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.
Etsuko Sai（彩恵津子）has done her share of City Pop and J-AOR during her career, but this one favors an arrangement that was also pretty popular in the 1980s.
From her 1984 album"Reach Out", I give you "Heart wo Knock Shite" (Knock on My Heart). Composed by soul singer Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）and written by Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子）, the song has that certain languid 1950s pop vibe...kinda like Richie and Mary Beth sitting on that porch swing at night while the grown-ups are watching Uncle Miltie on TV. According to the comments underneath this particular video, it's the late great Jake H. Concepcion on the saxophone and at points, I was thinking that this was on the verge of going City Pop but then pulled back itself to its old spot a few decades earlier.
Arguably, the late singer-songwriter Lily's（りりィ）most famous song is her 1974 "Watashi ga Naiteimasu"（わたしが泣いています）, and so I've usually treated her as a 1970s folk singer. However, as has happened to many singers in Japan during that decade, she also did some wholesale genre-crossing.
She does some fine honky-tonk rock here with "Good-By City", a track from her 1983 album"Say". In fact, I was a bit surprised by how she sounded because the song reminded me more of Linda Ronstadt's material back in the previous decade It's some good-time rock n' roll which was written by Lily and composed by Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）, a person with a most gregarious personality who I usually associate with R&B. As for that album cover with those glossy lips, I frankly assumed with that design, the album was titled "Sexy" from the handwriting.
The first time I ever landed in the Big Apple was in 1993, so I was several years too late for disco and certainly as a minor (and a very uncool one, at that), I would never have gotten past the entrance into Studio 54 in Manhattan in those 1970s. But somehow, even as a kid in elementary school and then junior high school, I heard about this club which attracted all sorts including the celebs.
I was reminded of that haven of hedonism as I was listening to Rie Ida（井田リエ）& 42nd Street's single "Star" from 1980. Yep, by that year, disco was already becoming a music pariah although acts such as Earth Wind & Fire were still holding the torch and apparently, Japan never got the memo. Drummer and R&B singer Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）was responsible for words and music for this one that sounds like the aforementioned EWF and ABBA's love child as the lady in the song wants to become a star...maybe of the dance floor. The arrangement is such that she could have grabbed that brass ring simply on the melody alone.
As I type this, my room is getting ever darker and cooler since the sun is going down a whole lot faster at around 4:30 pm and we're still a few weeks away from reaching the shortest day of the year. Maybe that's not the happiest thing to point out, but it also states that we are approaching the Holidays.
Still, the music can be quite heartwarming at this time of the year which is why we have a Yuletide season on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". For example, I learned about soulful Hiro Tsunoda's（つのだ☆ひろ）"Merry Christmas Baby" from Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" podcast several months ago, and I'm happy to say that after bookmarking it all the way back in the spring, it's still with us. YouTube (knock on wood) hasn't pulled it down.
The song was originally on Tsunoda's 1991"Ballad X'mas" special album. I swear that hearing the groovy tones of the man himself (he also wrote and composed the song) along that urban contemporary arrangement of the time, this could easily be inserted into a GRP Records compilation album. At the time, the label was known mainly for its fusion and what would eventually be called smooth jazz. The images I get while listening to the oh-so-comfy "Merry Christmas Baby" are Norman Rockwell-like, but if everyone is dressed like a yuppie and drinking Chablis.
Decided to dust off the very 80s-ish self-made logo that I usually hide away.
But one guy who hasn't needed to be dusted off or hidden away is singer-songwriter-musician Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）. Rocket Brown let me know yesterday that Yoshino had celebrated his half-century of music last year with a commemorative album called "50/50" which I believe was released in September 2022.
Within the album is the title track "50/50 Fifty-Fifty" which is this quietly celebratory song created by Yoshino and lyricist Yoshihiko Ando（安藤芳彦）. It's an eight-minute bluesy pop ballad with a barrel full of guest vocalists: Hiro Tsunoda（つのだひろ）, Junko Ohashi（大橋純子）, Kiyotaka Sugiyama（杉山清貴）and Yoshimi Iwasaki（岩崎良美）. Just some good friends paying tribute who all probably headed for the local pub after recording following the comfortable vibes generated during recording.
My friend Scott from "Holly Jolly X'Masu", the podcast that deals with all things Japanese Christmas, has put up his most recent episode which deals with singer-songwriter and musician Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）and his 1991 album"Ballad Xmas". There are some really nice soulful tracks including the first one "Merry Christmas Baby", so I hope that you'll give it a try. I'll be holding "Merry Christmas Baby" for either later on in the annual KKP Xmas season or I may just post it in the dog days of summer as I sometimes do simply to remind folks that, yes Virginia, there is an Xmas season within some months.
As a bit of an aside, does anyone remember Paul Verhoeven's 1997 take on Robert A. Heinlein's"Starship Troopers"? It was tongue-in-cheek but I loved the action and I did like Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown as the rough-and-tough military men.
Had no idea about this one. Well, almost a decade earlier, there had been a 6-episode Japanese OVA created in 1988 based on "Starship Troopers" titled "Uchuu no Senshi"（宇宙の戦士...Warriors of Space）.
Despite the limited number of episodes, there were a slew of theme songs included in the OVA. One that was used for Episodes 1 and 6 in the opening and Episode 2 for the ending was Tsunoda's "Believe". Composed by the singer and written by Linda Hennrick, "Believe" has that soulful melody which could have been used for an old Miller Beer commercial when the guys have gone through a hard day of work and have earned themselves a sunset round at the nearest bar. Otherwise, the guys were space soldiers who had spent days and nights mowing down gigantic insects and now have earned a reprieve at the local canteen. It's Miller Time!🍺
Carrying on from last Wednesday, I'm continuing with the second and final part for my article on the late Kaoru Sudo's（須藤薫）"DROPS" album from November 1983. We're taking a look at Side B of the original LP today.
R&B singer-songwriter and drummer Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）comes in for a duet with Sudo for "Uwasa no Futari"（噂のふたり...That Couple）. It's a Motown-inflected City Pop tune that was composed by Tsunoda himself and arranged by Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）with Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）on the lyrics. As the title says, it's all about a couple having their time on the town and if folks notice their carousing, so be it. Jake H. Concepcion is on the sax solo.
"Hirusagari No Yuuwaku"（昼下がりの誘惑...Afternoon Temptation） is another Arikawa-penned song, and it may feature the same couple from "Uwasa no Futari". The lovey-dovey stuff continues as the two of them in their respective companies despite their usual busy schedules still try to keep in contact by the old-fashioned landline telephone. Matsutoya is also behind the old-style pop arrangement but this time, it's Kiyonori Matsuo（松尾清憲）who composed the jaunty melody.
The upbeat Motown comes back with "LITTLE SHORT ON LOVE", a happy-sounding ditty surrounding a bittersweet story of a woman with a bit of a chip on her shoulder as the man she has in her sights doesn't have her in his sights. And the frustration and jealousy (he's talking with another woman during the song) begin swelling. Arikawa is once again the lyricist here but it's Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）on both melody and arrangement. Jake H. is back along with Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）on trumpet and EVE as the back chorus.
The final track on the LP is "Ame no Naka no Funsui"（雨の中の噴水）with Shun Taguchi（田口俊）as the lyricist. A lady is in the rain, perhaps in her floaty delusion waiting for a Prince Charming who may never come to her assistance with his own umbrella. Maybe he's just a friend to see her for a lunch date or something, with the walk under two umbrellas, but someday she'll get to share his. Regardless of the happy/sad situation, the music and arrangement, once again by Hayashi, is top-notch mellow City Pop or J-AOR, if you wish. Sudo's vocals flow wonderfully with the music as Kazuhara handles the fluegelhorn this time, and on backup, there is Hayashi himself along with Yasuhiro Kido（木戶泰弘）and Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）. For some reason, the dreamy sax solo isn't mentioned in the liner notes, but I'm pretty sure that it's Jake H. once more.
I know that "DROPS" wasn't the final album by Sudo by any means, but there's a certain poignancy listening to "Ame no Naka no Funsui" as the original final track (bonus tracks were added onto the remastered version in later years) considering her untimely passing nearly ten years ago. "DROPS" reached No. 49 on Oricon. As we've seen and heard, the album is a mix of pleasing styles evoking the old days.
Time for a down-and-dirty 1970s City Pop/New Music song so there's nothing like a good Kentaro Shimizu（清水健太郎）tune. "Kaeranai" (Not Coming Home) was actor/singer Shimizu's 2nd single following his hit debut of "Shitsuren Resutoran" (失恋レストラン）and this was released in April 1977.
The story of a romance gone rancid, I really like the funky arrangement by Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）of R&B singer Hiro Tsunoda's（つのだひろ）melody. It does sound like good ol' Tokyo of the 1970s and maybe this could have belonged as a theme to some cop show although the lyrics of a breakup wouldn't have fit the program. Tsunoda was also responsible for those lyrics that make it sound like both parties didn't particularly mind things ending the way they did and perhaps they are now much more relieved. Regardless, romantic self-destruction seldom sounds this cool.
"Kaeranai" won Shimizu a Best New Artist prize at the All-Japan Cable Broadcast Awards for that year, and it was the singer's 2nd consecutive No. 1 hit following "Shitsuren Resutoran". It's been noted that Shimizu was the first singer in Oricon history to have his first two singles become No. 1 hits. For 1977, "Kaeranai" was the 12th-ranked single.
Over the Holidays, I received a very nice gift from fellow contributor JTM in the form of a US-compiled City Pop album titled "Pacific Breeze". Was pleasantly surprised since I hadn't been aware of any such collections being created Stateside although I should have been due to the genre's rise outside of Japan in the past few years. Very City Pop cover, may I add.
The final track on this compilation is Tazumi Toyoshima's（豊島たづみ）"Machibouke" (Waiting in Vain), and from the title, I would say that the lyrics are probably not the happiest but the music is plenty funky. Both were supplied by Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）(I used Daemonskald's technique of searching for image scans of album liner notes), so the funkiness is explained right there. One commenter wrote that the opening bars of "Machibouke" sounded like the theme for an 80s cop show (either in America or Japan) which I laughed it in understanding. There is that indeed that feeling of "Let's go get those scumbags, partner!" with those horns declaring the good guys getting into gun-toting action.
Originally, "Machibouke" was a track on Toyoshima's April 1979 2nd album"Tomadoi Twilight"（とまどいトワイライト）whose dreamier title track is arguably her most famous contribution. As for "Pacific Breeze", a lot of the tracks have already been covered in the blog but there are a few more for me to explore. Interestingly enough, there is even a Wikipedia article on the compilation so that you can find out what some of the other tracks are.
Slow dance, guys! Lights are down low and that disco ball is sending beams of light onto couples swirling so close together that parents would be breaking into a sweat.
Yep, that's how I think ofHiro Tsunoda's（つのだ☆ひろ）"Mary Jane". It's like that one slow song to relax the guys and gals down after a series of fast tunes. My first exposure to it was on an anniversary special of The Tunnels' Thursday-night variety show, "Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Desu"（とんねるずのみなさんのおかげです）, and for some reason, regular member Marina Watanabe had to slow dance with Checkers' Fumiya Fujii in a rather awkward moment while the song was playing.
Since then, I've heard the song off-and-on over the years. And the golden vocals behind "Mary Jane", Hiro Tsunoda (full name: Hirotami Tsunoda...角田博民) has been an occasional presence on TV, almost reaching tarento status. He is a singer, composer, lyricist and drummer...the complete package who originally hails from Fukushima Prefecture. Making his debut as a professional drummer while in high school, he started in the late 1960s as a member of jazz unit The Mitsuhiko Sato Trio, after which he jointly appeared with bands such as Akai Tori（赤い鳥）, Sadistic Mika Band（サディスティック・ミカ・バンド）,Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）and Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）along with others. He also wrote and composed another 70skayo classic, "Shitsuren Resutoran"（失恋レストラン）for actor/singer Kentaro Shimizu（清水健太郎）. Another notable thing about Tsunoda is that he was also the deep sultry voice in the intro for Akemi Ishii's（石井明美）first big hit, "Cha-Cha-Cha" in the mid-80s (never mentioned that piece of trivia in the original article).
But Tsunoda will always be known for "Mary Jane". While the song was composed by Tsunoda, Fujio Hasumi（蓮見不二男）wrote the lyrics pining for the title character under his pseudonym of Christopher Lyn. Originally appearing on the album "Oshima ga Chikyuu ni Yatte Kita Hi"（大島が地球にやってきた日...The Day The Big Island Came To Earth）by Tsunoda's old band Strawberry Pass in June 1971, it had a longer title, "Mary Jane On My Mind" before it got slightly more truncated. Although it has that 50s ballad feeling, I think it also possesses a certain timeless quality since whenever I've heard it on TV, it never came across as dated. And Tsunoda himself has got that certain larger-than-life quality as that one shibui/cool dude.
That term "timeless" often signifies a lot of covers of the song. And folks like the late Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）and Yoko Oginome（荻野目洋子）have given "Mary Jane" their tribute. One of the big surprises, though, was finding out that the American vocal group The Platters performed one of the early cover versions of the song back in 1976. Yes...The Platters of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" fame.
I had some extra points in my CD Japan account following that spending surge on its website for Xmas, so of course, I took full advantage of my status and did a bit more shopping. One of the two discs that I trained my target scope on happened to the one pictured above: "Moonlight Island" by husky-voiced Haruko Kuwana（桑名晴子）. I first saw this listed in "Japanese City Pop" and wondered about the tracks in it. Looking at the cover, I had also assumed that the designer must have pulled out part of a photo of a bathing beauty from the 1940s....except that it was actually the lower half of Kuwana herself (oops!). In sheepish apology, I do have to say that she had nice gams in that photo.
"Moonlight Island" was Kuwana's 4th album from 1982, and it is an album of cover songs of New Music material given an urban sheen. The one reason I decided to pull the trigger on this one was on the strength of her cover of Bread & Butter's"Ano Koro no Mama"（あの頃のまま）which I found on YouTube and is one of the tracks of this album.
Another winning track is her version of the New Music/City Pop classic, "Downtown" originally by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）. The video above is actually another songstress doing the Kuwana version (a cover of a cover, as it were), but notice that I did not use the word "unfortunately" at the beginning of this sentence. It is a good take of how I heard it in "Moonlight Island". The Kuwana version is in English (lyrics by Linda Hennrick) and skews a bit more to the 1975 Yamashita arrangement rather than the 1980 update for EPO's debut. Still, no complaints from me here though when push comes to shove, I'll always go with the Princess of City Pop.
"I Love You" is a track that was written in English in the first place as a B-side to soulful Hiro Tsunoda's（つのだ☆ひろ）1973 single,"Mary Jane". Tsunoda was the composer here with Christopher Lyn as the lyricist. Kuwana does a fine job with her vocals, and liner notes in her album mention that this is probably not the only time that "I Love You" has been covered.
Another lovely ballad from the album is "Yoru no Umi"(夜の海...Night Ocean) which is a cover of her late brother's (Masahiro Kuwana...桑名正博) song from his debut album "Who Are You?" (1976). Much like the rest of the songs on "Moonlight Island", Halko's version has that soiree feel of 80s City Pop compared to her brother's quiet Latin-tinged original. But after listening to the live version above, you can listen to both siblings' takes in the video below. By the way, Halko was the backing vocal on Masahiro's original.
Considering my early impression that this was a pretty rare album, I think I'm pretty lucky to have been able to find the videos for the tracks on "Moonlight Island". Like any new purchase, some of the songs leaped right out at me while others I'll have to break in gently. Still, I'm happy to have spent my points on Haruko. I may even be interested in investing in her debut album from 1978, "Million Stars".
My two new purchases, Haruka Kuwana
and Ginji Ito
P.S. July 22 2019: Come Along Radio has provided his own take on the album on Reddit.
Kentaro Shimizu（清水健太郎） started out as an actor and tarento when he got his big musical break with "Shitsuren Resutoran"(Heartbreak Restaurant). Written and composed by R&B singer Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ） (he was the deep voice at the very beginning of Akemi Ishii's 1986 hit "Cha-Cha-Cha"), the song is a kayo kyokufunk classic with all of the Fender Rhodes piano and guitar and horns....just has that cool urban sound that I enjoyed in 70s Japanese pop.
Released in November 1976, Shimizu's debut single was a monster hit which spent a month at the top of the Oricon charts in 1977, and became the 9th-ranking song of that year. He also won the Newcomer's Award at the Japan Record Awards and an invitation to perform at that year's Kohaku Utagassen.
