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.
Showing posts with label Junichi Kawauchi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Junichi Kawauchi. Show all posts
When I first discovered singer-songwriter Junichi Kawauchi（河内淳一）a few years ago through his 1988 sophomore single "Koi ni Ochita Hi ~ Anyday You Love Me"（恋に落ちた日）, I found him to be a City Pop/J-AOR crooner along the lines of Yudai Suzuki（鈴木雄大）and Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）.
Recently, I encountered his contribution to the Christmas collection. In October 1991, he released "Hello Mr. Santa Claus" which has a pop/rock vibe approaching Being levels of musicality. Its relaxed and somewhat hushed arrangement (despite the wailing electric guitar) strikes me as being so 1990s that I'm sure that it was probably used in a commercial somewhere on television. Shouta Namikawa*（並河祥太）provided the lyrics while Kawauchi came up with the melody.
*I couldn't get any confirmation on the proper reading of that family name since it has a number of readings according to "Jisho.org". If anyone can confirm or correct me on this, please let me know.
We are just about finished with the first month of 2023 and it's been an unusually warm January thus far although today has actually frozen over with something seasonal. Heck of a time to put up a summery song, but perhaps some people might appreciate some vicarious sun worshipping.
I was doing some more backlog sweeping and found that a Junichi Kawauchi（河内淳一）video for which I'd already written about the song a few years ago was still lingering there, so I got rid of that one. Then I decided to see if I could track down another Kawauchi song since I did enjoy his "Koi ni Ochita Hi ~ Anyday You Love Me"（恋に落ちた日）from 1988.
Sure enough, it didn't take long at all to find "Kimi no Hitomi Ippai no Natsu" (Summer Filled with Your Eyes), a Kawauchi single that came out in June 1992. It certainly sounds like a 1990s summertime song with the wailing electric guitar in there. I swore that the singer had become part of the Being label, but actually, it was Fun House behind its production. Another notable point is that Kiyotaka Sugiyama（杉山清貴）provided lyrics (with Kawauchi handling the melody) for another singer's song for the first time here. No idea whether "Kimi no Hitomi Ippai no Natsu" was used for a commercial, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been used to hawk something like Pocari Sweat or any other drink to slake one's thirst.
Looks like we've got our second "Yu" singer for today. Earlier this afternoon, I wrote up on Yu Hayami（早見優）since she's celebrating a birthday, and now here is seiyuu Yu Mizushima（水島裕）.
According to his J-Wiki profile, he's been playing anime characters since 1976 but he has also been dubbing for specific actors in Hollywood movies, one being Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in the NTV broadcasts of the original "Star Wars" trilogy. Now, the video here doesn't specifically state that it is indeed the Fukuoka-born Mizushima dubbing Hamill although when I punched his name and "Star Wars" into the YouTube search engine, this is what I got.
However, I'm not here to go ga-ga over the Japanese dubbed version of "The Empire Strikes Back". Mizushima also released his own set of singles and albums beginning all the way back in 1972; yes, I know that his seiyuu career didn't begin until 1976 but apparently he released his first single that year under a different stage name. Actually, his real name is Kenji Noda（野田憲司）.
Anyways, his final album to date was "Mujaki na Kankei"（無邪気な関係...An Innocent Relationship） from 1985 and doesn't he look cute in that candy-cane rugby outfit? I don't know whether the entire album is City Pop or J-AOR, but one track on Side A, "Autumn Wind", certainly has that vibe. I kinda figure with the cooler weather today and our distance toward the first day of fall getting smaller everyday, it was time to pull out the seasonal tunes. Besides, City Pop Fridays is upon us so why not get started several hours early?
Written by Tamamitsu Akaoni/Akaki（赤鬼玉光）and composed by Junichi Kawauchi（河内淳一）, the song screams so much 80s urban contemporary in Japan that I really needed to get that bottle of Perrier and that pink sweater wrapped around my waist. To be honest, Mizushima's vocals aren't bad but I don't think folks like Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）will be shaking apart their guitars in fear. Still, the AOR keyboards with a bit of twinkly Doobie Bounce go down smoothly.
Not quite a month ago, I put up an article talking about J-AOR crooner Junichi Inagaki's（稲垣潤一）6th BEST compilation album from December 1990, "TRANSIT". Because of the two discs containing oodles of his past hits, I decided then to focus on the first disc for that article, and as such, today we'll be taking a look at some of his stuff from Disc 2. As was the case with Disc 1, there are a few tracks here that I've covered in individual articles and I'll probably be leaving a few more here for their own articles in the future.
To be honest, when I first listened to "Ai no Super Magic" (Love is the Super Magic), I was caught a bit off-guard by that opening salvo of the title but when I got used to that particular greeting, I found the song pretty comfortable with that hint of Caribbean and Bacharach. The songwriting team of lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）was responsible for this non-single track that was originally included in Inagaki's 6th studio album"Realistic" from March 1986. The album was a No. 1 hit for the singer and ended up as the No. 16 album of the year.
Inagaki's 7th album was also another No. 1 hit, "Mind Note" from March 1987 and it begat the reassuring love ballad "Toki wo Koete" (Beyond Time). Copywriter Yoshiaki Sagara（さがらよしあき）along with Hiroshi Shigemi（重実博）provided the lyrics about being there for someone during the hard times although I get the impression that there is a one-sided love thing about it all. Actress-turned-singer/songwriter MAYUMI came up with the perfectly AOR romantic melody which fits Inagaki to a tee.
Gotta be with my girl! That's the message from Inagaki's "Kimi ni Aitai Gogo" (The Afternoon I Want to See You), a track from his April 1989 9th album"Heart & Soul". Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）wrote the words about a fellow who's barely enduring the weekdays that he has to go through before being able to see the girlfriend for a weekend of dining, driving and loving. Once again, MAYUMI was behind the music here which has the tropical feeling but also has that unmistakable sense of either Steely Dan or the Doobie Brothers.
I chose "Stay With Me" just to see how many Miki Matsubara（松原みき）fans would perk up, but although Inagaki indeed covered the Matsubara classic years later, this first "Stay With Me" is a wholly different animal. As another track on "Heart & Soul", this was once again written by the aforementioned Akimoto and composed by Junichi Kawauchi（河内淳一）, and though this song won't have anyone forgetting that other "Stay With Me", this Inagaki original is pleasant enough with some hints of Motown. I probably would have preferred some horns over the synthesizers, though.
My final song for the article is Inagaki's 18th single"Shine On Me", a very uptempo and bright-sounding tune released in March 1990. Y'know, I'd always thought that the singer had the demeanor of a button-down mid-level manager in a huge corporation, and maybe the person who came up with the music video for "Shine On Me" thought the same as well. Inagaki looks perfect as a corporate kacho in that open-format office, but of course, he's also fine behind the mike to perform the song which was written and composed by songwriter Tatsuto Kuwamura（桑村達人）. The song was also placed in Inagaki's April 1990 album"Self Portrait".
Following the listen to Disc 2, my general impression is that Inagaki gradually shed some of that Japanese City Pop as the 80s came to and end, and went into a more West Coast pop direction although I don't think that he strayed far from his AOR roots. He will always be my Mr. Relaxation of J-Pop!
I guess that I can make another observation of a pattern taking hold in the mid to late 1980s: that of the presence of soulful male balladeers crooning of love over a pop melody. So far, I can think of folks like Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘）, Yudai Suzuki（鈴木雄大）and Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）.
Now, I found this fellow by the name of Junichi Kawauchi（河内淳一）who is a singer, guitarist, composer and arranger. According to his J-Wiki file, he's enjoyed rock of the 1970s and 1980s along with the West Coast sound of that time and his favourite musician is Bill Champlin from the band Chicago. His career began in 1973 as a studio musician but then in 1986, thanks to his participation in the house band for singer Keisuke Kuwata's（桑田佳祐）radio show the year before, he joined KUWATA BAND.
Beginning in 1988, Kawauchi went into a solo career and started releasing singles and albums. His second single was "Koi ni Ochita Hi ~ Anyday You Love Me" from August that year. With lyrics by Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）and melody by Kawauchi with Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）in charge of arrangement, the song does sound like it belongs on the West Coast and the singer's vocals had me thinking of those crooners that I mentioned at the top, especially Suzuki and Sakiya. "Koi ni Ochita Hi" also seems to be made for an old Parliament cigarette commercial but it was actually used to sell Mitsuya Cider...one of the most urban contemporary numbers that I've heard for a soft drink.
"Koi ni Ochita Hi" can also be found on Kawauchi's debut album"One Heart" which was released in April 1988. On that note, since this will be my final entry for 2020, I would like to wish everyone a Happy and Safe New Year! See you in 2021! I'd also to state that this is the 94th article for December 2020, and it breaks a record for the highest number of articles for any month in the history of the blog. I hope that we can all keep the good times rolling and I just want to thank all of the collaborators, commenters and readers for all of their attention and insights over the past year.
