Mariko Takahashi -- Mo Ichido Romance ~ Machikado Monogatari（もいちどロマンス ～街角物語）

 

As I pointed out in the September 2014 article for Mariko Takahashi's（高橋真梨子）1984 album "Triad", this was the first album by her that I got in the form of an audiotape when my parents had granted my wish for a couple of her albums after returning from Japan on vacation back in 1985. This was after hearing her magnificent voice a number of times via the CHIN-FM radio program "Sounds of Japan". She really stood out like a blossom in the pop field when compared to YMO's technopop and Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）aidoru music.

Although I covered a number of tracks on "Triad", and separately, another track and one of Takahashi's biggest hits "Momo Iro Toiki"（桃色吐息）, I'm happy to say that I hadn't done this particular song which ends Side A of the album. "Mo Ichido Romance ~ Machikado Monogatari" (Romance One More Time ~ A Street Corner Tale") is a poignant ballad about hoping for and perhaps getting that second chance at love in a small neighbourhood. The lady has seen her former beau on the streets but not made eye contact, afraid that powerful emotions may well up once more.

Written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）, composed by Issei Okamoto（岡本 一生）under his new moniker of Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）, and arranged by Keiichi Oku（奥慶一）, "Mo Ichido Romance" is a quiet down-home ballad which is as sweet as the meet-cute-again possibilities in the story. It indeed contrasts as the B-side with the smoky exotica of "Momo Iro Toiki" which was released as a single in May 1984.

Issei Okamoto -- Moon Magic（ムーン・マジック）

 

If I'm not mistaken, September is the month for all things lunar in Asia. People seem to enjoy viewing the moon and stuff, and of course, McDonalds sells its famous tsukimi burgers during that time.

All the way back in 2019, I posted the first article for singer-songwriter Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, later to be known as Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）, which focused on the title track for his July 1978 debut album "Moonlight Singing"（ムーンライト・シンギィング）. Well, I've got another track from the album.

Just to let you know, "Moon Magic" is the only other track on "Moonlight Singing" that has that moony theme, lest you might think Okamoto went all lunatic on us. As I was listening to this breezy disco tune created and sung by Okamoto, whom I noted sounded like a Japanese Bobby Caldwell on the title track, there was something more Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）in his delivery with "Moon Magic". Well, coincidentally enough, Tats was indeed involved as the guitarist, percussionist and the arranger. In fact, there were some very famous names in the recording studio with Okamoto: Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）on keyboards, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）on bass, Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）on guitar, and Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）on drums. 

Ruika Kurahashi -- Taxi wa Konai（タクシーは来ない）

 

It didn't happen often since most nights I was able to get home by the Tokyo Metro fairly easily and early enough, especially when the powers-that-be finally allowed the trains and subways to extend their ending times a bit further past midnight. What I'm talking about is whenever I did miss that final Tozai Line subway back to Chiba Prefecture. The last couple of trains around the witching hour tended to only go as far as Toyocho Station（東陽町駅）in Koto Ward, Tokyo, which is several stations away from my station, Minami-Gyotoku（南行徳駅）in Ichikawa City.

So, that means when I missed that third-last Tozai train, I was kinda screwed...or I was going to be out several thousand yen because my only choice around midnight was the taxi. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of other commuters who were heading home late as well so there would be a long beeline of folks waiting patiently for that cab outside of Toyocho Station. Meanwhile, there was always some suspicious guy in a dark coat inquiring up and down the line whether they would be willing to take that "private" taxi home. It wasn't part of the regulated chains and it was always the case that the driver would charge a whole lot more yen for the ride home, but usually that was about the worst of the damage...just to one's wallet. I never got that desperate...but it was still about 4,500 to 5,000 yen for a regular taxi to my neck of the woods from Toyocho.

Anyways, my preamble ramble is for this lovely and elegant ballad, "Taxi wa Konai" (The Taxi Won't Come) by Ruika Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ華）. Yep, you read it correctly and this isn't a misspelling on my part for those relatively new Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）fans. For some odd reason, when her December 1987 album "Sailing ~ Kyou yori Eien ni"（今日より永遠に...From Today to Eternity） was released, it was decided that the given name of her stage name would get a swap out of that final vowel from "o" to "a". That little bit of phonetic weirdness was rectified by her next album, though.

In any case, "Taxi wa Konai" is the type of urban sophisticated balladry that Kurahashi could bat out of the ballpark like Shohei Otani（大谷翔平）. Maybe the lass would take a regular cab home but she herself would be dripping in fur coat and jewelry and Chanel No. 5. While Kumiko Yoshizawa（吉澤久美子）took care of the lyrics, Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, under his current name of Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）, was the composer of the music that sounded downright nocturnal Parisian with the piano rhythm and then those strings. As I said, this is quintessential Kurahashi, whether she be Ruiko or Ruika.

Yuki Saito -- Christmas Night

 

Did forget to mention that along with all of the meteorological sturm und drang in our province right now, Japan has been getting swamped with heavy snow all over the place, especially Niigata Prefecture, so I definitely would like to send out my sympathies to all those affected there.

One thing that is still on my wish list of things to do is visit the community of Unionville just north of Toronto since it has an annual Christmas market that is probably getting back in gear after a couple of years of the pandemic. I was in Unionville back about 20 years ago when my brother got married so there were some photos taken in the scenic area, but I've never been there during the Yuletide season. My impression is that nights during that time there are pretty much Christmas Eve every night (it's just too bad that the above video by Lvfree Adventures only has daytime footage of Unionville).

Again, I've never been to Unionville during late December evenings so I don't know what it's really like, but I get my own impressions of them when I hear Yuki Saito's（斉藤由貴）"Christmas Night", her 12th single released in November 1988. Her whispery voice and the delicate arrangement of Akira Okamoto's（岡本朗）melody paint that mood of a hushed snowy night of the Holidays when a couple realizes their love for each other. It's a tad strange though that the music gets a bit eerie in the middle for some reason.

"Christmas Night" reached No. 49 on Oricon and it was also a track on Saito's 6th studio album "PANT" which was actually released earlier in March 1988 with a No. 4 ranking on Oricon. I've got no idea why an album would be called "PANT" except that the producers caught a glimpse of an overly warm dog. Now as for Akira Okamoto, he was once known as Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, a person who had his own dalliances in the City Pop field.

Hideki Saijo -- Real Time（リアルタイム）

 

It is indeed Urban Contemporary Friday on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and it's been a while since I put up a Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）song, so for all of you Hideki fans on Twitter, this is your night.

"Real Time" is a track from Saijo's July 1985 album "Twilight Made...Hideki" and it was later the B-side to his 52nd single "Beat Street" which was released later in September that year. "Real Time" is a really fascinating number; it starts out ominously with that heartbeat before germinating into what I would call quite a kakkoii techno City Pop song with even a fleeting sensation of old kayo. 

I have to admit that Saijo's soaring vocals in the refrain did give me the shivers in a good way, and there is something in the arrangement which had me wondering at first whether the following folks were involved: Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）, Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）. Well, it turns out that none of them had anything to do with "Real Time". It was actually Masako Arimoto（有川正沙子）behind the lyrics while the melody master here was Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）, who was once known as Issei Okamoto（大谷和夫）, another City Pop fellow earlier in his career in the late 1970s going into the 1980s. Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）took care of the arrangement.

(Sorry, the "old guy" video was taken down.)

Yep, I also want to know why Hideki was done up like an old guy for his performance of "Real Time". Maybe you Twitter fans can enlighten all of us.😀 Regardless, you can also check out this song's track mate on "Twilight Made...Hideki", "Halation".

ANNA -- Anna ni Koi Shita（あんなに恋した）

 

Going into the final full week of July 2022, perhaps we can start "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with a spicy Latin number. 

Yesterday, I wrote about Anna Banana（アンナ・バナナ）for the first time and one of her songs from the early 1990s. Lo and behold, I discovered another ANNA but with no last name and in full caps, and I was pleasantly surprised that she does have her own J-Wiki providing a few social media links. She hails from Chiba Prefecture and is currently a radio personality and a narrator.

However in the mid-1990s and for some years after that, she was also a singer with eight singles and two albums. From her second album, the March 1998 "Stories", here is her track "Anna ni Koi Shita" which could be a cute intentional pun in that it means either "I Fell So Much In Love" or "I Fell In Love With Anna". As you can hear, it's dance club form of exciting samba about ANNA herself possibly finding love and intrigue in Brazil. There's even some faint hint of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana".

From that J-Wiki article, I found out that ANNA had been part of Toshiki Kadomatsu's（角松敏生）VOCALAND project between 1996 and 1997 to introduce new female singers. Kadomatsu was also behind the production of "Stories" with Akio Inoue（井上秋緒）providing lyrics and Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）composing the samba. When Okamoto was himself a singer under the name Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, he was quite happy with the City Pop in the late 1970s onwards with gems like "Midnight Station".

ANNA has an active blog and has been jockeying the Chiba Prefecture-based bayfm program "miracle!!" ever since it started in 2008. Below is a September 2016 broadcast.

Yuko Ohtaki -- Yokohama Ni-juu-yo-ji（YOKOHAMA 24時）/Yokohama Headlight（YOKOHAMA・ヘッドライト）

 

I had the A-side of Yuko Ohtaki's（大滝裕子）August 1980 3rd single "Yokohama Ni-juu-yo-ji" (Yokohama Midnight) on the backlog for a while and when I checked out her J-Wiki article for any details, I discovered that she and the other powers-that-be behind the single made both sides a Yokohama double whammy. Not that I would ever complain since I do love the bayside city and usually when I come across a song with Yokohama in the title, I expect some City Pop vibes.

Well, my assumption batted .500. Side A "Yokohama Ni-juu-yo-ji" surprised me at first with some synthesizer bloppiness. In fact, I'd say that the song is not a City Pop tune at all but something more along the lines of New Wave (although not on YMO technopop levels) with some rock guitar thrown in. Images of Blondie and some of those bands from the early 1980s started dancing around in my head. Though the single was released in August, it had already found existence through Ohtaki's one-and-only album "Million Kiss"（ミリオン・キス）which came out earlier in March of that year. Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）was behind the lyrics while Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）and Akira Inoue（井上鑑）handled music and arrangement respectively.

The B-side, "Yokohama Headlight", is also a track on "Million Kiss". Okamoto and Inoue were also responsible for the shaping of its melody while Chinfa Kan（康珍化）provided the lyrics, and this time, that .500 assumption of City Pop goodness is because of this particular song which has the genre tropes through the rhythm and instrumentation. And interestingly enough, I think that "Yokohama Headlight" is somewhat transitional in that there is that 1970s City Pop flute work in there while the keyboards and certain chords are more reminiscent of the urban contemporary of the early 1980s. For both songs, it's noteworthy that the title has the city name in romaji rather than its kanji of 「横浜」. I can only speculate that Ohtaki and her producers may have wanted to emphasize that these sides were showing off the modern Western pop elements.

Finally, to wrap up, the other notable thing is the look of Ohtaki herself. For the "Million Kiss" album cover, she looks like a cool tomboyish high school kid on holiday while on the cover for the "Yokohama Ni-juu-yo-ji" single, Ohtaki appears as if she should be manning the announcer's desk at a television station.

 

Issei Okamoto -- Coat ni Sumire wo（コートにすみれを）

 

As a present from one of my students years ago, I was given a small sheaf of gift certificates worth about 10,000 yen that I could spend at just about every department store that was in existence in the Tokyo and Chiba areas. Well, I decided that I could just walk the ten minutes from my humble abode in Ichikawa to the neighbourhood Daiei store, and it was there that I spend the whole wad on this long black trench coat that I thought would look pretty good over a suit. And it did! I'm also happy to note that this coat that I got well over a decade ago is still hanging in my closet in fine condition. For that matter, the coat doesn't flinch from the usual frigid temperatures in Toronto.

To be honest, I forget which brand my coat represents. Maybe it's a Sanyo coat that seems to be getting the lion's share of praise as this trench coat brand. The company has been around since 1946 and I've got a feeling that it doesn't really have anything directly to do with the more famous Sanyo brand for appliances.

I was remarking to the uploader, Yoshio Takemoto（竹本善雄）, how much I loved the swing jazz intro and overall arrangement of this particular song "Coat ni Sumire wo" (A Violet in the Coat). There's nothing that says a classy night out on the town than some swing jazz, and in this case, singer-songwriter Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）was behind this whole ball of wax with Chinfa Kan（康珍化）handling the lyrics. Instrumentalist Naoya Matsuoka（松岡直也）took care of the arrangements.

Okamoto has been known for his City Pop material in the late 1970s and early 1980s such as his Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）-reminiscent "Midnight Station Hotel" (1980), but he also had his jazzy stuff right from his 1978 debut single "Moonlight Singing"（ムーンライト・シンギィング）. I guess that I can say that he is Japan's version of Bobby Caldwell? Anyways, "Coat ni Sumire wo" , Okamoto's March 1982 third and final single, was meant as the commercial campaign song for Sanyo Coats to stress the class and timelessness of their products. I certainly wouldn't mind traipsing down Omotesando to a dinner party while wearing my dress coat bought through gift certificates and listening to this one.

Little River Band -- Reminiscing

 

I believe that I've had this Reminiscings of Youth gig going for the better part of two years, so it's a natural that I should have this particular song as the topic for this ROY article.

"Reminiscing" was a song by Little River Band that had a lot of airplay on the radio stations in Toronto when I was a kid, and before I picked up on all of the jargon that goes with music genres, I thought it a rather strange tune initially since it was a pop tune that suddenly got jazzy for a couple of seconds. Of course, being that age, reminiscing was a concept that I had yet to cotton onto with so many decades ahead of me.

Now that I'm at the proper age to reminisce and I've gone through years appreciating and re-appreciating a lot of the AOR from way back when on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, Little River Band's most famous single from June 1978 strikes me as something that is as smooth as silk and goes down like a glass of really good sake...Hakkaisan, perhaps. And I've figured out why the band's guitarist, Graeham Goble, who created "Reminiscing" put in that Big Band riff.

"Reminiscing" hit No. 1 on Canada's RPM Adult Contemporary chart and No. 7 on the regular singles chart while in America, it was up to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. No wonder I got to hear it so often on the old radio. For me, the other big surprises regarding this song is realizing that Little River Band actually hails from Australia and not the United States as I had assumed and that John Lennon himself regarded "Reminiscing" as one of his favourites while he was dating May Pang during a time when he and Yoko Ono had called a temporary timeout on their relationship. I didn't even know that there was an official music video for the song.

Well, checking out the Showa Pops singles release chart for June 1978, I did find a few singles that are already up here on KKP, although they were supposedly released in the previous month of May according to their J-Wiki articles.

Momoe Yamaguchi -- Playback Part 2 （プレイバック・パート２）

Junko Yagami -- Sayonara no Kotoba （さよならの言葉）

Issei Okamoto -- Moonlight Singing（ムーンライト・シンギィング）

(8:07)

Miki Matsubara -- Sannin de Odoranai（三人で踊らない）

 

As mentioned in my last article, I got together with City Pop expert Van Paugam in a podcast earlier this afternoon to talk on some of the works of the late Miki Matsubara（松原みき）, and those included her first six albums released in the 1980s during her career. I had a chance to go through those albums and one of them was "Myself" which came out in March 1982.

Curiously enough, I don't think that I had ever chosen a track from this album for the blog before so this would indeed be fresh territory. And good territory as well since I enjoyed almost every track on "Myself". In fact, arrangement and performance of all of the tracks were done by the American fusion band Dr. Strut, a group of session musicians from both the East Coast and West Coast who formed up in 1977 to push some envelopes. They enjoyed a good deal of popularity in Japan, apparently, and so they got the gig for "Myself" and for Matsubara's previous album "-Cupid-" in 1981, Dr. Strut had been the backing band for the Side A tracks.

Track 2 is "Sannin de Odoranai" which literally translates as "Three Don't Dance" but perhaps I could posit that it means "Three's A Crowd". From what I could understand of the lyrics by Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子）, one "corner" of the love triangle has a major decision to make to revert this shape back to a line segment. The music is provided by singer-songwriter in the City Pop field Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）. He and Dr. Strut create a nicely refined number with a moody intro and a fairly cheerful main melody with a touch of Latin class. There may be a painful rejection taking place but it's happening in the background of some cool music. However, there is also a sudden injection of an upbeat jazz interlude thanks to Dr. Strut's David Woodford and his honey-toned sax.

Issei Okamoto -- Machi no Seikatsu（街の生活）

 

Seeing that the previous article for Agnes Chan's 1985 "Tasogare Monogatari"（黄昏物語）was concocted by composer Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）, I figure that it's time to bring back one of his old ditties.

(22:15)

Back then, he went by the stage name of Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）and his first representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" was through his debut single "Moonlight Singing"（ムーンライト・シンギィング）which was also the title track for his debut album coming out in June 1978. I found another fascinating track on "Moonlight Singing" which is called "Machi no Seikatsu" (City Life).

I call it fascinating since this song to which he provided words and music expresses itself as a hybrid of sorts. The first few seconds show off that City Pop including that representative Fender Rhodes sparkly riff and some sophistication with the strings before "Machi no Seikatsu" then reveals itself with this odd toy-store marching drumbeat and muted horns which sound as if they came off of a Henry Mancini soundtrack. The inclusion of a honey-toned saxophone and a Latin guitar contribute not to a cacophony but a hearty variety of what Okamoto feels is the usual melding of lifestyles in the city. It's what I would find through a day-long walk through Tokyo as partially shown through the thumbnail photo of the Omotesando-Aoyama intersection at the top. Yep, plenty of different things to see and do in the big megalopolis.

Agnes Chan -- Tasogare Monogatari（黄昏物語）

 

When it comes to the Agnes Chan（アグネス・チャン）file on KKP, I've only written about her 1970s aidoru songs so it was a revelation coming across this particular song.

The album is "Ai ga Mitsukarisou ~ CITY ROMANCE"（愛が見つかりそう CITY ROMANCE...On the Verge of Love） which is a 1985 release by Chan, and it's safe to say that this is no longer the aidoru Agnes behind the mike here. Just from viewing the cover, the Hong Kong-born singer was going for a more mature approach. I had always envisioned her in a frilly white dress but she went for very stylish black, and the lettering for the title gave off a big sign of urban contemporary.

"CITY ROMANCE" has as its first track "Tasogare Monogatari" (Sunset Story), a love ballad that brings together an arrangement reminiscent of some of that West Coast pop feeling. I've heard similar things with 80s aidoru such as Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）when they were pushing the envelope, so to speak, at around the same time. Written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子） and composed by Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）, who had once gone by the moniker Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, I actually wrestled in my first few listenings to "Tasogare Monogatari" whether this actually fell into the City Pop realm instead of it being purely pop. There may be some disagreement with my final decision, but I think what finally got me to go for both genres (plus AOR) in Labels is the last half when the romantic saxophone joined those keyboards; there was simply something about the ballad that struck me as being rather "City Hunter" via a drive in a taxi in Shinjuku.

When I went a bit deeper into "CITY ROMANCE" and listened to some of the subsequent tracks, I could still hear that voice of Chan that I heard back from her early days as an aidoru. However with "Tasogare Monogatari", if I hadn't seen that cover and not been told who it was, I wouldn't have recognized the singer as Agnes Chan. For the lack of a better word, her vocals seemed to have taken on some more gravitas.

Issei Okamoto -- Midnight Station Hotel

 

Because I can safely say that City Pop is here to stay within the gigantic realm of World Music, we can also perhaps dig further into some of the unknown and unsung artisans hidden in the bottom nine-tenths of the iceberg. I mentioned one fellow a couple of years ago who went under the name Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, although he now goes by Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）.

Approximately 18 months ago, I wrote about the singer-songwriter and the title track from his 1978 debut album "Moonlight Singing", which was more along the lines of a jazzy Bobby Caldwell.

Well, last weekend, I was having a conversation with Rocket Brown of Come Along Radio and he told me about his April 1980 2nd album "Moonlight Mystery". He even recommended one track from the album which was "Midnight Station Hotel", and it's quite the banger. This time, it seems as if Okamoto was channeling some Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）or Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）in his vocals, albeit a bit breathier, and he's surrounded by all of the ingredients for some good ol' City Pop: sharp horns, wailing guitar, good bass and a funky beat.

Okamoto and lyricist Chinfa Kan（康珍化）came up with the words while Okamoto himself provided the fine melody. My compliments as well to the person who came up with the cover for "Moonlight Mystery".

Kei Marimura -- Watashi dake no Le Mans（私だけのル・マン）

I first heard about Kei Marimura（真梨邑ケイ）since she had a splendid song on one of the "Good Times Diva" series CDs that I'd been collecting for a few years in Japan. Unfortunately, I have yet to find that song but she's still got plenty of tunes represented on YouTube.

Marimura is a jazz singer, TV/movie actress, novelist and porn actress. Yep, you read that last one correctly. I figured that I might as well get that particular occupation out of the way.

From what I've seen of her discography on her J-Wiki profile, the Tokyo-born actress has released many albums but only 4 singles up to 2016. From her 1985 album "Tiempo de Amor", here is "Watashi dake no Le Mans" (Le Mans Just For Me). Outside of the famous motor race, I know next to nothing about this French city, but from how Marimura's song sounds (shimmery light Latin Resort Pop with some jazzy highlights), it seems like there is a very pleasant high life there, although she is mentioning aspects of that race. Maybe it's like Monte Carlo?

Well, we'll just have to take a look, won't we? In any case, "Watashi dake no Le Mans" was written by Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）and composed by Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）. Okamoto had a stage name earlier in his singing career, Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, and he's got an entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", "Moonlight Singing".

Issei Okamoto -- Moonlight Singing（ムーンライト・シンギィング）

Nope, sorry...not much of a moon picture but that's the best that I could do.

(8:07)

I found this one on the YouTube channel for Kimi no Station recently, and it's the July 1978 debut album for the current composer Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）, "Moonlight Singing". Back then, he was known as Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, hailing from the city of Kure in Hiroshima Prefecture. From the tracks that I've listened to so far, it looks like he was going for some of the more modern genres of the time such as New Music, AOR and City Pop.

His first single, also titled "Moonlight Singing", had come out a couple of months earlier in May. This is more of the classy-night-on-Long-Island type of jazz...pretty nice for a quiet Friday evening, and I couldn't help but feel that there was something (not exact, though) of the Japanese version of Bobby Caldwell in Okamoto's delivery. Methinks that if he had actually performed this on some sort of variety show, he would have been in black tie and tails with a dance partner on stage....rather a different image than the one shown on the cover for the album.

Up to this point, according to his J-Wiki profile, he's released 3 singles and 3 albums. As a composer under both of his names, he's provided music for a number of other artists such as Hiromi Ohta（太田裕美）, Miki Matsubara（松原みき）and Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）.