Junko Mihara -- Ho-do-ho-do My Darling（ほ・ど・ほ・ど・マイ・ダーリン）

 

Well, we're at about 17 degrees Celsius. We even had some brilliant sun earlier this morning but the clouds have returned and it's spitting rain out there. But at least we can say that we finally have some spring out there. It was a long cold winter so we'll take anything we can get, but it's almost as if Old Man Winter were saying "Not so fast, Torontonians!".

Another not-so-smooth segue into this song by Junko Mihara（三原じゅん子）titled "Ho-do-ho-do My Darling" (Not So Fast, My Darling). The former singer-now-House of Councillors member recorded this one as the B-side for her 8th single from May 1982, "Datte ~ Fall In Love ~ Totsuzen"（だって・フォーリンラブ・突然）. Quite like the A-side, "Ho-do-ho-do My Darling" is another twist-worthy rock-n-roll number that was written by Reiko Yamada（山田麗子）and composed by TAKU. While Mihara gives out those lower tones (with some meowing🐈), she's also explaining her personal policy on the relationship scene.

The Top Batters for the 1981 (32nd), 1982 (33rd) and 1983 (34th) Editions of the Kohaku Utagassen

 

With the 76th edition of the Kohaku Utagassen on NHK less than 24 hours away as I type this, it appears that unless there is a mind-blowing sudden addition or deletion from the list, the participant list is all set and ready to go. I may just be crazy enough to wake up early and crank up the computer to watch the live version on Jme (although Jme will be broadcasting the special a few times for the next few days).

Anyways, in commemoration of the occasion and just to get those nostalgia juices flowing once more (since this is the blog for that sort of thing), I've decided to show the Top Batters for the first three editions I ever saw which are 1981, 1982 and 1983. For those who are new to the network's annual New Year's Eve event, the top batters are the first singers/bands representing the Red and White teams to perform. They set the tone for the gala atmosphere and back then, they were usually the youngest folks since it used to be the case that the aidoru and pop singers got their chances in the first half of the program before the moodier and more traditional stuff came in the second half of the show.

Let's enjoy the show and at least one of us will be posting an article on how we thought of this edition's Kohaku.

1981

Red: Naoko Kawai -- Smile for Me（スマイル・フォー・ミー）

White: Masahiko Kondo -- Gingiragin ni Sarigenaku （ギンギラギンにさりげなく）

1982

Red: Junko Mihara -- Honki de Love Me Good （ホンキでLove Me Good)

White: Shibugakitai -- 100%...So Kamo ne!（100%…SOかもね!）

1983

Red: Hiromi Iwasaki -- Ieji (家路）

White: Hideki Saijo -- Gyarandu （ギャランドゥ）

Junko Mihara -- Datte ~ Fall In Love ~ Totsuzen（だって・フォーリンラブ・突然）

 

Reporter: Congratulations on your new post, Prime Minister Ishiba.

Ishiba: Thank you.

Reporter: What do you plan to do first?

Ishiba: Uh...dissolve the Lower House in about a week and then have general elections on October 27th.

Reporter: Ah....

Well, I guess the newest Prime Minister of Japan didn't waste time and actually, this is the second time that a Japanese head of government called for dissolution and elections right after he got the job, so it isn't exactly unprecedented. But I'm not here to focus on the PM but the JM...Junko Mihara（三原じゅん子）, to be specific. I've noted in her file on KKP that she has been a Parliamentarian for a good long while now and she now has her first portfolio as a cabinet minister; she'll be taking care of child policy.

But of course, over four decades ago, Mihara was in the entertainment industry as a singer and an actress. She released 21 singles and 15 albums between 1980 and 1991 and though from the brief file she has on the blog has also covered some of her City Pop material, whenever her name pops up in my memories, I usually think of her as an 80s rock-n'-rolling lass because of the time that I first got to see her on the 1982 edition of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen singing "Honki de Love Me Good"（ホンキでLove Me Good).

"Honki de Love Me Good" was her 10th single released in October 1982 which did OK by peaking at No. 28 on Oricon. However, her 8th single from earlier in May did even better by scoring a No. 11 ranking. "Datte ~ Fall In Love ~ Totsuzen" (But...Falling in Love...All of a Sudden) is a twist-happy rock-n'-roll number that was written by Reiko Yamada（山田麗子）and members of the rock-n'-roll band The Crazy Rider Yokohama Ginbae Rolling Special（T.C.R横浜銀蝿R.S.）and composed by TAKU. If anything, "Datte ~ Fall In Love ~ Totsuzen" is an even faster-paced rocker that brings up images of those dancers in Harajuku that I mentioned in yesterday's article on Toshihiko Tahara's（田原俊彦）"Harajuku Kiss"（原宿キッス）. Man, time does fly!

Junko Mihara -- Yoru wa Blank（夜はブランク）

 

I'm going to be coming at this song from a peculiar angle this time and start off by mentioning the breakout character of Ranko Mannen（万年嵐子）from the currently running anime "Akiba Meido Senso"（アキバ冥途戦争...Akiba Maid War） played by seiyuu Rina Sato（佐藤利奈）. Sato also sings the Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）-worthy ending theme, but Ranko herself is reminiscent of the kickass actress Meiko Kaji（梶芽衣子）.

However, if there were ever a live-action version of "Akiba Maid War" and I could pluck an understudy actress to play Ranko from anywhere in time and space, I would select then 1980s actress/singer Junko Mihara（三原じゅん子）. Just based on her low vocals and the fact that when I first saw her on the 1982 Kohaku Utagassen looking all tough singing "Honki de Love Me Good"（ホンキでLove Me Good), I'd say that she would also be ideal as a one-woman army dressed as a maid. Nowadays, though, Mihara is too busy being a parliamentarian in the Japanese Diet.

It's been a few years since I've had Mihara up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but I've got another song from her 1983 album "Windy City ~ Junko in Chicago", and it happens to be the opening track "Yoru wa Blank" (The Night's a Blank). But first off, I've got to apologize profusely since although I posted another track from "Windy City" back in 2019 titled "Silky Rain"（シルキー・レイン）, I forgot to state via time stamp that "Silky Rain" was the third track at 7:42 (now corrected). Since I posted the video of the entire album on that article, people would have thought that the song was the first one, "Yoru wa Blank", instead of the one at its proper position as Track 3. I gather that my mind was a blank back then.

Anyways, instead of the mix of City Pop and pop/rock that "Silky Rain" contains, "Yoru wa Blank" has its ratio of genres bending more toward the City Pop side of things. Reading that title, I take it that things got a little wild that one night in the Windy City but man, I can't deny the cool musical accompaniment, thanks to Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）. It's got quite the rollicking rhythm of driving through Chicago in a sports car, and my compliments to the popping piano and the electric guitar. Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）took care of the lyrics.

I have to also remind myself that although City Pop has a couple of Junkos in the lead: Ohashi（大橋純子）and Yagami（八神純子）, Mihara has also dabbled into the cool metropolitan music although as the YouTuber who posted the above video noted, she was more into the power pop and hard rock genres. Perhaps now, she's into the power politics and hard debating of passing bills.

Junko Mihara -- Sunnyside Connection（サニーサイド・コネクション）

Last night, just for the heck of it, I looked up the expression contralto on Wikipedia and found out that it was the lowest singing voice type for women when compared to the higher soprano and mezzo-soprano voices. According to this YouTube video, singers such as Cher and Annie Lennox have the contralto voice. I think that when it comes to Japanese popular singers, Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）especially after her first few aidoru years and Kahoru Kohiruimaki（小比類巻かほる）pop up in my head. Perhaps Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）is a mezzo-soprano?

Junko Mihara（三原順子）was a singer that I would also classify as having a voice which is pretty deep. That was certainly the case when I first heard her perform "Honki de Love Me Good"（ホンキでLove Me Good) on the 1982 Kohaku Utagassen. And some further proof in the pudding was provided from this song, her 4th single from May 1981, "Sunnyside Connection".

In fact, listening to Mihara's contralto, I thought of the aforementioned Cher although I realize that this was never a type of song that Cher had ever tackled. Actually "Sunnyside Connection" struck me in terms of the arrangement as a driving song that Akina Nakamori would tackle early in her career. That wailing electric guitar and that piping synthesizer got me rather nostalgic. Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）provided the words while Kazuya Amikura（網倉一也）took care of the music for this single that peaked at No. 14.

As for Mihara right now, she's still a member of the Japanese Parliament.

Junko Mihara -- Silky Rain（シルキー・レイン）

The only time up to now that I've written a Junko Mihara（三原じゅん子）song was all the way back in July 2012 for "Honki de Love Me Good"（ホンキでLove Me Good）which got Mihara her one and only appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen on New Year's Eve 1982. To be honest, it was the only Mihara song that I got to know.

(7:42)

In that article for "Honki de Love Me Good", I noted that at the time Mihara had been trying to get elected to Japan's House of Councillors. Well, the now-former singer/actress did get voted in and since then, she's apparently held a number of positions including one as Acting Director of the Public Speeches Division in the Liberal Democratic Party.

However, let's return to her music days, shall we? Although I hadn't been totally floored by Mihara's appearance on the Shibuya stage at the Kohaku (albeit she sounded as if she had a menagerie's worth of butterflies in her stomach), I was curious about what else she had recorded in the early 1980s. I found one song from her 1983 studio album "Windy City ~ Junko in Chicago" titled "Silky Rain".

Her voice sounds quite a bit steadier here, and I like "Silky Rain" for its mix of urban contemporary and a bit of dramatic pop/rock. One observation that I've had is that she seemed to have a slightly breathier and deeper version of Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）voice back then, and I have to admit that the arrangement of "Silky Rain" is pretty reminiscent of what Nakamori was also singing in those early days of her career. Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）was responsible for the music while Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）took care of the lyrics. I'm now interested in getting the album just for that cover of her and Chicago alone.

My discovery of "Silky Rain" was thanks to hearing it on Van Paugam's City Pop Radio last night. As most of you City Pop fans have already found out, his entire YouTube channel was terminated outright sometime in the last 24 hours which is a pity. Although I wasn't totally surprised that the radio was taken out (even VP hinted that the end may have been near), I was taken aback that the entire channel was wiped out since there was at least one video of his on the history of City Pop that I thought was quite educational. It's too bad that people will no longer be able to see that and it's even worse that the radio is now gone.

I went to Van Paugam's City Pop radio at least once a day and though I very rarely joined the streaming conversation, I did enjoy watching some of the banter that took place. The conversations didn't always involve City Pop or Japanese music per se but that was OK with me. It just seemed like an Internet version of a friendly and open club for people around the world to chat and enjoy each other's company. The club is now closed unfortunately, and though I can understand why JASRAC or other institutions would have said "Enough is enough", I only hope that they can relate to why a lot of us aren't too happy tonight. I ended up getting ideas to write articles on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and I even ended up getting albums because of what I found on the radio so I'm fairly sure that others have done the latter as well.

Still, I don't want to portray this as a elegy for Van Paugam because he does have other venues that he can use to spread the gospel of City Pop and he has done very well for himself through events and even media interviews. I wish him all the best and thank him for all he's done up to now.

Junko Mihara -- Honki de Love Me Good （ホンキでLove Me Good)

I remember Junko Mihara（三原順子）, primarily from her lone appearance on the 1982 Kohaku Utagassen. Her voice (on the show at least) reminded me of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵） pipes....low and slightly raspy, but her appearance had that tough no-nonsense biker chick look about her. She was the top batter for the show...not exactly the easiest place to start from, especially when it was the Kohaku. I distinctly remember that she held up OK for most of the song but started losing it in the last few bars.....in the previous year, Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）was 3rd in the lineup, and she completely broke down halfway through.

(11:10)

Mihara sang "Honki de Love Me Good"(Truly Love Me Good) which was her 10th of 21 singles that she released mostly during the first half of the 80s. She would probably identify herself as an actress who did some singing on the side....I found out from J-Wiki that her TV debut was in 1978 in a guest role on the Japanese version of "Spiderman"! Released in October 1982, "Honki de Love Me Good" went as high as No. 11 on Oricon. The song was written and composed by TAKU as this rambunctious and speedy 50s rock number....a popular template at the time; in the recorded version, Mihara sings in a higher register.

Mihara has now completely divorced herself from show business but she still has the potential to get her name in lights as an LDP politician in the House of Councillors of the Japanese Diet. I was fortunate enough to get a picture of her campaign van a few years ago in Shibuya.