Koutarou Yamamoto -- Mihoko e（美保子へ）

 

My impression of the late singer-songwriter Koutaro Yamamoto（山本コウタロー）was that he was quite the amiable and goofy guy in his T-shirt and bell-bottom jeans according to what I've read and heard through "Mura no Yuubin Haitatsu"（村の郵便配達）of 1972 and via his bands Salty Sugar（ソルティー・シュガー）and Koutarou Yamamoto and Weekend（山本コウタローとウィークエンド）.

So, it's quite the thing to see a much snazzier and older Yamamoto in that suit on the cover of his October 1984 album "Juu-gatsu no Kyori"（10月の距離...October Distance）. He looked like he was ready to party on the dance floors of Roppongi or Shinjuku back then. One song from that album and itself his final single is "Mihoko e" (To Mihoko); the single was released a month earlier. A wistful tune about a fellow who wishes a former flame well when she gets married to another guy, the arrangement of the song still keeps that folksy nature that had been part and parcel of a Yamamoto song from years previously...that is, before a synthesizer crashes the party like a thunder clap near the end for some weird reason. And this time around, Yamamoto doesn't have anything to do with the songwriting. The lyricist was Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）of AKB48 fame and the composer was Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）.

The kanji for Mihoko can also be read as Mioko but I don't think I could hear the name at all being dropped in the song but maybe one of you can catch it if it does exist. 

Koutarou Yamamoto -- Mura no Yuubin Haitatsu（村の郵便配達）

 

In the last couple of days, I heard some sad news. Folk singer and songwriter Koutarou Yamamoto（山本コウタロー） passed away at the age of 73 a couple of weeks ago on July 4th from a cerebral hemorrhage. He'd been with at least a couple of bands during his time: Salty Sugar（ソルティー・シュガー）and Koutarou Yamamoto and Weekend（山本コウタローとウィークエンド）, and with the former band, he became famous for the good-time hand-clapping tune "Hashire Koutarou"（走れコウタロー）, a tribute to a famous racehorse of the 1960s but also a good-natured poke at Yamamoto's tardy ways which was created by a couple of his fellow band members.

Yamamoto also had a solo career which started in 1972 and lasted well into the 1980s with seven singles released. Four albums were also released with the most recent one "Moonlight All Night" coming out in September 2013. His first single was the country folk tune "Mura no Yuubin Haitatsu" (Village Postal Delivery), a happy little ditty about writing a love letter and posting it in the mail. Ahh, those old-fashioned ways before SNS.😊

This time, though, it wasn't Yamamoto behind words or lyrics. Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）wrote the words while Hiroshi "Monsieru" Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）, formerly of the Group Sounds band The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース）, took care of the melody. "Mura no Yuubin Haitatsu" first hit the record shelves in March 1972.

My condolences to Yamamoto's family and friends and fans.

Koutarou Yamamoto and Weekend -- Misaki Meguri（岬めぐり）

 

This very brief video of the famous Cape Erimo in Hokkaido by Voices in Japan Podcast shows off the epic and beautiful combination of land, ocean and sky in one shot. It's no wonder that in Japan, probably a lot of kayo had been created in tribute to this particular cape and other such natural structures all over the nation over the decades.

I managed to find another song devoted to all of the capes through "Misaki Meguri" (A Tour of the Capes), the debut single of Koutarou Yamamoto and Weekend（山本コウタローとウィークエンド）from June 1974. A refreshing and jaunty folk song written by Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）and composed by Yamamoto（山本厚太郎）himself, the arrangement by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）reminds me a little of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (1971) by the late John Denver. Reaching No. 5 on Oricon and ending up as the 17th-ranked single of the year, "Misaki Meguri" also became the band's biggest hit, selling around 400,000 records.

According to the J-Wiki article for the song, Yamagami had written the lyrics based on an overall image of the various Japanese capes. However, the people living around the Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture adopted the song for its own since they believed it was based on their peninsula, something that Yamagami apparently didn't mind at all. In fact, between 2008 and 2017, "Misaki Meguri" had even been used as the approach song for trains entering the nearby Misakiguchi Station on the Keikyu Kurihama Line.

To finish off, we have another early Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）sighting to match that of his presence and participation in Ryuichi Sakamoto's（坂本龍一）"DAS NEUE JAPANISCHE ELEKTRONISCHE VOLKSLIED" track on The Professor's 1978 "Sen no Knife"（千のナイフ）. Drummer Yutaka Uehara（上原裕）and bassist Jiro Terao（寺尾次郎）who had also taken part in the recording of "Misaki Meguri" were also part of the rhythm section for Sugar Babe（シュガーベイブ）, and evidently, Tats himself helped bring in the drums so he was privy to the recording of "Misaki Meguri". No idea whether one of the masters of City Pop had also been asked to play the castanets but this information came via the J-Wiki article from an October 2012 episode of the radio variety show "Sakizaki Kounosuke to Yoshida Takuro no All Night Nippon Gold"（坂崎幸之助と吉田拓郎のオールナイトニッポンGOLD...Kounosuke Sakizaki and Takuro Yoshida's All Night Nippon Gold） on the Nippon Broadcasting System.

Ah, also have a look at another later creation by the band, "Shiawase no Kane"（幸せの鐘）.