Heaco -- Ame no Station（雨のステイション）

 

Well, considering that earlier today I wrote about GREAT3, it's time to bring in the family connections once again. As I mentioned for the first article featuring singer Heaco, she happens to be the sister-in-law of Akito Katayose（片寄明人）from that trio of tall singer-songwriters.

Heaco only released two albums with the second one being "Perfect Circle" from November 2000, and from it is a cover of Yumi Arai's（荒井由実）"Ame no Station" (Rainy Station) which was originally from her "Cobalt Hour" album of 1975. Aside from some contemporary accoutrements, Heaco's take on one of Yuming's（ユーミン）classics pretty much follows the tempo and atmosphere of the original song, and the singer adds that nice breathy huskiness in her vocals.

It's a nice mellow tune to hear on another Monday evening, holiday or otherwise. Speaking of rain, we may be getting smacked with a thunderstorm in the next couple of days, and we could use the moisture since it's been a fairly dry May.

Heaco -- Winter Lovely Day

 

Wasn't too bad a day at all during these Holidays. It was sunny and clear with some snow still on the ground and the temperatures weren't too frigid for the average Canadian. Any opportunity to get that batch of Vitamin D will always be welcome.

Over the last number of weeks, I've been introducing what amounts to a family of singers and musicians. First off, I wrote about the band GREAT3 and then discovered that the wife of one of the members Akito Katayose（片寄明人）happened to be Chocolat, a model-turned-singer who was in the Shibuya-kei line of things and someone that I used to see in commercials a fair bit in my early days in Ichikawa.

Well, Chocolat has a twin sister who was also a model and then also became a singer by the name of Heaco. Her singing career was a brief one, though, just lasting between 1998 and 2000, but she managed to put out 4 singles and 2 albums; one of those singles, the October 1999 "Konna Watashi wo Waratte"（こんな私を笑って...Laugh at Me Like This）, included a track called "Winter Lovely Day". Now, while her sister was known for her Shibuya-kei material, Heaco has been classified on J-Wiki as a pop singer, and "Winter Lovely Day" is straight-ahead pop with some jangly guitars and Heaco's light and pleasant vocals. It actually does seem to whip up images of that nice walk during a sunny winter day in a small town.

The song is also available on her first album "One Fine Day" from November 1999. While Heaco provided the lyrics, Yasuyuki Horigome（堀込泰行）of Kirinji fame came up with the fun melody and Keiichi Tomita（冨田恵一）, aka Tomita Lab, produced the song and I'm assuming the entire single.