The Glee Men -- Koi Shitara（恋したら）

 

Welcome to Family Day in Ontario. I guess that this could be called a semi-statutory holiday since although a lot of the stores are closed, the post office is still running. 

Anyways, we're going to start the last full week of February 2023 with a little something from over 50 years ago. Last year in September, I discovered this singer by the name of Kyo Nishimura（西村協）who's run the gamut from folk to rock to pop to jazz in his career. Well, I'm heading back to the beginning when he was a part of a trio called The Glee Men（グリーメン）along with Keiji Asano（浅野啓児）and Akio Ichikawa（市川章夫）. The group came out of a folk chorus club at Meiji University in 1969 and according to one site, it has been compared to the New Christy Minstrels from the United States, a folk music band that I often heard on radio as a kid.

In November 1970, The Glee Men released a single "Koi Shitara" (When I Fall in Love) that was written by Osamu Kitayama（北山修）and composed by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, two members of The Folk Crusaders in the 1960s. The song about a man's plans when he meets the love of his life has got that orchestral kayo arrangement which probably had them appearing on various music-variety shows but it's underlaid by that undulating folk rhythm and I wonder whether there is a straight guitar-only folk version of the song. The harmonies among Nishimura, Asano and Ichikawa are also very pleasing to the ear.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find much else on The Glee Men, so if there is any other information about them that you have found, please let me know.

Kyo Nishimura -- See You Again（シーユーアゲイン）

 

Thankfully, it doesn't happen very much at all but there are those rare occasions when a first article for a fairly obscure singer gets written up, and then later on, the YouTube videos for the song get taken down due to the usual copyright strikes or other reasons. It's frustrating but those are the breaks, and I certainly don't bear any ill will toward the YouTube channels.

A month ago, I wrote up an article on jazz singer Kyo Nishimura（西村協）regarding "Tabi ni Detai"（旅にでたい）and "Natsu no Owari ni"（夏の終りに）, two sides of the same single that came out in 1982. However, the video for the latter song has been eliminated unfortunately and I couldn't find any replacements. 

The other single that he put up in his early kayo days was in 1980 and it acted as the theme song for a TBS drama in that year titled "Rikon Tomodachi"（離婚ともだち...Friends of Divorce）. "See You Again" is a sweeping dramatic tune by Nishimura whose arrangement and his singing again reminds me of the works of Karyudo（狩人）and even Akira Fuse（布施明）this time. The song also has some big names behind it: lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）, composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranger Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）.

As I mentioned off the top, Nishimura has been a jazz singer for many years now. Here is a video courtesy of NPO Ongaku Shien Kyokai （NPO 音楽支援協会...NPO Music Support Association） of the man doing "Lover, Come Back to Me" from a 2013 concert.

Kyo Nishimura -- Tabi ni Detai（旅にでたい）/Natsu no Owari ni（夏の終りに）

 

Hello, Monday! It's hard to believe that we'll be heading into October from this weekend but here we are.

I had never heard of Kyo Nishimura（西村協）, but I came across some of his music recently on YouTube and thought it would be nice to share. According to his (currently dormant) website (nothing about him on J-Wiki), he is a singer who arose from the Glee Men（グリーメン）, a folk chorus club at Meiji Gakuin University in 1969 with a song called "Koi Shitara"（恋したら...When You Fall in Love）, created by lyricist Osamu Kitayama（北山修）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）. In the 1970s, he apparently was a part of the legendary ereki guitar band Takeshi Terauchi & Blue Jeans（寺内タケシとブルージーンズ）as a percussionist although I couldn't find any proof of that on the J-Wiki profile of the band; I had to find it at a website called White Rock.

His website states that he has been a jazz singer for the past few decades but there's nothing on his earlier discography. But I do know that he did release at least two singles as a solo artist in the 1980s with one of them being "Tabi ni Detai" (I Want to Go on a Trip). Composed by Masamitsu Tayama（田山雅充）, written by Tsuzuru Nakasato（中里綴）and arranged by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）, "Tabi ni Detai" was released in 1982 but it seems like a gentle throwback to the folksy kayo of the 1970s, reminding me of acts such as Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）and Karyudo（狩人）. I couldn't find Tayama's lyrics, but the overall feeling and that title make me want to think that it's another wistful account of someone traveling to the regional areas of Japan to forget a now-former romance.

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

The B-side of "Tabi ni Detai" is "Natsu no Owari ni" (At the End of Summer), and it's also a pretty wistful tune. However, although this song was also created by Tayama and Nakasato, the arrangement here is by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）and it's done more like a Fashion Music (Japanese Baroque pop) tune with those strings and a sensation of something classical. If there is a trip to be done here, it's most likely somewhere in Europe.