tonight, and I'm rather kicking myself up the keester just some months before I enter my second half-century because I had never heard of this guy before. As regular readers of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" may have already surmised, I often gravitate to City Pop in Japan and its equivalent of radio-friendly AOR/adult contemporary music from the 70s and 80s. And listening to the original "No One There", there is much for me to enjoy in the arrangements. Visions of Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and James Ingram are dancing around my head as I write this. There is no blistering guitar here but the keyboards and the soft horns are swoon-worthy for me.

There is an article about Tagg at a website dedicated to Canadian songwriter David Foster who has helped musicians in both Japan and North America, and in the article, the author mentions that Tagg should have been up there with folks like Daryl Hall and Luther Vandross. Instead, he is just one of those best-kept secrets. Of course, music and musicians are a very personal and subjective choice, so for me at least, I would agree that Tagg should have deserved a bit more profile. However, along with those leading lights already mentioned, I have to say that at least according to his vocals in "No One There", he sounds quite a bit like Kenny Loggins before he entered the "Danger Zone".

According to that same article, Tagg had some mighty fine help backing him up. Foster himself was on the keyboards, Nathan East on bass, Lee Ritenour on guitar and Jerry Hey and company on horns. All of them have been seen in the liner notes of a lot of Japanese singers' albums as well.

P.S. I just discovered that I did hear Eric Tagg all the way back in my salad days. It was on "Is It You?" (1981), an AM radio regular and I even have a copy of the song on one of my AOR compilations but the track was always listed under Lee Ritenour's name.