Keiko Takeshita -- Bedside no Komori Uta（ベッドサイドの子守唄）

Got one more up my sleeve for articles tonight and so I'll finish things off with a City Pop tune from an unlikely source.

(37:36)

Just about 3 years ago, I wrote about actress Keiko Takeshita（竹下景子）and the fact that I was surprised that she actually released music in the late 1970s and early 1980s considering that I had only known her for her TV appearances. Her debut single was the innocent kayo "Kekkon Shitemo Ii desu ka"（結婚してもいいですか）from 1978 which sounds like a tune that someone like Agnes Chan could have tackled in the early 1970s.

Well, I got another surprise here as well, since the B-side to her 1980 3rd single "Watashi no Naka no Onna-tachi"（私の中の女たち...The Women In Me）, "Bedside no Komori Uta" (Bedside Lullaby) has her performing some of that soothing City Pop/AOR. Although Takeshita's voice still retains some of that innocence, her performance here sounds more assured and slightly richer. Of course, I will always appreciate that playful Fender Rhodes and that chorus acting like a sunset wind blowing through the windows. Plus, I also like that trombone solo. Akiko Tsuchiya（土屋明子）provided the lyrics while Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）came up with the melody that's a bit more reminiscent of her New Music/City Pop days through "Sunshower" and "Mignonne", rather than her dramatic comeback of "Romantique" which came out in the same year as this Takeshita single.

Keiko Takeshita -- Kekkon Shitemo Ii desu ka （結婚してもいいですか）

Never thought that I would ever see actress Keiko Takeshita（竹下景子）within the pages of this blog.

That's simply because I was so accustomed to seeing her on commercials and quiz shows as a tarento and thespian.

However, I should've known better since there has been that custom of actors becoming singers and vice versa back in the earlier days of Japanese entertainment. And so sure enough, Takeshita managed to release 6 singles in her short singing career during the late 1970s to early 1980s. That includes her debut single "Kekkon Shitemo Ii desu ka" (Is It OK If I Get Married?) from 1978.

I rather like this one for its simple old-fashioned melody by Yuuji Nakamura（中村ゆうじ）and lyrics by the late Tsuzuru Nakasato（中里綴）. Plus, I gotta say that the young Takeshita had a pretty nice voice, somewhat reminiscent of Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）. In the song, the actress sounds as if she is writing a letter to a secret beau who has either gone away or made himself scarce to say that her mother has introduced a prospective life partner and that she will be devoting herself to that fellow if the secret beau doesn't say anything. No pressure there.

Takeshita also released 3 albums up to 1982.