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.
Doing the blog for as long as I have, I've been able to encounter a lot of singers and bands that I never would have, and that includes the mysterious Rie Murakami（村上リエ）who only put out that one album in 1984, "Sahara". At the time I made my first posting for the singer, it was for one of its tracks, "Say Cheese", which had me reminisce about Boz Scaggs and Bobby Caldwell from their 1970s days.
However, another track is the appropriately titled "TNT" which had the same lyricist, Linda Hennrick but this time, the composer was Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, and as dedicated KKP readers know, whenever I see her name, she has my undivided attention. And sure enough, this is one funky blaster. In fact, I think it so funky that it should have gotten a music video with plenty of choreography. The interesting thing about this one though is that it not only has some of that Dazz Band arrangement thanks to Masanori Sasaji（笹路正徳）but there are points where it approaches Manhattan Transfer-friendly fusion.
The above video was provided by Marty McFlies v2 (thank you for that, Marty) and I was struck by one comment he had in his explanation under the video. He mentioned that when he'd bought "Sahara", he hadn't been all that impressed with it and put it on the back burner for years. Years later, he gave it another shot and found it all so worthy. I could totally relate to that sentiment since I gave my first purchase of a Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）album the same initial short shrift and many years in my cabinet before giving it another shot for some reason and then finally seeing the light.
Happy Friday! Well, things are supposedly falling into place for Toronto's contribution to the World Cup next week. I'm casually interested in the soccer that's to be played but to be honest, I was looking more at what restaurants representing the other nations in Canada's group will be cooking up.
Speaking about what someone is cooking up, it looks like Mariko Tone's（刀根麻理子）protagonist in her song "Private Number" is getting quite hot and bothered about her beau. Must be early times in the relationship but she's more than happy to give the lad her special phone number. "Private Number" starts out a bit tinny tropical but then the synth thrums in along with the persistent percussion before things get all funky and even some Motown. Of course, gotta have that City Pop saxophone and the horns in there, too.
"Private Number" is available on Tone's June 1986 3rd album"Naturally". It was written by Linda Hennrick, composed by Goji Tsuno（つのごうじ）and arranged by Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）.
Soulful singer Kiyomi Suzuki（鈴木聖美）has been known to me as someone who has been involved in that classic urban contemporary duet with her brother Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）, "Taxi". Plus, I discovered that she had her own dip into Japanese pop culture franchises such as "City Hunter" with her ballad "Give Me Your Love Tonight".
However, even before those two songs, Suzuki had been involved with another such franchise, that being the cops and robbers series "Abunai Deka"（あぶない刑事）. The show has always had its share of R&B-inflected tunes and Suzuki provided "Wait and See (Love Song)" as her contribution to the show's soundtrack from November 1986. Linda Hennrick wrote the English lyrics for Suzuki while Takashi Shoji（小路隆）composed the melody that Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）arranged. Especially with that saxophone in there, I couldn't help but feel that there was some kinship between "Wait and See" and the love theme from "St. Elmo's Fire" by David Foster.
The producers really must have loved the song since there are two more versions on the soundtrack: the strings version and the instrumental version.
My friend Scott from "Holly Jolly X'Masu", the podcast that deals with all things Japanese Christmas, has put up his most recent episode which deals with singer-songwriter and musician Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）and his 1991 album"Ballad Xmas". There are some really nice soulful tracks including the first one "Merry Christmas Baby", so I hope that you'll give it a try. I'll be holding "Merry Christmas Baby" for either later on in the annual KKP Xmas season or I may just post it in the dog days of summer as I sometimes do simply to remind folks that, yes Virginia, there is an Xmas season within some months.
As a bit of an aside, does anyone remember Paul Verhoeven's 1997 take on Robert A. Heinlein's"Starship Troopers"? It was tongue-in-cheek but I loved the action and I did like Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown as the rough-and-tough military men.
Had no idea about this one. Well, almost a decade earlier, there had been a 6-episode Japanese OVA created in 1988 based on "Starship Troopers" titled "Uchuu no Senshi"（宇宙の戦士...Warriors of Space）.
Despite the limited number of episodes, there were a slew of theme songs included in the OVA. One that was used for Episodes 1 and 6 in the opening and Episode 2 for the ending was Tsunoda's "Believe". Composed by the singer and written by Linda Hennrick, "Believe" has that soulful melody which could have been used for an old Miller Beer commercial when the guys have gone through a hard day of work and have earned themselves a sunset round at the nearest bar. Otherwise, the guys were space soldiers who had spent days and nights mowing down gigantic insects and now have earned a reprieve at the local canteen. It's Miller Time!🍺
Friday night looks to be a good night for some Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）. When I hear some of her material, I get some associations with other singers such as Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）back from the 1980s and Miho Fujiwara（藤原美穂）of Chocolate Lips.
I've already dipped twice into the well that is Tone's 2nd album"Purple Rose"from October 1985. For one thing, I've covered the funky opening track "Broken Eyes" that launches the album and then there is the sophisticated pop of her "Matenro Monogatari"（摩天楼物語）. Why I hadn't bothered getting the album is beyond me although I will still try for one of her BEST compilations.
Now here is the 2nd track, "Talk To Me", which starts off with some sassy back chorus and some jumpy keyboard work. Tone also sings it totally in English with an appropriately sultry attitude through Linda Hennrick's lyrics alongside Tsunehiro Izumi's（和泉常寛）music. Having listened to "Talk To Me" a few times now, I definitely do get those Kokubu vibes although the introduction of those strings (synth or otherwise) also has me thinking once again of some sophisti-pop.
This is another one of those "one & done" singers who inhabit the deep underwater recesses of my kayo kyoku iceberg. I couldn't find much information aside from scraps here and there but according to the Waltz Online site, Rie Murakami（村上リエ）only released the one album "Sahara" in 1984 before disappearing from view. But thanks to the wonders of YouTube and the renaissance of City Pop for the entire planet, "Sahara" has begun to flourish.
Not sure if the site were complimenting or criticizing the choice but the writer noted that the cover for "Sahara" looked more appropriate for an aidoru album. However, Murakami's sole outing is described as Japanese-style urban soul, so I gather that City Pop would be a good genre title here. And one track "Say Cheese", from the flowing strings to the mellow jangling guitar to the bass-piano combination, takes me back to 1970s Boz Scaggs and Bobby Caldwell. I'd also like to send my good thoughts to the electric guitar solo, and overall, the effect is that of a very comfy metropolitan strut.
Linda Hennrick provided the English lyrics while Masahiro Ando（安藤まさひろ）, the leader of fusion band The Square, came up with the really pleasant City Pop melody. I kinda wonder whether the rhythm track for "Say Cheese" was made into the theme song for Masa -Neo CityPop's videos.
I've seen my fair share of cop shows over the decades although I can't really say that I have a favourite among them. However, if I have to make a choice, I would have to go with the straight-arrow police procedural programs such as the original "The Untouchables" with the late Robert Stack and Jack Webb's"Dragnet" TV series. Just the facts, indeed.
"The Untouchables" and "Dragnet" had their own famous theme songs done as grim and justice-seeking marches, but I gather as American television entered the 1980s, there was the trend of having some slick rock singer or band come up with a kickass theme tune. I think that the same thing was probably happening on Japanese TV.
Never became a die-hard fan of "Abunai Deka"（あぶない刑事...Dangerous Detectives） with the slick-if-slightly-goofy detectives played by Hiroshi Tachi and Kyohei Shibata（舘ひろし・柴田恭兵）, but the show had their own tough-talking theme songs with wailing guitars. I'm not sure if pop/rock singer Kahoru Kohiruimaki（小比類巻かほる）ever contributed one to "Abunai Deka" in her early years but she did provide a Japanese version of "You're Gonna Lose Me", an insert song for the series as her 3rd single in December 1986. That Japanese version was given the title of "Nagaku Atsui Yoru"（長く熱い夜...The Long Hot Night）.
The B-side for that single is "Cops and Robbers" which probably wasn't included in any cops-and-robbers program but had that sensation of any action superstar like Sly, Arnie or Steven going into battle against a million bad guys...and winning, of course. It has the beat and growling guitars to bravely accompany any lone wolf police officer and his beloved handgun into a non-descript den of iniquity. It also ends rather abruptly with the music suddenly falling off a cliff leaving Kohhy to quickly spurt out the last few words of English as if the recording studio were being shut down for non-payment of rent. Go figure.
Written by Linda Hennrick, composed by Takashi Shoji（小路隆）and arranged by Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）, "Cops and Robbers" was an ideal tune for Kohiruimaki since I'd always seen her back then as the tousled-hair hellion in leather with the lower velvety voice. However, it was with her next single, the poppier "Hold On Me", that she got her breakthrough hit and then right after that, she came up with the City Pop-friendly theme song for the anime "City Hunter".
Some sad news from the world of Japanese music in that composer/arranger Katsuhisa Hattori passed away today at the age of 83. His name is one that has been familiar to me through television since he not only provided theme songs for a number of shows of different genres but he sometimes appeared on them as well. Hattori also belongs to a large family of music makers including his father, composer/arranger Ryoichi Hattori（服部良一）, his son, composer/arranger Takayuki Hattori（服部隆之）, and granddaughter, violinist Mone Hattori（服部百音）.
One thing that I hadn't known not being a gamer was that Katsuhisa and Ryoichi co-arranged the first music CD for the composer Nobuo Uematsu（植松伸夫）for "Final Fantasy" in 1989. In terms of Katsuhisa's touchstones for me, I remember him for contributing his services for Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）when the latter released his Xmas album in 1993.
In a way, Hattori was a regular presence in terms of his music since I had been a regular viewer of Fuji-TV's long-running music show "Music Fair". He was the original arranger of the classy theme song created by Kougo Hotomi（保富康午）and Naozumi Yamamoto（山本直純）.
Moreover, he was also behind the exciting and sweeping opening theme for TBS' "The Best 10". Hattori provided a lot of theme songs for other television shows such as this detective show called "Kyodai Keiji"（兄弟刑事）for which I've already provided an article.
Hattori also provided a number of themes for anime such as "Tom Sawyer no Bouken"（トム・ソーヤーの冒険...The Adventures of Tom Sawyer）. The opening theme for this 1980 series was "Dare yori mo Tooku e"（誰よりも遠くへ...Farther Than Anyone） as sung by Maron Kusaka（日下まろん）with lyrics by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）.
His list of kayo that he composed for specific singers is quite short, though. One example is Tessei Miyoshi's（三好鉄生）"Sugoi Otoko no Uta"（すごい男の唄）, and there is this one for enka singer Aki Yashiro（八代亜紀）, the sunny "Hanataba ~ Bouquet"（花束）released in 1990 for which the late Yu Aku（阿久悠）provided the lyrics.
Organizations and events also benefited from Hattori's work. To celebrate the 120th anniversary of the Keikyu railway corporation, he composed a song titled "Ningen ga Suki Dakara"（人間が好きだから...Because We Love Humanity）which was written by Kyoko Tanaka（田中京子）and Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）with the vocal group Circus（サーカス）performing it. Since, according to the Wikipedia article on the company, Keikyu goes all the way back to 1898, I'm assuming that the song was created around 2018.
Although Hattori didn't provide many direct compositions for singers, he did arrange a lot of them that had been created by other songwriters. One that has already been talked about on the blog is his more regal version of the classic "Sotsugyo Shashin"（卒業写真）as performed by Hi-Fi Set（ハイ・ファイ・セット）in 1975 with Yumi Arai（荒井由実）as the original lyricist and composer. He also handled strings arrangements for many other artists such as the aforementioned Tatsuro Yamashita, Masashi Sada（さだまさし）and Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）.
The one big surprise that I've had in Katsuhisa Hattori's file thus far was in his 1985"Juicy and Crispy" album for his long-running "Ongaku Batake"（音楽畑）series. The second track is "Secrets", one lovely AOR piece that was written by Linda Hennrick; I'd never imagined that Hattori would come up with something in the light and mellow genre but out of all the songs featured in his long discography, "Secrets" has been the one tune by him that I would make a beeline for if I were having a bad day.
Discovered another couple of great tunes from Side B of "Juicy and Crispy". At about 21:00 is "Japonica" which seems to be Hattori's attempt at T-Square sports-loving goodness, and then at about 26:40 is "Costa Del Sol", a wonderful tropical cocktail of fusion. Really would love to get my hands on this album although my first attempt at it a few years ago sadly ended in failure.
From video games to classical music, Hattori has left a lot of fans with a wide variety of music that we will probably need years to discover and re-discover. He took up the baton for songwriting passed on by his father and now he has given it over to his son and potentially future generations.
Well, it's the penultimate Friday of the year so let's get to some City Pop!
I'm not such a purveyor of Vaporwave or Future Funk that I've ended up writing my script L I K E T H I S or thinking about the A E S T H E T I C S of it all. But from time to time, I encounter videos by folks such as Macross 82-99 and man, they can introduce me to some fine music such as the one that begins the above video.
Found out that this lively tune belongs to Marlene（マリーン）and those horns (BOOM, BOOM!) just grabbed me by the ears and haven't let go even though I first heard this 24 hours ago. "ESP" is one of those songs that belong in the party area of City Pop. Written by Linda Hennrick and composed by Masanori Sasaji（笹路正徳）, "ESP" is a track on Marlene's September 1983 album"Magic", whose title track I've been well acquainted with for years.
I don't know whether Van Paugam has ever played "ESP" during one of his City Pop parties around the world, but if I had to make a request, I wouldn't mind putting this onto the playlist. Will always enjoy my exploration of the genre.
Whenever I hear about the composer and arranger Katsuhisa Hattori（服部克久）, my mind thinks of TV themes and soundtracks along with lush orchestrations such as the ones that accompanied a number of tracks on Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）1993 Xmas album"Season's Greetings". My mind wouldn't usually think of him brandishing a glass of Perrier while a pink sweater is wrapped around his waist.
Now, why would I even think of such a yuppie image for Hattori? Well, I wouldn't have until I encountered this song titled "Secrets" that was actually composed by the fellow himself. At first listen, I went "Wait a minute! Hold the Pepperidge Farm here!". Hattori actually did Smooth Jazz and AOR?
Well, one song doesn't necessarily stamp a genre on a songwriter but still I was surprised enough that Hattori made this very Perrier-friendly "Secrets" that I had to make sure that I had the right guy. And sure enough, I checked his website and indeed, he did compose the song for the 2nd album (1985) titled "Juicy and Crispy" in his very long-running "Ongaku Batake"（音楽畑...Music Field）series of music.
The mellow beat, the soulful sax and the post-disco strings had me in its loving embrace right from Note One, and I had the sudden great need to buy a yacht in California (luckily, looking at my bank account brought me back to Earth). Then, the key shifts midway to have Linda Hennrick's lyrics sung by someone that I couldn't identify. I would love to know who sang this last half (June 11th 2020: Well, this is your lucky day, past J-Canuck! I managed to find out from Discogs that the vocalist is Clara Shinzato from the group EVE).
Tried to search for some more examples from any of the "Ongaku Batake" series and found music more along the lines that I had envisioned by Hattori...pop classical and music that I would connect to some sort of soundtrack. As for "Juicy and Crispy", it seems to be more of a mix of AOR and Easy Listening tracks. I'm not sure whether I have found a new series of CDs to delve into, but certainly the 2nd album has my attention now.
I had some extra points in my CD Japan account following that spending surge on its website for Xmas, so of course, I took full advantage of my status and did a bit more shopping. One of the two discs that I trained my target scope on happened to the one pictured above: "Moonlight Island" by husky-voiced Haruko Kuwana（桑名晴子）. I first saw this listed in "Japanese City Pop" and wondered about the tracks in it. Looking at the cover, I had also assumed that the designer must have pulled out part of a photo of a bathing beauty from the 1940s....except that it was actually the lower half of Kuwana herself (oops!). In sheepish apology, I do have to say that she had nice gams in that photo.
"Moonlight Island" was Kuwana's 4th album from 1982, and it is an album of cover songs of New Music material given an urban sheen. The one reason I decided to pull the trigger on this one was on the strength of her cover of Bread & Butter's"Ano Koro no Mama"（あの頃のまま）which I found on YouTube and is one of the tracks of this album.
Another winning track is her version of the New Music/City Pop classic, "Downtown" originally by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）. The video above is actually another songstress doing the Kuwana version (a cover of a cover, as it were), but notice that I did not use the word "unfortunately" at the beginning of this sentence. It is a good take of how I heard it in "Moonlight Island". The Kuwana version is in English (lyrics by Linda Hennrick) and skews a bit more to the 1975 Yamashita arrangement rather than the 1980 update for EPO's debut. Still, no complaints from me here though when push comes to shove, I'll always go with the Princess of City Pop.
"I Love You" is a track that was written in English in the first place as a B-side to soulful Hiro Tsunoda's（つのだ☆ひろ）1973 single,"Mary Jane". Tsunoda was the composer here with Christopher Lyn as the lyricist. Kuwana does a fine job with her vocals, and liner notes in her album mention that this is probably not the only time that "I Love You" has been covered.
Another lovely ballad from the album is "Yoru no Umi"(夜の海...Night Ocean) which is a cover of her late brother's (Masahiro Kuwana...桑名正博) song from his debut album "Who Are You?" (1976). Much like the rest of the songs on "Moonlight Island", Halko's version has that soiree feel of 80s City Pop compared to her brother's quiet Latin-tinged original. But after listening to the live version above, you can listen to both siblings' takes in the video below. By the way, Halko was the backing vocal on Masahiro's original.
Considering my early impression that this was a pretty rare album, I think I'm pretty lucky to have been able to find the videos for the tracks on "Moonlight Island". Like any new purchase, some of the songs leaped right out at me while others I'll have to break in gently. Still, I'm happy to have spent my points on Haruko. I may even be interested in investing in her debut album from 1978, "Million Stars".
My two new purchases, Haruka Kuwana
and Ginji Ito
P.S. July 22 2019: Come Along Radio has provided his own take on the album on Reddit.
