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.
The last time I put up a Kaoru Uemura（上村かをる）article was in April 2022 for "Crystal Night"（クリスタル・ナイト）. The one before that had been even farther back in 2016 so at least the temporal gap is closing. And to be fair, back in the 2010s, there was a dearth of Uemura material on YouTube, something I believe has been rectified to a good extent, especially with City Pop becoming popular in one corner of the platform.
Well, "Crystal Night" comes from Uemura's 1979 album"Just My Feeling" and so does "JOKER" which actually launches the album. I'm assuming that the song has nothing to do with Batman's iconic enemy and it's got that great bouncy disco feeling through a good time in Roppongi back in the day. Strangely enough, the intro reminds me of the one for Alicia Bridges'"I Love The Nightlife" which came out a year earlier.
Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）came up with words and music while the arrangers were Yoshihiro Naruse（鳴瀬喜博）, bassist from fusion band Casiopea（カシオペア）, and jazz saxophonist Genji Sawai（沢井原兒）who I believe has that sexy sax solo in "JOKER". Nothing like this song to strut down Roppongi Douri with.
It's been over six years since I put up my last Kaoru Uemura（上村かをる）article but that's only because it's so difficult to find any of her songs up on YouTube. However, it appears that in the last little while, a few more have been uploaded for which I'm eternally grateful.
One reason is that from what I've heard from Uemura early in her career is a very nostalgic and lovely sense of what 1970s City Pop was all about with that certain Fender Rhodes and that "haze" sound that I have often heard from the keyboards for the genre stuff of that decade. Indeed, that's what I get from her "Crystal Night", a track from her 1979 album"Just My Feeling". It's just the aural version of sipping that tasty cocktail at home after the week's work is done.
Eriko Tsukayama（塚山エリコ）and Kazu Yamada（山田数）wrote the lyrics while Yasuo Ogata（緒方泰男）took care of the melody. "Crystal Night" can enjoy its place on KKP along with its trackmates "Yokohama Bund Hotel"（横浜バンドホテル）and "Comin' Together". And no, the irony isn't lost on me that earlier today, I'd written about an album by 1986 Omega Tribe with that same name.
It's been almost six years since I purchased "Loft Sessions, Vol. 1", an unusual album released in March 1978 consisting of songs of varying genres including City Pop performed by female vocalists who had an association with the live house chain Loft in Tokyo. There's even a J-Wiki article devoted to Loft which was first founded by former (then known as) Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications employee Yu Hirano（平野悠）in 1971 as a jazz café. After that, folk/rock branches of Loft were set up in areas such as Shimo-Kitazawa, Nishi-Ogikubo and Shinjuku.
I purchased the album which was featured in my City Pop bible of "Japanese City Pop" for a couple of reasons. One was that a pre-debut Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）had a couple of tracks in there which have already been written about in the blog, and the other is that I rather fell hard for that wonderful album cover with not only a great bird's-eye view of a city but also of the logo of a couple tripping the light fantastic. Unfortunately, it's taken quite a while for some of the other tracks on "Loft Sessions, Vol. 1" to see the light of day...or YouTube, but finally a number of those songs have appeared so I can write about them.
The first track is Kaoru Uemura's（上村かをる）cover of "Hoshikuzu"（星くず...Stardust）, originally created by Youma Fujita（藤田洋麻）and performed by band Makoto Kubota to Yuyake Gakudan（久保田麻琴と夕焼け楽団）back in 1977. The original has that mellow Margueritaville folksy vibe but Uemura takes things downtown disco with her version. I can see the Shinjuku or Roppongi glitter ball now.
Back a few days ago, I made my first article on Shizuru Ohtaka（おおたか静流）and her ethereal cover of the kayo classic "Kanashikute Yarikirenai"（悲しくてやりきれない）in 1992, and at the end, I remarked that Ohtaka had actually been singing since the late 1970s at least under the name Shizuko Ohtaka（大高静子）. Well, this is the song that she composed and recorded as the 2nd track on "Loft Sessions", "Black Coffee"（ブラック・コーヒー）.
With lyrics by Yasuki/Yasuteru Konishi（小西保輝）and music by Ohtaka herself about a cup of joe no longer being quite so bitter to perhaps indicate a woman getting over a broken heart, "Black Coffee" explodes out of the gate sounding quite progressive rock/pop and reminding me of a Joni Mitchell song. Ohtaka back then seemed to have a voice similar to that of City Pop/R&B chanteuse Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）, ranging from wafting and delicate to slightly growly. Masami Tsuchiya（土屋昌巳）of Ippu-Do and Minoya Central Station fame arranged this song which also wavers from that dramatic rock passage to some of that softer melodic contemplation in the café.
The above video uploaded by LX Archives is actually one of the not-so-full album (due to the usual copyright issues...ahem). However at 9:03 is the one song that I really wanted to feature from "Loft Sessions" and that is "Ame wa Itsuka"（雨はいつか...When is the Rain?）by singer/songwriter and guitarist Yoshiko Yoshida（吉田佳子）. A cover of a Sentimental City Romance song from the band's December 1977 3rd album"City Magic", this splendid song by SCR member Nobutaka Tsugei（告井延隆）is handsomely crafted into this version performed by Yoshida. I couldn't have asked for a more comforting folk-country kayo about a long walk or a long walk through life.
The performance here also includes a couple of guests, Koichi Matsuda（松田幸一）on harmonica and Ritsu Murakami（村上律）on steel pedal guitar, from a band that I had just written about yesterday, The Last Show（ザ・ラストショウ）. I would have included "Ame wa Itsuka" in its own article in comparison with the original by Sentimental City Romance since the video for it is up on YouTube, but I couldn't wait. However, I will tackle that one soon enough.
The last song that I'll put up here has the singer who started things off. Kaoru Uemura wrote and composed "Kyo kara"（きょうから・・・From Today）. It's a bluesy jazz ballad close to a torch song about a woman recovering from a hangover after a most interesting night with a fellow. She seems to be making amends for her follies but then near the end, the song takes a 90-degree turn and goes super funky for some reason. Perhaps the lass didn't learn her lesson after all.
Not sure whether founder Hirano ever decided to have a concert version of "Loft Sessions, Vol. 1" but that would have been quite the gig for everyone including the fans. There was never a Vol. 2 unfortunately, but recently a new version of the 1978 album was released called "Loft Sessions, Vol. 1 Outtakes" which includes most of the original tracks (but not the Takeuchi and Ohtaka entries) on one CD with another CD featuring outtakes of those originals.
I finally listened to the last of my Xmas purchases yesterday, "Just My Feeling", the debut and only album by Kaoru Uemura（上村かをる...although her website has it spelled in romaji as Caolu Uemula） in 1979. I bought it on the strength of listening to a B-side, "Comin' Together". I had never heard of her during any of my time in Japan, only catching wind of this sultry-voiced singer through one of my random forays on the Net after I had returned in late 2011. I also caught her name again in "Japanese City Pop" via her contributions to a compilation album called "Loft Sessions Volume 1"which I did get. As for "Just My Feeling", it's a nice mix of some City Pop disco and some country-pop.
According to her website, Uemura released 3 of her own singles and that one album while providing some other songs for other artists. At present, the only track from "Just My Feeling" the album that I could find on YouTube is the country bluesy "Yokohama Bund Hotel". I think the cover photo for the single fits the mood of the song which seems to have the singer ambling along the bay...I'm assuming that it's Yokohama Bay.
Katsuhiko Kamitsuna（上綱克彦...at least, I hope that is indeed the kanji; it was written in rather microscopic size in the liner notes） provided the music while the late Yoko Yamaguchi（山口洋子）wrote the lyrics under the pseudonym Manon Resco. Yamaguchi was also known for writing another more kayo Yokohama-based number, the breakthrough hit for Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）, "Yokohama Tasogare"（よこはまたそがれ）all the way back in 1971, and also the shibui "Brandy Glass"（ブランデーグラス）for Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）.
Yamaguchi's lyrics talk about being that barfly at the watering hole at the titular hotel drinking her sorrows away. The Yokohama Bund Hotel actually did exist for 70 years between 1929 and 1999 with a live house, Shell Garden, opening there in 1982 which featured acts like Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）,Godiego（ゴダイゴ）and the late Yutaka Ozaki（尾崎豊）. Supposedly, according to the J-Wikiarticle on the Bund, the blue neon sign for the Shell Garden's predecessor, the Shell Room nightclub which was opened in 1968 may have been the inspiration for the title of the classic song "Blue Light Yokohama"（ブルーライト・ヨコハマ）as sung by Ayumi Ishida (石田あゆみ...check out the link for "Yokohama Tasogare" above since both songs are covered in the same article).
Again, one of those singers that I was able to find out about via "Japanese City Pop", and the book didn't even contain this song. I found her on an album called "Loft Sessions Vol. 1" which I bought on the book's recommendation. The album featured a number of young up-and-coming singers of the time who performed at the live house, Loft, in Shinjuku in the late 1970s. The primary reason that I got the album is that one of those singers was a pre-debut Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）.
However, when I punched in the name of Kaoru Uemura（上村かをる） into YouTube, I was able to find this nostalgically funky number titled "Comin' Together" by Uemura for her album, "Just My Feeling", released in 1979. I was always a sucker for a good round of horns and Fender Rhodes. Uemura came up with the lyrics while Issei Noro（野呂一生）from the band Casiopea（カシオペア）composed the song.
