Mariko An -- Kanashimi wa Kakeashi de Yatte Kuru（悲しみは駆け足でやってくる）

 

At first, I'd assumed that this would be Mariko An's（アン真理子）first appearance on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but that would have been wrong. The former chorus singer and dancer has been up here and not too long ago. In fact, back in 2022, I posted an article for the duo Yuki to Hide's（ユキとヒデ...Yuki & Hide）"Shiroi Nami"（白い波）from 1967, and as it turned out, I was reminded that Yuki had been Mariko...before she became Mariko; her real name is Yuki Sato（佐藤ユキ）.

Yuki to Hide would release a couple of singles including "Shiroi Nami" (Sato would release a couple of her own solo singles while the duo was still together) and then break up in 1968. Taking on the new stage name of Mariko An, she made a new debut with the July 1969 single "Kanashimi wa Kakeashi de Yatte Kuru" (Grief Comes Running). Written by An herself with Katsuhiko Nakagawa（中川克彦）taking care of the melody, it's a melancholy kayo kyoku although through An's lyrics, it seems as if she's really trying hard to balance the worlds of light and dark especially as they affect the youth of the nation when it comes the vagaries of love. An released seven more singles up to the mid-1970s and one original album in 1970. She also continued to work as a lyricist under her real name of Yuki Sato although the kanji was a variant version（佐藤由紀）.

Katsuhiko Nakagawa -- Ryusenjou de（流線上で）

 

A couple of hours ago, I wrote up a Shoko Nakagawa（中川翔子）article so I decided that it was time to also write about her father, the late Katsuhiko Nakagawa（中川勝彦）who was also a singer and a TV personality along with being an actor, a musician and a seiyuu.

Tower Records

(30-second excerpt)

I don't know as much about Katsuhiko Nakagawa as I do his daughter but he was born in 1962 in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward and made his debut in 1980 halfway during time as a Keio University student. His J-Wiki biography indicates that he may have been one of the first visual-kei rock pioneers, and I consider Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）to have had some influence on that genre as well.

For Nakagawa's first article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I found "Ryusenjou de" (On the Streamline) which is a track on his February 1984 debut album "Shitemitai"（してみたい...Wanna Give it a Try）. Written by poet, essayist and lyricist Natsuo Giniro（銀色夏生）and composed by Toshio Kamei（亀井登志夫）, "Ryusenjou de" seems to be about a song of longing for that lost love but when I hear that melody which includes an oboe, I can easily imagine Nakagawa sporting a very New Wave-y foppish outfit and attitude. There just seems to be an air of British pop from that period of time in the arrangement.

I have to admit that listening to Nakagawa's vocals took some getting used to. It is a very affected way of singing that I realize rather fits that somewhat foppish manner, and as such, has me thinking of Sawada during that same time. Dropping into analogy, I would compare it with entering a pretty hot onsen and having to gingerly enter the steaming waters before finally soaking and feeling at ease. Also with the arrangement and again with Nakagawa's singing, I also get some Ippu-Do vibes but without the synthesizers.

As his Wikipedia article states, Nakagawa released 10 singles and 9 albums including a posthumously released album in October 1995. He had passed away at the age of 32 on September 17, 1994 due to leukemia.