Kuniko Yamada -- Tetsugaku Shiyou（哲学しよう）

 

When it comes to veteran comedienne Kuniko Yamada（山田邦子）, who I saw as the Japanese version of America's Carol Burnett, I mostly remember her time spearheading her own Fuji-TV Wednesday night show "Kuni-chan no Yamada Katsutenai Terebi" (やまだかつてないテレビ....Kuni's Yamada Unprecedented TV) during my days and nights living in the mountains of Gunma Prefecture in the late 1980s going into the 1990s. However, I also remember that in the early years of that decade, Yamada had gotten her start on the popular comedy-variety program, "Oretachi Hyokinzoku" (オレたちひょうきん族....We Are The Wild and Crazy Guys) , also a Fuji-TV property and one that included EPO's cover of "Downtown" as a theme song. Specifically, she had one of her own segments called "Hyokin Ekaki Uta"（ひょうきん絵かき歌...Wild and Crazy Illustration Song） in which she drew some amusing minimalist pictures with a sly twist while a chorus backed her up. I think the above set though was one of the more modest segments. Man, was she a fast talker!

Yamada was also a singer and again, it was mostly on "Kuni-chan no Yamada Katsutenai Terebi" that I saw her perform these somewhat tongue-in-cheek parody tunes, taking affectionate shots at the current hits or even genres. What I hadn't been aware is that she'd been releasing music from time to time since basically her debut in 1981. 

Although, Yamada's day job remained in the comedy field, she had the big-name composers helping out in her tunes such as the late Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）and Spectrum bassist Naoki Watanabe（渡辺直樹）. In December 1982, Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）wove a simmering synthpop number called "Tetsugaku Shiyou" (Let's Philosophize). Yamada, as she did with her other songs, created the lyrics about being a little over-the-top in trying to seduce a fetching young man. I'm not quite sure at this point how serious or ironic she was being with "Tetsugaku Shiyou", although if I'm going to use the Burnett analogy once more, it would be as if America's veteran comedienne attempted a Carly Simon-type pop song.

KAN Passes Away at 61 (1962-2023)

 

In the light of the passing of singer Junko Ohashi（大橋純子）and lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）over the past week among the several figures who have left this mortal coil in 2023, I unfortunately have to report another untimely death. Singer-songwriter Kan Kimura（木村和）, who went by his stage name of KAN, had died on November 12th 2023 at the age of 61 although the first news reports didn't come until earlier today. Earlier this year, he had been diagnosed with cancer of Meckel's diverticulum in the small intestine although the direct cause of his death has yet to be announced.

Last night, I was about to turn in when something spiked in my head to check the Japanese news feeds on Yahoo.jp or Mixi. I'm not clairvoyant in the least but I sometimes go with my instinct and considering the sad number of times that I've had to announce the death of a figure in the Japanese music industry recently, I went to Yahoo and saw the headline of comedienne Kuniko Yamada（山田邦子）expressing her shock and tribute toward KAN.

As I expressed earlier this spring, KAN was a musical figure that I considered to be one of the four male pillars in that realm during my time on the JET Programme (1989-1991). His most successful single "Ai wa Katsu" was all over the airwaves during the latter half of my first stint in Japan. And if there had been a TV home base for KAN, it would have been Yamada's popular Wednesday night variety show on Fuji-TV, "Kuniko-chan no Yamada Katsutenai Terebi"（邦ちゃんのやまだかつてないテレビ）which had its run between October 1989 and March 1992. He was pretty much a semi-regular there performing "Ai wa Katsu" and writing songs for Yamada herself, and even for a while, the hit was used as the opening theme. Yamada even provided a parody song "Ai wa Chicken Katsu"（愛はチキンカツ...Love is a Chicken Cutlet）.

From Oricon.co.jp

In terms of how he presented himself, he always looked very dapper in a series of suits, sweaters and pullovers, but because of one appearance somewhere on TV, I will always envision him in a natty suit with a bowtie. With his friendly and slightly hangdog expression, he struck me as being the nice cute guy that any potential parents-in-law would accept on a dime. Plus, the way that his voice almost cracked when he hit the high notes probably cemented the adorableness factor. If I'm not mistaken, he admired Billy Joel, and I think he took some of the Piano Man into himself with his brand of piano pop and rock, and he has probably given some of his own self to contemporary artists such as Gen Hoshino（星野源）.

Below I will provide some of the KAN songs (his own and by others) that I've remembered from around 30 years ago. My condolences go out to his family, friends and fans. 

(1991) Propose （プロポーズ）

(1992) Kan no Christmas Song（KANのChristmas Song）

(1990) Miki Imai -- Ame ni Kiss no Hanataba wo (雨にキッスの花束を）

(1991) Yamadakatsutenai Wink -- Sayonara dakedo Sayonara janai（さよならだけどさよならじゃない)

(1990) Ai wa Katsu (愛は勝つ）

Kuniko Yamada -- Yamada Katsutenai CD (やまだかつてないＣＤ）

Kuniko Yamada（山田邦子）, a homely but hilariously cheeky comedienne, first found fame on the Fuji-TV Saturday night comedy-variety show, "Oretachi Hyokinzoku"（オレたちひょうきん族...We Are The Funny Guys) which pretty much ran for the entire decade of the 1980s. Her specialty was impersonating singers, but I recall seeing her in a segment in which she drew some surprisingly racy stuff in front of the kids. But with her own star rising, Yamada eventually got her own variety show on the same network from October 1989 titled "Kuni-chan no Yamada Katsutenai Terebi"(やまだかつてないテレビ....Kuni's Yamada Unprecedented TV) every Wednesday night. It was part of my weekly viewing routine during my years in Gunma. The comedienne was her usual hammy self in various skits and segments with other regulars, but a number of musicians also achieved a form of semi-regular status on the show.

So, in March 1991, a double-CD pack which resembled one of those cubic watermelons that Japanese scientists had concocted some years back was released titled "Yamada Katsutenai CD"（やまだかつてないＣＤ....Yamada Unprecedented CD). Being a fan of the show, of course, I just had to purchase my own copy. CD 1 has all of the original songs while CD 2 contains the karaoke versions of those songs. Almost half of them have already been profiled: Kan -- "Ai wa Katsu", Mariko Nagai -- "ZUTTO" and the late Kaori Kawamura -- "Tsubasa wo Kudasai".

Kawamura also had another contribution to the show in the form of "Kamisama ga Oritekuru Yoru"（神様が降りてくる夜...The Night The Gods Come Down), a pop-rock tune which was used as the theme for one of the recurring segments: a parodic feature on medieval Japanese court life. The song was created by Ken Takahashi（高橋研）.

During the turn of this decade, the singing duo Wink had become one of the big acts in show business. Of course, Kuniko Yamada, whose talent lay in impersonating singers, just couldn't resist and decided that she needed to impersonate them. So, she incorporated another segment in 1990 titled "Nihon Zenkoku Sachiko Sagase"(日本全国早智子探せ.... Find A Sachiko All Over Japan) in which her Shoko Aida would find the right Sachiko Suzuki. She found her.... Chie Yokoyama（横山知枝）, a high school student from Hiroshima Prefecture. Together they formed the unit, Yamadakatsutenai Wink（やまだかつてないWink), and their first single was "T-Intersection -- Anata ni Modorenai"(T-Intersection -- あなたに戻れない...I Can't Return to You), an uptempo Eurobeat piece whose lyrics were written by Yamada herself and composed by saxophonist MALTA.

In the following year, the ersatz Wink came up with a ballad titled "Sayonara dakedo Sayonara janai"（さよならだけどさよならじゃない...It is and It Isn't Goodbye), which was also written by Yamada and composed by regular guest KAN. It was created partially as a tribute to Yokoyama who was on her way to graduating from high school and onto college. However, it's become a graduation song for just about everyone. It did become a hit, peaking at No. 2 and ending up as the 49th-ranked song of 1991. The entire disc set itself was able to hit the top spot on Oricon as well.

There is also a Xmas song by the duo on the CD, but let's save that for a more appropriate time.

Yamada Katsutenai CD
Discs to help me remember the late 80s and early 90s

Seeds not included