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 Koichi Sugiyama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Koichi Sugiyama. Show all posts
Not sure if I ever mentioned this thing about haikyo（廃墟）which refers to the abandoned ruins or remains of a building or town. Perhaps it doesn't get any attention in the West but apparently in Japan, there are websites devoted to these eerie decrepit places that were once bustling structures and folks even try to explore them like the Scooby Gang at a haunted house. I once even sent a link of one of these sites to a student of mine who had first told me about haikyo only for him to ask me politely not to send any more links since this particular one was creeping him out.
Anyways, the above example of haikyo is what was once Nio Sunshine Land（仁尾サンシャインランド）, an amusement park in Kagawa Prefecture which had its time between 1984 and 1995 following its predecessor, the Nio Sun Exposition（仁尾太陽博）which ran between 1981 and 1983. From what other information I've read in its J-Wiki article, even what's showing in the YouTube video above has been completely cleared from existence.
But let's go back to rosier times, shall we? Singer and voice actress Noriko Hidaka（日髙のり子）had just begun her career as an aidoru with a January 1980 single under her real name of Noriko Ito（いとうのりこ）, but then with her 2nd single, she took on the stage name of Hidaka. That sophomore single was "Hatsukoi Sunshine" (First Love Sunshine) which was released later that year in December.
From the whimsical melody by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）, and yes it's the same guy behind the iconic "Dragon Quest" soundtrack, I was going to think that "Hatsukoi Sunshine" was a theme song for some shojo anime. However, it was actually the image song for the aforementioned Nio Sun Exposition. Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）was the lyricist for a story for falling heads-over-heels under a blazing sun and blue sky. Well, it's kinda too bad that the amusement park has gone to that architectural ash heap but we still have a musical reminder of what was. Ah, by the way, the audio tends to skip a couple of times.
I've known Masato Shimon（子門真人）as the fellow who cornered his own little market in anime and tokusatsu theme songs along with a tune having to do with a Japanese confection that became the biggest selling single of all time at 4.5 million records in Japan. So it's always something special when I can hear the singer do something that's just a plain pop song not having to do with animated figures or live-action superheroes.
Well, I was able to find one such song which just happened to be his 6th and penultimate single released in July 1976 according to J-Wiki. "Mr. Driver" has this feeling of a Glen Campbell urban cowboy song as Shimon sings about begging the cab driver in presumably New York City to hold on a few more minutes before saying his final tender goodbyes to his now-former paramour. Of course, referring to the legendary Campbell already meant that the nostalgia was flowing out of "Mr. Driver" in waves, but at the same time, I was also reminded of some of the more country-style Carpenters tunes.
Shimon composed the song while Konosuke Fuji（藤公之介）provided the lyrics. Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）arranged "Mr. Driver", and yes, it's the same Koichi Sugiyama behind the famous "Dragon Quest" theme.
Unfortunately, I have to let readers know about another death in the Japanese music world today as composer Koichi Sugiyama（椙山浩一）passed away on September 30th due to sepsis at the age of 90. Commenter Kyle Andrew informed me earlier this morning and I had actually caught the news of his passing even earlier during the NHK News. I actually told Kyle that I would come up with an appropriate tribute sometime over the weekend but it seems as if my project manager today told me that there was nothing coming down the pipe for assignments, so now I have my opportunity to do a Creator article for Sugiyama.
His name has already been well represented within the pages of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for years since he composed some very famous kayo hits including The Peanuts'（ザ・ピーナッツ）"Koi no Fuuga"(恋のフーガ）, The Tigers'（ザ・タイガース）"Mona Lisa no Hohoemi"（モナリザの微笑）and a couple of folk band GARO's tunes "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten" (学生街の喫茶店）and "Kimi no Tanjoubi"（君の誕生日）in the 1960s and 1970s.
But in the NHK tribute to Sugiyama and for that matter, the Fuji-TV profile on him in the video at the top of this article, it wasn't just his Group Sounds contributions that were noted. He was also lauded within the reports as the man behind the soundtrack for the iconic "Dragon Quest" game that started its long run from 1986, something that I hadn't realized although even I, a non-gamer, could recognize that heroic theme. There were already some messages of condolences within the comments under the above video. Sugiyama himself noted in a past interview during the NHK report that he had wanted to base the game soundtrack on classical music rather than pop music.
In the J-Wiki article for him, his specialization in music was directed towards the genres ofkayo, anison and game music; his lists for the last two types in that article are quite long indeed. The Wikipedia profile on him mentioned that one day in the 1980s, Sugiyama, who was already very famous, had sent the Enix Corporation, which was behind "Dragon Quest", a fan letter for the music on a shogi game which sent the staffers there into a major swoon. They were also very impressed with his knowledge of games. I gather that this would be the equivalent of Alan Silvestri or John Williams sending a 👍 to an American game developer on letterhead. This would eventually lead to a collaboration between composer and company, and the rest is "Dragon Quest" history.
Sugiyama was born in what is now Taito Ward in Tokyo on April 11th 1931. Music was all around him during his upbringing which would explain his life's career, but J-Wiki also noted that he and both of his parents were also great lovers of games, decades before video games appeared, so that probably also explains the composer's interest in those.
He attended the University of Tokyo half-heartedly pursuing a science degree after getting disappointed on finding out that he couldn't get into a music college since he couldn't play the piano. On graduating, Sugiyama had a part-time job at a parts factory before getting a position at a radio station and Fuji-TV as a director in 1958. He left the network in 1965 and by 1968, he was fully focused on composing and orchestration.
However, even before then, he was already coming up with the melodies. In fact in October 1966, one of his earliest contributions to kayo kyoku came in the form of a single by The Peanuts, "Roma no Ame"（ローマの雨...The Rain in Rome）. The 20th single by the duo, Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）was the lyricist with Katsuhisa Hattori（服部克久）as the arranger for this relaxed hip-swiveler of a song characterized by the staccato blast of the horns in the intro and their smooth Bacharach-like feeling in the song itself. I also enjoy the haunting but enticing vocals by Emi and Yumi.
As has been stated, Sugiyama was also providing songs during the Group Sounds period of the late 1960s. In December 1966, he and Hashimoto once more created a song...this time for the GS band Jackey Yoshikawa and his Blue Comets（ジャッキー吉川とブルー・コメッツ）as a B-side for their 7th single, "Izuko e"（何処へ...Where To?）. The brief "Sentimental City"（センチメンタル・シティ）is a pretty interesting song which seems to have a couple of rhythms spliced together: a laconic introspective melody with that electric organ and then a really skippy one as if there were two different settings for whoever the protagonist is. Above everything is a boozy saxophone.
Several months later, Hashimoto and Sugiyama would team up again to provide yet another one of the big Group Sounds bands, The Tigers（ザ・タイガーズ）, with one of the biggest hits in their career, "Kimi Dake ni Ai wo"（君だけに愛を...Love Only For You）. This was their 4th single from January 1968, and this time Sugiyama would also create the melody and arrange it for Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）and the guys. I think that there's even a bit more psychedelic rock in the proceedings. In comparison to The Peanuts' "Roma no Ame" with some of that twisting in any reflective dancing, maybe The Jerk might be the move here. Just guessing. Selling more than a million records, "Kimi Dake ni Ai wo" reached No. 2 on the new Oricon Singles chart.
If someone can identify the dance move in the video above while The Tigers are playing, that would be greatly appreciated. It's probably not The Jerk. Anyways, I wanted to put up this video since all of us can see how Sawada performed his moves. According to J-Wiki, at concerts when he beseeched his fans with "Kimi dake ni..." and flung out the "Golden Index Finger", a lot of them simply fainted away. You must learn the ways of the Force, Kenji.
The Group Sounds era faded away very early in the 1970s but Sugiyama continued to provide his music to the top stars of the day. Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）was one of them, and for him, the composer created a couple of tracks for Saijo's June 1976 album"Ai to Jounetsu no Seishun"（愛と情熱の青春...Youth Filled With Love and Passion）. One of them was "Itsumo Futari de"（いつも二人で...Always the Two of Us） which had Sugiyama pairing up with another prolific lyricist, Yu Aku（阿久悠）. A prowling cat of a tune with a flutter of rock over a jazzy rhythm, the lanky aidoru was more than game for the arrangement. One would think that he may have been doing an old-fashioned soft-shoe in the recording booth.
Just one more example of Sugiyama's music that I will put up here also hit the public's ears in the same year as the Saijo album. This time, though, it came out in the form of aidoru trio Candies'（キャンディーズ）11th single,"Heart Dorobo"（ハート泥棒...Heart Thief）. Released in September 1976, it's an especially dynamic tune for Ran, Sue and Miki as they sing about a young teenage girl, who may be a bit of a tsundere, quietly falling hard for a guy who has suddenly raised himself to the lass' demanding expectations, according to Haruo Hayashi's（林春生）lyrics. The song rose to No. 17 on Oricon and sold about 190,000 records.
For those who had only known Sugiyama for "Dragon Quest" and the other games that he provided music for, I thought this Creator article could give some more information on how he also contributed to kayo kyoku in general. But in finishing this off, let's get back to the beginning and realize that the "Dragon Quest" overture made it into this year's Olympic Opening Ceremonies. I'm hoping that Sugiyama did hear and appreciate its appearance. Certainly, many fans did from what I've read in the comments. All my condolences to him and his family and friends.
It was announced just today but tarento/actor and former guitarist of the Group Sounds band, The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）,Shiro Kishibe（岸部四郎）had passed away at the age of 71 on August 28th this year.
However I had first known about Kishibe as the host of the morning variety show "Look Look Konnichiwa"（ルックルックこんにちは）on NTV during my time in Japan. I hadn't known anything about his music past at the time and recognized him just as the calm and collected and tall (1.87 m) TV personality each and every morning.
Kishibe and his brother Ittoku "Sally" Kishibe（岸部一徳）, who also went the acting route, were both in one of the premier GS bands along with vocalist Kenji "Julie" Sawada（沢田研二）during the late 1960s and a little into the 1970s. So for today, I wanted to bring out The Tigers' 3rd single, "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" (Mona Lisa's Smile) released in August 1967 (although Shiro didn't officially join the band until 1969). Written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）, that harmonica sets the tone for "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" as sad and wistful and reassuring as the smile on the titular legend herself.
(2:05)
I'm sure at the time that The Tigers got their fair share of accolades but I gotta admit that I hadn't been expecting the Beatles fans' level of screaming and shouting when they came out during that skit above which looks like the producer decided to combine a samurai drama with "The Wild Wild West". To be honest, The Tigers did look rather Beatles-y there. Now, Oricon hadn't quite come onto the scene just yet, but according to the November 1967 music rankings in the magazine "Young Music"（ヤング・ミュージック）, "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" reached No. 1.
Fushigi ne...it truly is. I ordered Ikue Sakakibara's（榊原郁恵）6th album"C'est Drole ~ Fushigi ne ~" (Strange, Ain't It?) along with one other Ikue album "Slow Memory" back on July 16th and then just this past Monday morning, I got the e-mail from CD Japan that the package has shipped. Now, usually that means the discs won't be entering my hands for another week.
Well, three hours later on Monday afternoon...
THEY'RE HERE!
Man, I wanna congratulate CD Japan for getting that hypersonic jet in the air finally. If it can take human passengers, I wouldn't mind hitching a ride on that plane rather than take the 11~13 hour flight to Haneda on Air Canada.
The slightly "Twilight Zone" anecdote ends here. As for "C'est Drole", which was originally released back in January 1980, I bought it after hearing its title track "Fushigi ne" and after hearing a few more tracks on YouTube. Plus, seeing that another Sakakibara release "Ready Lady" (which I may also get a little later this year) was actually incorporated into my bible of "Japanese City Pop", I was intrigued about what the future Peter Pan used to sing when she was an aidoru, especially since she's been seen more as the friendly TV presence for decades.
Well, I popped in "C'est Drole" into the player and for the next two-thirds of an hour, my opinion of me deserving to eat more crow was further strengthened. As was the case with Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）2nd album"North Wind" which also came out in 1980 (mind you, all the way forward in December), "C'est Drole" didn't strike me as what I had envisioned to be the typical aidoru album of happy bouncy uptempo tunes and super-sweet love ballads. In fact, I got a fair potpourri of genres here too on my first listen. Double in fact, I had actually wondered whether I should have even labeled this as an aidoru album.
Case in point, the first track "Two-Way Street". It launches very much with a romantic saxophone and a soft and mellow ballad which fairly screams AOR. It's an interesting mix of two styles. The jazzy AOR which fills the instrumental passages and then Ikue singing a pop love tune about a man and a woman who may have been together at one point or at least fantasized about it but now walking in different directions on opposite sides of the avenue.
Mayo Shouno（庄野真代）wrote and composed "Two-Way Street". She is famous for singing one of those exotic kayo which was fairly popular in the late 1970s, "Tonde Istanbul"（飛んでイスタンブール）. The other thing that struck me was how well Sakakibara could sing. Something like "Two-Way Street" sounds like a ballad that Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）would tackle but Ikue-chan takes care of it very well. There are also parts of the song which remind me of another more famous song which came out a couple of years prior.
The second track "Omoide no Irie"（思い出の入江...Bay of Memories）was written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composed by Casey Rankin of the band SHOGUN. Although compared to "Two-Way Street", this mellow number is more on the conventional side of kayo/aidoru ballads that I've envisioned, the arrangement by Reijiro Koroku（小六禮次郎）still has the song lifted up a level. I could even imagine one of my favourite singers, Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）, covering this one.
Another bluesy number punctuated by the sax is "Toki wa Utsukushiku"（時は美しく...Time is Beautiful）which straddles that City Pop/AOR line. It's a nice slow twilight shuffle down a street as Ikue serenades her beau about how enjoyable her time is with him. Hearing that sax, I rather wish that somebody had actually put down who handled all of the instruments in the liner notes, but c'est la vie. In any case, Reiko Imamura（いまむられいこ）took care of the lyrics while Rankin once again came up with the music.
Singer-songwriter Nanako Sato（佐藤奈々子）, who I have also seen within the pages of "Japanese City Pop", was responsible for this happy and quirky "Sweet Sunny Side Up" about wedded bliss showing up over breakfast. Ikue not only sings about getting up early to make the most important meal of the day for her darling hubby but she does it in a faintly early 20th century style. I could almost see a giant NBC microphone materializing in front of her.
My last song for this article is "Kurenai Hana"（紅い花...Red Flowers）, one of my favourite tracks on "C'est Drole". It starts off rather gospel-like before it goes into this cool riff about heartbreak. My imagination once again flies here as I envision Ikue singing in front of a honky-tonk piano somewhere in Paris. Ahhh, l'amour....c'est drole, n'est ce pas? The only thing missing here are those rose petals just frittering away in the cold wind. Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）and Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）were responsible for this one.
I couldn't find out how "C'est Drole" did on Oricon but I think for Ikue fans, it was a good buy. There is a nice mix of songs by good songwriters and I realized that Sakakibara wasn't just the happy-go-lucky aidoru who popped up on the first few episodes of the Kohaku Utagassen that I had ever seen.
Before I finish off, I have to give thanks to the YouTube uploader who was responsible for most of the videos up here tonight, Dasu（ダス）. He is totally devoted to Sakakibara and thanks to him, I was able to pull the trigger on my wallet to get "C'est Drole" and "Slow Memory", the latter of which I will also talk about in the next week or so.
I've been hearing about all of the hot and humid weather that has been barraging itself onto the Japanese archipelago over the past few days (and will most likely continue well into September). Well, those over there wringing their hands and their handkerchiefs will probably be swooning in envy since here in Toronto today, it's damp and the temperature may barely peak above 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit). It was quite cool going out for that walk earlier this morning, especially wearing track shorts. But then remembering the sauna that was my experience of a Japanese summer, I was quite comfy.
"Uta Kon"（うたコン）had its summer song theme a couple of days ago and the first song up that night was an old 1967 tune by the Group Sounds band, The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）, Kenji Sawada's（沢田研二）former unit. "Seaside Bound" was their 2nd single released in March of that year, and it was the tune that apparently cemented their status as hit makers. The cover performance on "Uta Kon" had me interested in the song and sure enough, listening to the original convinced me that there was nothing like the original to illustrate what the GS sound was all about.
"Seaside Bound" was written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）, and as performed frenetically by The Tigers, it was that Go-Go music which makes for an interesting comparison with the band's most famous single, the melancholy "Hana no Kubi Kazari"（花の首飾り）a year later. I gather that Oricon was still about a year away from charting the hits but there was no doubt about the success of the song since it sold 400,000 records and scored a No. 2 ranking through the "Young Music" magazine.
The above video is of The Tigers coming back for a concert in 1982. Sawada was already well into his glam rock days but it was nice of him to peel off the makeup and put on the cute suit again to do the ol' Group Sounds again.
Going back to the beginning here with this story, but this happens during that July 1981 Toronto Japanese Language School graduation trip. There was the 5-day tour of Tokyo along with stopovers in Nagoya and Kyoto, and then there was the 3-day homestay with the high school girls of Tezukayama in Nara. This included a day-long trip with us three guys and our respective hosts through Nara and Osaka.
I'm not sure what prompted the decision but all 6 of us ended up catching an anime motion picture two-thirds of the way into the movie! Can't even remember how the staffer even let us in but it was the movie whose trailer you can see above here. It was titled "Syrius no Densetsu"（シリウスの伝説...The Legend of Syrius）, and for those folks who think this may have been a riff off of Walt Disney's version of "The Little Mermaid", the former film was actually released a day or two before we saw it in that month of July...almost a decade before Disney's first big success story with animated musicals began.
As I said, we entered the theatre with only less than half an hour left but it was pretty easy to figure out the story. It was all very Romeo & Juliet with the star-crossed lovers of Syrius The Sea Prince and Malta The Fire Child (I heard when they got together, it all got really steamy....ach, made myself laugh). As I remember it and as you can see from above, there was something quite Disney and Nelvana (a Canadian animation company) about it. Of course, once the movie was over, the girls were dabbing tears while we guys suddenly had "allergy attacks". And then we went for parfaits at a cafe nearby.
(Sorry but I could only find the instrumental version.)
The predictable story aside, what impressed me about "Syrius no Densetsu" was the music which was created by Koichi Sugiyama (すぎやまこういち), the man behind some of the most famous kayo chestnuts such as Garo's "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten"（学生街の喫茶店）and "Koi no Fuuga"（恋のフーガ）by The Peanuts way back when. The soundtrack was all very orchestral and epic as if Sugiyama had wanted to compose something for the most ambitious ballet musical.
With support by the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the pop vocal group Circus（サーカス）, Sugiyama and veteran lyricist Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）created the theme song and the insert song for the movie, "Toki yo Yuruyaka ni" (Slow Down, Time) and "Ai no Cantata" (Love Cantata) respectively.
"Toki yo Yuruyaka ni" as the main theme is a proud but wistful anthem about lovers blocking all sight and sound and stopping time just to see each other. Meanwhile, "Ai no Cantata" (the song is in the video immediately above) is a gently rolling romantic number that accompanies Syrius and Malta during the happier period of their courtship. Both are sung wonderfully by Circus and at the time I had no idea about this group. A couple of years later, I would get to know their most famous hit from 1978, "Mr. Summertime" from "Sounds of Japan".
I gotta say that some of those orchestral treatments of anime flicks back in the 1980s were just tremendous and yet they could also be distinguished from those John Williams scores from around the same time.
Later on, one of the other guys told me that "Syrius no Densetsu" didn't particularly get any great reviews from the critics. Well, so be it. It still provided one of my good memories from the trip to Japan.
I've discovered another one of those rare singles on YouTube. This time, it's Maria Asahina's（朝比奈マリア）"Disco Gal", and yup, it's pretty much as the title says. Glittery disco balls, bell-bottom pants and wide-lapeled leisure suits are all welcome to join in on the fun.
However, even before I saw the video on YouTube today, I kept seeing Maria Asahina on one page in "Japanese City Pop"...just another one of those singers that inhabited some place in the mysterious lower nine-tenths of my Japanese music iceberg. I had no idea who she was until I read her J-Wiki bio in which I found out that she is the Washington D.C.-born daughter of singer-actress Izumi Yukimura (雪村いづみ...who has her own entry here) and an Italian-American. She started life in the geinokai at the age of 15 years (1977) as a model before releasing one album, "MARIA", and two singles, her debut single being "Disco Gal" in 1979. The lyrics were provided by the prolific Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）who had also written for singers like Agnes Chan（アグネス・チャン）and Saori Yuki（由紀さおり）. Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）took care of the disco music; he also composed the music for The Peanuts'"Koi no Fuuga"（恋のフーガ）and GARO's "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten"（学生街の喫茶店）, both classics of their decades.
Asahina has been a tarento and is currently an accessory designer.
This was another one of those songs that seemed to be everywhere at every time during the space of a year. I had heard of Hitomi Shimatani（島谷ひとみ） previously, through her cover of the Janet Jackson hit "Doesn't Really Matter", but she really hit the pay dirt with this souped-up cover of a song by a band from her own (rhythm) nation from decades back.
I hadn't heard the original version of "Amairo no Kami no Otome" (The Girl With The Flaxen Hair), and I suspect many of the fans of this new version probably hadn't either, but it was one of those tunes that seemed to prick up everyone's ears and get them moving. Released in May 2002 as Shimatani's 7th single, the 21st-century dance arrangement was such that I hadn't realized that it was a cover of something from the 60s, and just thought it was Avex Trax coming up with another rumbly hit a la Namie Amuro or Tomomi Kahala. In any case, the infectiously happy melody, the video, Shimatani's vocals and looks all helped to get the song up to No. 4 on Oricon. It sold about 375,000 copies and got the Hiroshima-born singer an invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen. Ultimately, "Amairo no Kami no Otome" became the 22nd-ranked song for 2002.
The big hit for Shimatani also brought attention to the original song which had been released in February 1968 and sung by The Village Singers (ヴィレッジ・シンガーズ), a Group Sounds band that was around from 1966 to 1971. "Amairo no Kami no Otome" was written by Jun Hashimoto (橋本淳...who also came up with the classic "Blue Light Yokohama" for Ayumi Ishida) and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）. However, the song had a proto-existence of sorts when it was initially made for singer Michi Aoyama（青山ミチ） under the title of "Kaze Fuku Oka de"（風吹く丘で...On a Windy Hill） in 1966; but it got put into the vaults instead until it was dusted off a couple of years later with the new title.
It has that breezy Hawaiian twang feel that was common to a lot of Group Sounds songs. The 1968"Amairo no Kami no Otome" went as high as No. 7 on the then-newborn Oricon chart. It was also used as the theme song for a TBS talk-music variety show aimed at the younger generation titled "Young 720", and from last year, it has been used as the train departure warning chime at Isesaki Station on the Tobu-Isesaki Line going through Gunma Prefecture.
This is a song that I just came across by the 70s folk group, GARO, and enjoyed. I knew the band only for their 3rd single and big hit, "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten"（学生街の喫茶店）, a song that sounded somewhere between a tango and a waltz at points. "Kimi no Tanjoubi"(Your Birthday) is on the more melancholy side; it deals with a guy and a girl celebrating the latter's birthday...which just happens to be the day that she broke up with him. And then the guy has to face those memories again once her birthday approaches. Released in May 1973, it was created by the same pair behind "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten": Michio Yamagami and Koichi Sugiyama（山上路夫・すぎやまこういち）. For a folk song, it still has that something I call "string sophistication"....which reminds me of European music. Composer Sugiyama also seems to throw in a bit from GARO's biggest hit in the middle. The band's 5th single hit the top spot on Oricon and was the 12th-ranked song of the year. It was also a track on their 4th album, "GARO LIVE"(1973).
Rie Asakura（朝倉理恵） was a Tokyo-born actress and singer who started her career in her teens with a chorus group known as The Singing Angels before going solo under the name of Taeko Sakurai（桜井妙子）. During that time, she sang a number of anime themes and commercial jingles in the early 70s. Then, when she passed an audition in 1972 with (the now) Sony Music Entertainment, she reverted to her real name and started singing pop songs for the remainder of the decade. Her version of "Kimi no Tanjoubi" was never released as an official single but was included on her debut album, "Ano Basho Kara"（あの場所から...From That Place), released in July 1973. Incidentally, she also did a cover of GARO's "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten".
Fugue: ".....a compositional technique (in classical music) in two or more voices, built on a subject (theme) that is introduced in the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and recurs frequently in the course of the composition." (Wikipedia)
Decided to give you a bit of a heads-up on the title of this song. "Koi no Fuuga"(Fugue of Love) was released in August 1967 by The Peanuts, and it's a 60s Quincy Jones-worthy tune written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）. I don't usually mention the arranger in my entries, but Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰） was the one behind this, and he was also the scorer behind "Uchuusenkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト...Space Battleship Yamato）; one of the battle themes from that anime starts off just like this song. (things that make you go hmmmm.....). Speaking of Miyagawa, according to J-Wiki, he tried to arrange the song so that it followed a fugue pattern, but he got somewhat stuck so he ended up making a "slightly scary"arrangement, in his words.
It certainly starts off with a bang. With timpani at the beginning and some foghorn trombone near the end, Austin Powers and just about every other spy he was spoofing would've been quite impressed with this one. The Oricon charts would still be a few months away from starting up, but when they did, "Koi no Fuuga" apparently got as high up as No. 20. And the ladies did get onto the Kohaku Utagassen for that year as you can see below...complete with loud kettledrums (sorry but the video has been taken down).
Covers of the song would pop up over the decades. J-R&B singer Yuki Koyanagi（小柳ゆき） gave her own version in August 2003, as a track on her album, "Koyanagi The Covers Product 2". No twin sister for her but she improvised in the video. This version got as high as No. 36 on Oricon.
Then, there was the version given by the Hello Project duo, W, in February 2005 which went as far up as No. 12. Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji（加護亜衣・辻希美） debuted as the duo with another Peanuts tune, "Koi no Vacances"（恋のバカンス）the year before (already profiled....look for "Hello Project"or "2004"). The song also appears on their 2nd album, "2nd W", which was released in March of the same year.
In any case, the song is short but dynamic (kinda like Rita Moreno).
Tokyo has become the major-league coffee town with any of the Starbucks, Excelsior, Doutor and Tully's coffee houses occupying virtually every corner of the megalopolis. With oh-so-cool interiors, expensive drinks and coffee-friendly music piping over the speakers, it almost seems unbelievable that there were even places called cafes before 1995 when the first Starbucks branch opened up in Ginza (I ought to know...I saw the 1-hour lineup in front of it when it just opened up for business).
And yet, there was a time way back when when these quaint European-style coffeehouses were all the rage with the young folk. They still exist here and there all over Tokyo but they mostly attract the older types and coffee connoisseurs. Listening to "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten"(Student Village Cafe) brings back a lot of memories of going to these older, musty places with the wooden interiors and quaint cups of high-priced coffee....these are the places that serve the internationally notorious $5 java. I was there in 1972 as a kid but I can't remember whether I ever stepped foot in an actual kissaten at that time, but I've been to plenty of those older staid coffeehouses as an adult.
The song was originally sung by the folk rock group,Garo, a trio of longhaired young men who were heavily influenced by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to such an extent that the band was called the Japanese version of CSNY. Melodically, there is that urgent beat propelling the entire proceedings, while the vocalist lightly skates through the lyrics almost like a waltz. It is a very interesting song. Lyrically, a lot of nostalgia comes through now as the lyrics tell of a couple that used to frequent a certain coffeehouse for no particular reason but to chat away the hours before the eventual sad breakup.
"Gakusei Gai no Kissaten" had an effect on record buyers as well. It was originally released in June 1972 as a B-side for the band's 3rd single, but when it was realized that it was doing far better than the A-side, there was a hasty switch made. And it certainly took its time reaching No. 1 on the Oricon. It finally hit it on February 19, 1973 and stayed there for 7 weeks straight. It eventually became the 3rd-ranked song of that year, and earned a couple of Newcomer awards. It was also a track on Garo's 2nd album.
As for the band itself, Garo lasted 12 singles and 6 albums before finally breaking up in 1976 due to musical differences.
