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.
It is once again Hump Day this week so perhaps the stress levels and blue feelings are at their peak. Well, I can't prescribe anything professionally, but at least, I can provide some soothing music. This time, I'm plucking something from the Group Sounds era of the late 1960s in Japan...specifically, this B-side from a March 1969 single by The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）titled "Kaze wa Shiranai"(The Wind Doesn't Know). Written by Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）and composed by Kunihiko Murai（村井邦彦）, it was the flip side of The Tigers' 9th single"Utsukushiki Ai no Okite"（美しき愛の掟...A Decree of Love）.
There are some lovely harmonies between Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）and his colleagues and some peaceful arrangements as a lot of natural images come through Iwatani's lyrics such as wind, rainbows and the great big sky. I guess that would be par for the course for a pop song from the late 1960s. However, the impression that I got from the song was that one shouldn't rely on those symbols of nature for wisdom; ultimately, one has to rely on his/her own soul for guidance.
Some months later in December 1969,the folk duo Toi et Moi（トワ・エ・モワ）recorded a cover of "Kaze wa Shiranai" for their first album of cover songs,"Anata to Watashi to Toi et Moi"（あなたと私とトワ・エ・モワ）. The English translation of "You and Me and You and Me" sounds obviously redundant which may explain the official English title of "A Wonderful World of Toi et Moi". Anyways, their cover version is also lovely and it sounds a little more upbeat.
The final regular Reminiscings of Youth article lands on Christmas Day today and it will be on the theme song for "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" from December 1966. It's a special, just like "A Charlie Brown Christmas", that I used to see every year on CBS on the old tube telly. By this point, pretty much everyone in North America knows about the green Grinch with his heart being two sizes too small (initially at least) and his willingness to ruin everybody's Christmas.
As a little kid, I didn't know who the narrator was and wouldn't finally find out for quite a few years. At first thought, I'd assumed that it was Dr. Seuss behind the narration but then I discovered it was Boris Karloff, Frankenstein's Monster himself, behind the mike when I'd known about his time many decades earlier as a horror movie icon. And dang it! He had a great voice for the theme song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" which was given lyrics by Dr. Seuss and composed by Albert Hague as this classic comically villainous composition. Karloff chewed the heck out of this tune like a zombie on bone.
I never saw the Jim Carrey version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" from 2000, but he one-ups Karloff in his rendition of the song. Some fine Canadian ham there!
Anyways, we have a couple of singles in Japan that got released at around the same time as the original cartoon.
I only came across the above video yesterday during my usual YouTube browsings. It's the annual Turner Movie Classics"TCM Remembers" which pays musical tribute to the entertainers around the world that have passed on during the calendar year. We did lose quite a few famous folks from film such as Gene Hackman, Robert Redford and Tatsuya Nakadai（仲代達矢）.
However, during the tribute, I was surprised to find out that Argentine musician and composer Lalo Schifrin had passed away months ago in June at the age of 93. I didn't know a lot of his work but what I do remember has stuck with me as two of the most iconic theme songs in American TV history. There was the cool jazz theme for private eye "Mannix" and then the far more famous one for "Mission: Impossible" which got its most recent unveiling when the final movie in the Tom Cruise version of the franchise (I'm confident that there will be at least a try to revive it with a new lead) hit the theatres some months ago.
"T.H.E. Cat" was a short-lived series on NBC that lasted only a season, premiering in September 1966, the same month when "Mission: Impossible" launched on CBS. It starred a leopard-lithe and quick Robert Loggia (I had to really look up my sources to make sure that this was the same burly Robert Loggia from "Big" and "Mancuso") as a former acrobat and master thief-turned-security guy named Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat who helped clients who were in over their heads.
Although "T.H.E. Cat" started its brief run when I was not even a year old, this would still apply as a Reminiscings of Youth article for me because I only found out about the series when it ran on a local gonzo late-night show during my teenage years, appropriately titled "The All-Night Show"(which I will feature as a ROY probably sometime next week) that often unearthed long lost shows from the heap of TV history.
Schifrin came up with the theme for "T.H.E. Cat". It's not nearly as famous as his themes for "Mannix" and "Mission: Impossible", but it does have that sinewy downtown coolness which describes Mr. Cat to a tee. And the jazz orchestra reminds me of some of the stuff that Henry Mancini had created for projects such as "Peter Gunn".
Tomorrow on Christmas Day will have the usual and holiday-themed ROY but I wanted to provide this special Xmas Eve ROY in tribute to the great Schifrin. There were two Japanese singles that were released when "T.H.E. Cat" made its debut in September 1966.
Just for the record, the above YouTube video comes from the channel Going Awesome Places with Will Tang and he's showing off some of the wonderful things to do in Alberta's Banff and Lake Louise, a place that I got to visit all the way back in 1990.
I mentioned in a recent Xmas-based article on KKP that not all Canadians want to celebrate the Holidays in their own country. Perhaps it's something about the fact that walking daily in a winter wonderland with the temperature at a slightly cool -280 degrees and the winds coming in at a breezy Mach 2 might not be the most enjoyable environment. 🧊🥶
I know that folks do like to head down south for days, weeks and even months at a time but I wanted to sate my curiosity about where Canadians like to go during winter once and for all. And I was surprised to find out that at least some of my fellow countrymen do like to keep things within the Great White North while others do desire something more tropical. As such, possessing that whimsical nature which often powers my Author's Picks, I've come up with five destinations while providing the appropriate songs to accompany them.
(1967) Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets -- Blue Chateau（ブルー・シャトウ）
Yep, the above is RCA's "50 Years of Hits in Stereo", a collection of 5 LPs that probably came with the new stereo when my parents bought it just before my birth. I used to see this and hear this all the time. I haven't seen it since I got back from Japan and asking my parents about its whereabouts just brings blank looks, so I'm ruefully assuming that they had thrown the entire set away when they got rid of the RCA Victor.
That would be too bad. There was a lot of music history in that set. And as much as I've said in the past that my music awakening began at the turn of the 70s into the 80s, music really had always been there with me in those first fifteen years of life. It wasn't just Yukio Hashi（橋幸夫）, Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）and others on the Japanese side, there was also Henry Mancini, The Ames Brothers and The Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler along with the many other singers and groups involved in "50 Years of Hits in Stereo".
As such, I've already referred to that huge tome of records a few times since The Ames Brothers have gotten their due on the blog with their remarkably bright and chipper version of "September Song" while Mancini was of course behind the cool "Peter Gunn" theme, both versions which are on "50". I distinctly remember my mother playing the former song when I came home after a rotten day at school and I cheered right up. What I would eventually learn is that a lot of those songs that I grew up with were indeed actually cover versions of the original song but given a jazzier, more swivel-happy, and loungier touch. "September Song" by The Ames Brothers definitely falls into that category.
"Sing, Sing, Sing" was once the go-to song for all trailers of Hollywood movies set in the Jazz Age. A bunch of us fellow moviegoers figured that Benny Goodman's iconic swing classic was contractually obligated to be on any and every such trailer. But the Mancini version which is far shorter than the original is the first version that I had ever heard, and it's even swingier, cooler and more dangerous in that 1960s way. It even seems to tell a story of a major heist that suddenly turns very dangerous for its perpetrators and the the police coming after them.
As with "Sing, Sing, Sing", Ann-Margret's take on "Moon River" was the first version I ever heard, not hearing the original by Audrey Hepburn from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" or the popularized version by Andy Williams for many years. Apparently, her version first showed up on RCA Records in 1962.
"Lover" was the Rodgers and Hart song from way back in 1932 when it was sung by Jeanette MacDonald in the movie "Love Me Tonight" when her character sung it to a horse. It's been popularized as this grand pop waltz, performed by many an orchestra such as The Boston Pops. However, it's not that version which was included in "50", but the one by Marty Gold & His Orchestra. And this one has got to be the jazziest and most percussive march I will ever hear.
As with Mancini's propulsive version of "Sing, Sing, Sing", Perez Prado and his Latin jazz ensemble made "Caravan", a jazz standard from 1936 by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol, into this car-chase-through-the-city-streets thriller of a cover. There was another cover by Arthur Lyman, a vibraphone and marimba player from Hawaii, which was used in "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) for one scene where Ocean and Ryan are recruiting the Amazing Yen.
I finally caught most of the original 1956 movie "Around the World in 80 Days" with David Niven and Cantiflas with its royally sweeping theme song. The Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler were back to give their take on the theme which also has its sweep but further seasoned with some Latin and enough excitement in the intro and outro to fuel a Saturn rocket launch. It does feel like a musical orbit around Earth.
From the Wikipedia article, I read that "Moonglow" is a jazz standard from 1933 by composers Will Hudson and Irving Mills with the words by Eddie DeLange. It's the one song in this sample tonight for which I have not heard any other version and that's fine with me although it's been covered by some of the greats including the aforementioned Duke Ellington. The Ames Brothers are more than satisfying with this smoky take that seems to be perfect for a performance in an equally smoky nightclub in Manhattan. I guess that the one I know from "50" had its intro truncated compared to the one above.
The above is merely and approximately 10% of the total output in the 5-LP set. I know that at least some of the other tracks among the records do exist on YouTube, so if there are any of you interested in the old-school pop, just cut-and-paste the artists and titles from that Discogs site that I linked you to at the top and try them out.
Let's see what some of the big hit singles in Japan that got released in 1965 were.
My mother has often asked the question, "Where is Harumi Miyako（都はるみ）? I haven't seen her in ages." Well, looking the legendary enka singer up on J-Wiki, I found out that she basically stopped any public appearances in the mid-2010s, and as of 2021, she's been living with a former actor in an old countryside inn somewhere in the Tohoku region. So, let us just assume that she has finally retired without any great bombast.
Some weeks ago, when I was watching the kayo program "Shin BS Nippon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）on NHK, I noticed one of the guests singing a Miyako song that I had never heard of before. It started out as one of the more traditional enka but then the carpet was pulled out from beneath us listeners, and it became an old-fashioned rock n' roll tune, reminiscent of the Group Sounds days of the 1960s.
This would be "Mukashi" which literally translates as "Long Ago". However, considering the lyrics by Yu Aku（阿久悠）, perhaps a better and more pragmatic translation would be "Yesterday's Man". This was Miyako's 119th single from New Year's Day 2003 and looking at that cover of a triumphant-looking singer with the big hair and her smiling visage emblazoned all over her kimono, this isn't an ordinary Miyako single...especially with Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）handling the composition, him being the grizzled rock master.
Along with the GS sound, Miyako is more than happy to be singing about washing that man right out of her hair...just to reference another old American song from way back when. She's free, I tell you, free of the shackles of the old relationship and ready to tackle new adventures, but not without some gleeful verbal stomping of the former pathetic paramour.
My very first article on singer-actress Jun Mayuzumi（黛ジュン）was back in 2016 when I wrote up on her 1968 hit "Tenshi no Yuwaku"（天使の誘惑）. I categorized it as one of the most cheerful Mood Kayo that I had ever heard.
I also noted in that article about Mayuzumi's debut single"Koi no Hallelujah" (Love Hallelujah) which was released in February 1967. And once again, referring back to "Tenshi no Yuwaku", this was actually a restart for Mayuzumi since she had actually debuted back in 1964 under her first stage name of Junko Watanabe（渡辺順子） (same pronunciation as her real name「渡邊順子」but with one kanji different). Anyways, this single representing a new start with a new record company has all that jangly nature of a Group Sounds tune. It was a very successful hit for Mayuzumi as it sold well over a million records by 1968.
"Koi no Hallelujah" was written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）as one of his earliest works and it was composed by Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）. According to the J-Wiki article on the song, Nakanishi had been spurred on to include the word "hallelujah" from his own emotions as a little boy years previously after arriving in the coastal city of Huludao, People's Republic of China as a refugee. His lyrics are also imbued with his feelings toward his old hometown in Manchuria and against war.
In November 1994, a cover version of "Koi no Hallelujah" was released as Yoko Oginome's（荻野目洋子）33rd single. The original GS arrangement was replaced with a dance-club R&B vibe (with a goodly amount of orchestra hits), and it scored a No. 76 ranking on Oricon. Oginome's take was used as the campaign song for Noevir Cosmetics.
Well, things have begun to slightly cool down here in my part of Canada after one of the warmer summers in recent memory (nothing to compare with Japan's summer, though). Still, it's still very nice out there and we're several days away from the official beginning of autumn.
That means that there is plenty of time for those last barbeque outings and beach trips to enjoy that last bit of sun and surf. Maybe then, we can do some vicarious summer partying with the trio Mi-Ke singing their New Year's Eve 1992 10th and penultimate single to date, "Namida no Vacation" (Vacation of Tears).
Reminiscent of Group Sounds and 1960s girl pop, there's even a loving tribute to Connie Francis'"Vacation" right at the beginning. Mi-Ke was entering their heyday just when I was leaving my stint on the JET Programme but I was still getting shipments of Japanese TV programs so I was totally in on their success as interpreters of one segment of kayo kyoku during those early 1990s. Despite the melancholy title, "Namida no Vacation" sounds like a pretty happy-go-lucky tune of the times with Daiko Nagato（長戸大幸）on lyrics and Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）on the music. It reached No. 19 on Oricon. The song also gave Mi-Ke their 2nd and final invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen following their appearance in 1991 for "Omoide no Kujukuri Hama"（思い出の九十九里浜）.
The news came here just within the last hour, but unfortunately, Brian Wilson, one of the co-founders of the legendary band The Beach Boys, passed away today at the age of 82, just nine days shy of his next birthday.
As a kid, I knew The Beach Boys as this summer-loving group with this distinct sound due to their harmonies. They were popping up on talk shows and their records and songs regularly appeared in TV commercials. I hadn't realized how influential they and their sound were becoming at the time but my growing impression was that Wilson, Mike Love and the rest of the band were seen as mercurial musical gods, suffused with incredible talent. Their Wikipedia page mentions how much they inspired future artists and genres, and within the Japanese sphere of things, The Beach Boys influenced Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and indirectly Junk Fujiyama（ジャンク藤山）, Bread & Butter（ブレッド＆バッター）and to a certain extent, Kazuhito Murata（村田和人）, among other singers and bands. Perhaps they also had a hand in the whole Group Sounds genre which was popular in the late 1960s.
For me, The Beach Boys' most representative song is "Good Vibrations" which came out in October 1966, a few days shy of my first birthday. The way it's set out in its own Wikipedia page, it seems as if it's been described as a truly hallowed piece of art, and therefore, I can't really add any further insights to it aside from providing a passage from that page:
One of the most influential pop recordings in history, "Good Vibrations" advanced the role of the studio as an instrument and effectively launched the progressive pop genre, heralding a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock. The track incorporated a novel mix of instruments, including cello and Electro-Theremin; although the latter is not a true theremin, the song's use of the instrument spurred renewed interest in theremins and synthesizers. The flower power-inspired lyrics reinforced the Beach Boys' association with the 1960s counterculture, while the phrase "good vibes", originally a niche slang term, entered mainstream usage.
I didn't even know about the Electro-Theremin. All this time, I'd assumed it was one of the band members' vocal abilities which was responsible. These guys were truly progressive and revolutionary. I can't really write on the complexity of its structure. "Good Vibrations", true to its title, just struck me over the years as this good-time tune on the beach with all of the happy and shining young folks frolicking as if there were no tomorrow.
Not surprisingly, all of the most recent comments under the two YouTube videos for "Good Vibrations" have been in mourning for the loss of Brian Wilson. All of my condolences to the Beach Boys, their families, their friends and their fans.
What were some of the big hits coming out in 1966?
Jackey Yoshikawa & His Blue Comets -- Aoi Hitomi（青い瞳）
A few decades ago, someone had the bright idea to enshrine the third Monday of January as Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year. As much as folks and maybe even authorities have tried to debunk it, the concept has remained stuck to pop culture like hawk talons on a fish. Ironically, a lot of those credit card and utility bills have poured into my mailbox today.
Well, Monday is bad enough but a Blue Monday calls for some help and perhaps I can humbly provide some "blue" songs that can have you swaying, skipping, grooving or even dancing. Enjoy!
Well, we are really on the cusp of the big day since today is Christmas Eve. And hooray! Toronto will be guaranteed a White Christmas for the first time in four years. The video above is of a local neighbourhood here called Inglewood Avenue in the Midtown area and around the Holidays, the street name takes on a couple of more consonants to become Kringlewood (after Kris Kringle) because just about every house has taken on some huge versions of illumination and Christmas decoration, a phenomenon that has also caught on in the States. Traffic jams have become common due to all of the tourists coming by to take photographs and this was before the snow arrived. Just imagine what it's going to be like tonight and tomorrow. Unionville now has a rival in the Yuletide department!
It used to be an annual tradition within our household to catch as many of the Christmas animated specials that we could such as "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Another one was the Rankin-Bass production of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" which made its premiere back on December 6th 1964.
Well, sometime during that same year, the ereki band Takeshi Terauchi and His Blue Jeans（寺内タケシとブルージーンズ）came up with their first Christmas record titled "Let's Go Christmas". One track included there was a twist-friendly instrumental version of the Gene Autry 1949 original song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", and it's definitely swivel-hippingly aural fun for the whole family. It's also interesting to note that on Discogs where "Let's Go Christmas" is listed, each of the four tracks has its own distinct genre attached. You can also listen to the entire album with commentary at Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu".
I'm not sure whether this gimmick would raise the ratings for the annual Kohaku Utagassen (Edition No. 75 is due in a couple of weeks) any, but I've only just noticed that one genre that hasn't really been represented in the New Year's Eve special on NHK has been Group Sounds. Yes, perhaps the original fans for bands such as Ox and The Tigers are septuagenarians now but I know that surviving members of those groups have periodically shown up on music programs to perform their hits to good applause. Anyways, that's enough from me.
Something else that I don't see a whole lot of regarding Group Sounds is vintage footage of those bands back when they were young and long-haired. However, I did luck out with The Golden Cups（ザ・ゴールデン・カップス）, which I haven't written about in quite a while...at least not since 2016 when I posted an article about their June 1967 debut single"Itoshi no Jezebel" (いとしのジザベル).
I came across the above video for one of their cover songs, the fairly bristling "I'm So Glad". Apparently, according to one commenter for the video, the footage comes from the band documentary movie "The Golden Cups ~ One More Time"...complete with go-go dancers and in-and-out camera bobbing. The video is also cited as being from 1968 although the band website has listed a recording of "I'm So Glad" on their live album "Super Live Session" as a 1969 release.
"I'm So Glad" was released by the British rock group Cream as a track on their September 1966 debut album"Fresh Cream". On the Wikipedia article for the song, it's been categorized as an electric blues rock tune. Meanwhile, even Cream's song is itself a cover of the original Delta blues tune by Skip James in 1931.
Well, Happy Halloween to everyone out there and for the folks in Los Angeles including my friend Rocket Brown, congratulations on the Dodgers winning the World Series. For some reason, the last few times I've used the Bing AI image generator, it wouldn't abide by the "...in anime style" instruction, so instead I've gotten a live-action Kayo Grace Kyoku and Mr. Calico. Still, didn't want that to stop the lady and the cat from having some fun with Halloween.
It was last year when I started the Sheena Easton file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" via the Reminiscings of Youth series with her 1980 hit "9 to 5 (Morning Train)", the first song that I ever heard by the Scottish singer/actress on the radio. And of course, since then, she's had her series of hits. However, next to "9 to 5", the song that I've always associated with Easton has been "Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)", her August 1983 single.
By itself, "Telefone" is a catchy enough single but after hearing it as well a few times on the radio, it was the Halloween-themed music video that cemented things for me. Easton is someone who's been easy on the eyes for me and so to see her as the lady-in-distress running from the triple threat of Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and King Kong was rather amusing. Strangely enough, the single wasn't a huge hit in the UK where it only reached up to No. 84, but in Canada and the United States, it broke into the Top 10 at No. 8 and No. 9 respectively. It did hit No. 1 in Columbia, though.
Although I had already determined that "Telefone" would be the special Halloween ROY article for several months, I realized that it would be the ideal article to let folks know about the passing of actress Teri Garr a couple of days ago at the age of 79. She had been in numerous TV shows and movies including "Young Frankenstein", a movie that the music video for "Telefone" most reminded me of. The first time I saw Garr was on the second season finale of the original "Star Trek", "Assignment: Earth", as the stout-hearted if somewhat ditzy Roberta Lincoln and then of course, came all of those movies such as "Young Frankenstein", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Tootsie". As well, she was one of the few talk show guests that had me making a mental note to ensure me to watch, especially when she showed up on "Late Night with David Letterman". My condolences to her family, friends and fans.
Now, what was being released as singles in August 1983 in Japan?
Welcome to another weekly article of Reminiscings of Youth. A few years ago, I posted up the theme from the first "Casino Royale"(1967), the hot mess of a 007 spoof starring David Niven and Peter Sellers which nonetheless inspired Mike Myers'"Austin Powers" franchise. As I said in that article, I have seen the movie once and then bits and pieces on YouTube. However, what I've appreciated most about the flick is the music and that Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass theme penned by the amazing Burt Bacharach that is so infused with the Swinging 60s of Great Britain. If I were ever to get to London someday on a vacation and somehow got a Savile Row suit, I would love to walk up and down the streets with that song in my ears.
However, there was one scene in "Casino Royale" that also caught my attention because of the music and, well, Ursula Andress. I remember she was hopping all about with a bunch of shocking pink feathers and I guess the above footage only shows the seconds or so before that one scene. At the same time, there was the music which was jazzy and oh-so-sexy with a breathy voice that squeezed out "The Look of Love" as if a woman in Bubble Era Japan were trying to get out of her bodicon dress. I think the scene and the song play off of each other very well because of the languid pacing out of both of them, and considering the lunacy that precedes and follows in "Casino Royale", Sellers and Andress having a little intimate fun makes for a pretty calming oasis.
Dusty Springfield was someone that I had heard of before when I was a kid in the 1970s because of those K-Tel LP compilation commercials on television but the song that featured her (can't remember the title) had her sound a whole lot different than those vocals on "The Look of Love". The bossa nova jazz was woven together by Burt Bacharach with Hal David taking care of the lyrics, and it was even nominated for a Best Song Oscar in 1968.
Jazz pianist and vocalist Diana Krall is one of many artists who have covered "The Look of Love", and it's included as the title track for her September 2011 album. The original version was released in April 1967, so what were three songs from Japan that got their release at around the same time?
As is usually the case for me, I was doing my round of maintenance among the articles last night when I came across Noelle's 2016 article for "A rundown of the 48th Omoide no Melody (第48回 思い出のメロディー) Part 2". A few of the videos got taken down by YouTube so I had to replace them.
One such video was for Noelle's description of the performance by one of the guests on the annual NHK special who happened to be singer-songwriter Ichiro Araki（荒木一郎）. She had been expecting to hear Araki's "Itoshi no Macks ~ Macks A Go Go"(Macks, My Love) because she enjoyed actor/singer Hiroshi Tachi's（舘ひろし）cover version, but instead the original singer went with his debut single, "Sora ni Hoshi ga aru youni"(空に星があるように) .
We're going with something from seven years ago, but I'm not going to see one of my friends and fellow writers be disappointed, so allow me to bring "Itoshi no Macks" onto the KKP screen. This was his fifth single from May 1967, and true to the Group Sounds boom that was happening in the latter half of that decade, Araki made some adjustments to the melody and arrangement so that he was jangling it like any GS band. The entire song is a love paean to some lady named Macks (get that red dress for her, Ichiro!), perhaps short for Maxine or Maxie. And yep, the lyrics have the name down as "Macks" and not "Max" which I had assumed at first.
"Itoshi no Macks" may have been Araki's first big hit as it sold 1.25 million copies by some time in 1968 and got him his sole invitation to the 1967 edition of the Kohaku Utagassen. This was before the Oricon charts came out but I could imagine that the song would have hit No. 1.
To commemorate his 10th anniversary in the music business in 1976, Araki released through what was once Trio Records a revised version of "Itoshi no Macks". This one still retains the GS flavour but as the song progresses, there is more of a silky Mood Kayo element added through strings and sax.
Ahh...here is the Tachi cover which was his 1991 single. I could only find this video but it sounds like there is a bit more of a rock sheen to this one.
I only found out about this group through a tweet mourning the passing of one of its members. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one but the Tokyo Happy Coats（トーキョー・ハッピー・コーツ）apparently was a sister act of the Hakomori family consisting of Eiko, Keiko, Shouko, Tomiko and Ruriko. Trying to look them up online, a number of the articles on these ladies state first and foremost that there isn't a whole lot of information on them although writers such as Sayo Sakamoto（坂元小夜）do their level best.
And in fact, the writing has it that the Tokyo Happy Coats weren't all that well known in Japan, mostly becoming famous throughout the United States through concert tours and perhaps the odd TV appearance such as on "The Ed Sullivan Show". Their time was in the late 1960s going into the early 1970s at least as they covered the hits including jazz tunes and even the old kayo kyoku in English.
One song that I found on YouTube that got my memory engrams buzzing immediately was "Forevermore" from 1970. The reason was that it is a cover of Yuzo Kayama's（加山雄三）evergreen "Kimi to Itsumademo"（君といつまでも）from 1965 as done as a gentle guitar ballad with plenty of heartful harmonies.
Man, is it coming down out there! We've got waves of thunderstorms pummeling into the GTA today which hopefully will end by this afternoon. But the good thing is that all of the precipitation has been washing out the humidity for now.
About a month ago, I posted an article on a duo called Emi & Gel（エミとゲル）who specialize in the rock n' roll of yesteryear. Their 2023 "Setsunai Anata"（せつないあなた）, a cover of Roberto "The King" Carlos'"Se Você Pensa"(If You Think) , has been given a late 1960s psychedelic rock rearrangement. Well, as I mentioned in that article, both members, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Gel Matsuishi（松石ゲル）and vocalist and drummer Emmylee（エミーリー）, had been involved with other projects in the past.
Emmylee, for example, had another group called Emmylee & The Psyzans（エミーリー&ザ・サイザンス）as recently as 2017. Although it's just been the one song that I've heard so far, "Koi no Teppodama" (Love Bullet) was the title song for their first album released in May of that year, and although the lass and her bandmates there were also focusing on music from those same 1960s, I think from "Koi no Teppodama", the music was more Beatles with fortified oomph in their instruments. Also, for the same reason, I also got some New Wave feeling a la groups such as Plastics from the late 1970s and early 1980s.
There are a number of reasons that I actually gained weight while living in Japan instead of the opposite and probably healthier direction. One is that the average convenience store held some scrumptious snacks including various forms of chocolate. The famous company Meiji（明治製菓）was also complicit by providing some of that cacao goodness including those chocolate-covered almonds. If the product being stated on this blog sounds familiar, then you must have read yesterday's article on Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Synchronicity ~ Suteki na Guuzen"（シンクロニシティ (素敵な偶然)）since the song was used for that particular Meiji confection.
From Amazon.jp
Yeah, that's right. YOU! Damn you, Meiji Almond Chocolates and your sultry chocolatey vixen ways! That might as well be a mug shot...a mug of hot chocolate!
I have no idea how many tens of millions of Meiji chocolate products get sold annually but I know that the marketing department for the company must have cleaning up the yen all these decades including the various commercial campaigns on television. And that includes the whimsical theme song for the chocolate which was one line repeated over and over like a hypnotic mantra:
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate wa Meiji（チョコレート チョコレート チョコレイトはメイジ～ ...Chocolate is Meiji）
The first time I heard it was when the popular aidoru duo of the late 1980s going into the 1990s, Wink, sang it coquettishly for the company. My assumption had been that the jingle was made just for them.
Well, how wrong I was! The "Meiji Chocolate Theme", which is also known as "Chocolate wa Meiji"（チョコレートは明治） and "Meiji Chocolate no Uta"（明治チョコレートの歌...The Meiji Chocolate Song）, was first created by famed songwriter Taku Izumi（いずみたく）, who was also responsible for the theme song for the long-running interview show "Tetsuko no Heya"（徹子の部屋） starring Tetsuko Kuroyanagi（黒柳徹子）, in 1966. The above ads were supposedly from 1967 and it's interesting to see that the commercials feature a father and his daughter enjoying the chocolate; apparently, Mom would have stopped that habit dead in its tracks. The very first version as noted above was sung by the vocal trio The Three Graces（スリー・グレイセス）who also sang the theme song for beloved anime "Mahotsukai Sally"（魔法使いサリー）in the same year of the Meiji theme's debut.
Reading through the J-Wiki article for Meiji, the theme song has been covered over the past half-century by many singers in their individual way, and one such band who did so was none other than the Group Sounds bunch known as The Tigers（ザ・タイガーズ）with Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）at the fore.
80s aidoru Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）gave her own contributions to the "Meiji Chocolate Theme" and other songs connected with the company.
Jun Matsumoto（松本潤）of Arashi（嵐）wasn't the one singing here but the theme gets a circus-like arrangement while the lad himself and his surroundings are very reminiscent of Willy Wonka.
The above is a pretty dish of sashimi that I had with a couple of friends at a fairly fancy restaurant called Sazanka somewhere between Kameido and Shin-Koiwa Stations in Tokyo in September 2009. Good food and unfortunately, that's the only photographic evidence that I currently possess of ever being in the shitamachi neighbourhood. But then again, I couldn't have envisaged writing an article about a song in the area in my own music blog 15 years ago.
I never did a deep dive in Kameido or Shin-Koiwa all that much during my time in Tokyo. Aside from that visit to Sazanka, I think I went there perhaps one more time to meet up with another group at a local izakaya along the train tracks, but my impression was that it was an old-fashioned area suffused with the aroma of Showa. One of my students-turned-friends currently lives in the latter neighbourhood. Basically though the area was one that I mostly bypassed on the Sobu Line heading to Chiba Prefecture.
Much like I did with the retro duo Emi & Gel（エミとゲル）the other day, I had assumed that singer Yoko Nagisa（渚ようこ）was active during the late 1960s and early 1970s just from listening to her "Shin-Koiwa kara Kameido e" (From Shin-Koiwa to Kameido) and seeing that sad face above where Nagisa looked like she belonged in a fashion magazine from the aforementioned time period. Well, I was wrong once again.
The Yamagata Prefecture-born Nagisa actually made her debut in 1994 and for over twenty years, she specialized in the old-school kayo kyoku. In fact, "Shin-Koiwa kara Kameido e" is from her final album"Nagisa Strut"（渚ストラット）from September 2016. Even so, this particular song sounds like a mix of Mood Kayo and the guitar-screeching rock side of Group Sounds of the 1960s as Nagisa sings about a woman's turbulent young life in the titular neighbourhood. Lyricist Haruo Yamaguchi（山口晴男） and composer Masao Minakami（水上雅夫）were responsible for the creation of the song which really grabs that old kayo style just so. There's also something about those lyrics and the singer's delivery that reminds me of Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）and her songs of a downtrodden life in the big bad city, but Nagisa has a slightly brighter and brassier sound.
All in all, Nagisa released 17 albums and 7 singles between 1996 and 2018 which included some collaborations between her and the Crazy Ken Band (クレイジーケンバンド) . Even during that time, she was able to open her own drinking establishment, Nagisa（汀）, in Shinjuku's famed bar-filled Golden Gai in 2003. In September 2018, though, after appearing in a 20th anniversary concert for the Crazy Ken Band, she fell ill and then passed away from heart failure.
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