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 Machiko Watanabe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Machiko Watanabe. Show all posts
The disco/R&B band A Taste of Honey has had residency on KKP since the blog was three weeks old. I was tackling one of the great kayo classics in "Ue wo Muite Arukou"(上を向いて歩こう）, aka "Sukiyaki", when I also mentioned that A Taste of Honey provided their own cover on the song in the early 1980s...which proved to be their second and final hit in their career thus far.
However, as commendable as their elegant cover of the iconic Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）song was, their first big hit has been the one that has been usually recognized when it comes to A Taste of Honey. The strange thing is that when I first heard their 1978 debut single"Boogie Oogie Oogie", it was through a TV performance of this song by then-teen sibling stars Kristy and Jimmy McNichol on some sort of nighttime special. With the whole mainstream disco craze, the McNichols' popularity at the time, and the novelty song-esque nature of that title, I actually did assume that this was the McNichols' tune, front and centre.
And yes, the above has Kristy and Jimmy, but no, it isn't for "Boogie Oogie Oogie".
So, it was actually many years later that I found out the truth that "Boogie Oogie Oogie" was by A Taste of Honey, and yeah as performed by Janice-Marie Johnson (and Hazel Payne) while slapping that bass hard and wearing those heels, maybe even the folks who were thinking that disco started to suck would have been willing to give a reprieve to this one. Heck, if I had been born a decade earlier, I probably would have been rarin' to run to my nearest disco and hit the dance floor. My dancing would have sucked for sure but I would have had oodles of fun doing so.
"Boogie Oogie Oogie" was not only a hit on the dance floor but also a hit outside of it as well. It hit No. 1 on Billboard's pop, disco and soul charts in September 1978, and according to the Wikipedia article for the song, it also became the first certified Platinum single in the history of Capitol Records by selling over 2 million records. I would probably posit that the chairman's office became a disco dance floor in celebration.
So, we've got one of the primo disco songs coming out in 1978. What else was winning at the Japan Record Awards that year?
After so many years of focusing on City Pop in all its iterations spanning a few decades, I confess that I still have a soft spot for the late 1970s' brand of sophisticated pop in perhaps still smoggy Tokyo while savoring cocktails in the high-up hotel bars.
Mind you, "Tokimeki no Toki" (A Time of Excitement) by singer-songwriter Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子）begins with a phrase that literally sounds like the typical riff that sets off viewers' minds a reeling when a TV suspense program goes to commercial. But then, the quintessential strings, piano and horns all assemble like The Avengers to provide a scene of high class but also one of, yes, suspense. As written and composed by Watanabe with Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）handling the arrangement, the romance involved here is appropriately ardent but though the woman is willing to give her whole heart now and forever, she feels that her partner only appreciates her current self and perhaps may change his mind with any evolution. Perhaps it's time for that suspense riff to come in here one more time.
Regardless, "Tokimeki no Toki" is in the middle of Watanabe's fourth studio album"Memories" which was released in December 1979. According to the J-Wiki article for the album, there were some big names among the studio musicians including trumpeter Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）, Eiji Arai（新井英治）on trombone and Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）on electric guitar.
Midnight in Japan for me was illustrated by a tired old English teacher finally reaching his apartment past 12 am after a long commute from the other side of Tokyo back to Chiba Prefecture. My neighbourhood in Ichikawa City was relatively dark although there were street lights, but it was quiet and completely safe. Plus, my two wonderful vending machines just a few metres away from the steps to my home always greeted and plied me with cold drinks.
I would also think that a song and a final album track titled "Midnight" would offer the same sort of deal in the form of a ballad. However, on singer-songwriter Machiko Watanabe's（渡辺真知子）album "Fog Lamp"（フォグ・ランプ）from November 1978, that wasn't the case at all. It is actually quite the spirited finish to Watanabe's 2nd original album with its disco and City Pop showing off some type of action-thriller aural piece. There's probably a car chase squeezed somewhere among the notes woven together by Watanabe herself.
Just a few minutes ago, I had finished off the latest Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）1970s disco tune "Potsuri Potsuri"（ぽつりぽつり）. Lyricist Akira Ito（伊藤アキラ）and arranger Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）had their hands in that one, and so they did with this one, too. "Midnight" also shares track space with Watanabe's "Blue" on the album.
I guess the lyric "hold me tight" has been used in so many kayo kyoku probably going back to the 1960s that it was only a matter of time that it would actually be used as a title of a song.
Sure enough, Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子）recorded her 8th single for release in May 1980 and it's actually titled "Hold Me Tight". I'd already mentioned the song in passing last month when I covered the B-side, "Summer Night". Written and composed by Watanabe with Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）arranging everything, I would say that most of it is in the jaunty City Pop mode with a touch of disco but when the chorus comes in, I couldn't help but also hear some country and even a bit of gospel in the delivery. Lyrics-wise, it's all about enjoying that summer beach walk and in all likelihood, some of that summer romancing as the title would suggest.
The above shot was taken on June 24th 2011 as I was walking in the Daimon neighbourhood of Tokyo. Don't quite remember how it felt although I know I walked a long while but the fact that I was even able to do two straight hours meant that it wasn't all that hot that one summer night. Right now, I believe the megalopolis is going through its usual steamy bath days and nights.😵
Long time no see, Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子）. Good to meet you again. For all of us, I have "Summer Night", a song written and composed by the singer with Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）handling the arranging duties. A breezy City Pop tune with a touch of that disco in the beat rather than the strings which sound more romantic, the whole thing sounds like something of intrigue. It's as if Watanabe and Funayama had been assigned to create metropolitan music as a theme song for a detective program but got rejected at the last moment.
"Summer Night" was the B-side to Watanabe's 8th single,"Hold Me Tight", which was released in May 1980. Both songs ended up on her 5th studio album from August of that year, "Libra". I would think that the nights in that month were typically torrid.
Singer-songwriter Machiko Watanabe's（渡辺真知子）name has popped up on the blog over the past few years, but the last time she popped up on the byline for an article was way back in 2019 when I wrote about her 1984 "Mayonaka no Highway"（真夜中のハイウェイ）. As well, I've had a couple of her songs in the backlog list for a while, and they both happen to come from the same album, so I think that it's about time to showcase this particular release although I usually don't write about albums that I don't personally possess already. But here we go.
Watanabe started her career with pop hits like "Kamome ga Tonda Hi"（かもめが翔んだ日）in the late 1970s, but judging from listening to some of her works in the 1980s, it seems as if she also wanted to go the urban contemporary route via City Pop and J-AOR. As such, we come to her 9th album from November 1983, "Mary-san wa Shiranai" (Mary Doesn't Know).
The title track is also the first track which was written and composed by the singer. It's an energetic number that can be considered to be both City Pop and rock-side AOR. There is some ominousness though in Watanabe's lyrics as a couple of people who grew up as close friends in childhood have become rather distant. One of the former bosom buddy pair has been keeping such a close eye on the other that one wonders whether the line between protection and stalking has been crossed.
From the suspense of the title track, we come to "Taxi Noriba made"（タクシーのりばまで...Up to the Taxi Stand）, a dreamy song also with lyrics and music by Watanabe. From the title and the languidness of the song, I take it that the setting is after midnight when all of the subways and trains and buses of Tokyo have closed down for the night, and so the taxis are the only viable public transportation of heading home. Perhaps thoughts are being made and/or exchanged as someone is escorting another person to the taxi stand for the ride home. Will the communication end at the stand or will it continue as a tandem in the cab?
Lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composer Watanabe collaborated on "Wakare no Dress"（別れのドレス...Farewell Dress） which doesn't fall in either the City Pop or AOR categories. In fact, I'd say that it's either one of the more dynamic Fashion Music tunes that I'd ever heard or an 80s version of the type of music that underpinned "Kamome ga Tonda Hi". The sophistication is there for this song which tends more toward Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）European pop mode, and Watanabe's vocals are quite a bit higher to the extent that some of her lower richness has been shaved off.
"Wakare no Dress" was the B-side to "Melody"（メロディ）, Watanabe's 14th single which was released at the same time as the album. "Melody" is also a track on "Mary-san wa Shiranai".
The final track and the final song that I will do here is "Nichiyoubi no Yoru wa"（日曜日の夜は...Sunday Night）, and one more reason that I decided to try out "Mary-san wa Shiranai" is that it is Sunday night as I type this out. Lyricist Iori Yamamoto（山本伊織）aided Watanabe's words and music for this track which does feel like a final track since the first quarter of "Nichiyoubi no Yoru wa" is an old-fashioned nocturnal jazz riff before Watanabe seems to take on the vocal stylings of Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）alongside a relaxing bluesy City Pop melody. Neither singer nor melody is in any rush to get anywhere and both are ready to call it a night at 4 minutes.
If it's available for a reasonable price, I might pick this one up but I'll also give the remaining six tracks a go as well.
I don't quite remember how I found out about this January 2004 2-disc album which features the Yokohama-themed kayo called "Yokohama Fantasy". All I know is that I just had to have it and I did get it as part of my shopping spree recently. Although of course, the album had been released years before I launched "Kayo Kyoku Plus", it still reminds me of that rather little Yokohama-based kayo article that I came up with early in the blog's history.
Ironically, neither Hiroshi Itsuki's（五木ひろし）"Yokohama Tasogare"（よこはま・たそがれ）nor Ayumi Ishida's（いしだあゆみ）"Blue Light Yokohama"（ブルーライト・ヨコハマ）shows up in this collection although both of them can be considered to be the crème de la crème of Yokohama kayo. Rocket Brown posited that copyrights may have come into play while I think perhaps that those two had been assumed to be just a bit too obvious (however, there's a very rearranged version of the latter song by singer-songwriter Tomoko Tane（種ともこ）on Disc 2).
One thing that I noticed was that the booklet inside the CD case seemed unusually thick, but as it turned out, the reason for that was the presence of a map of Yokohama centering upon the famous Yokohama Bay. That's rather magnanimous of Sony and especially now when international tourism is rather vital for Japan, it gives me some inspiration to definitely visit the Japanese port city again and maybe even spend a few days there on my next trip.
Without further ado then, I would like to feature a few tunes from Disc 1 today because I'd never heard them before. Still, it's quite evident that Yokohama kayohas made for a good part of KKP since I have already covered them in the past, although I've also noticed that there isn't any Mood Kayo on either disc. I gather then that Sony was going more for the pops part of the kayo. As for the tracks on Disc 1:
15 Beautiful Yokohama -- IN THE GROOVE (ビューティフル・ヨコハマ)
You may have noticed that there are two songs by 70s aidoru Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）in the mix but I'll be doing those as a twofer in the near future. For that matter, I'll be doing the same for the remaining tracks aside from the three that I'll be covering here today.
Let me start with Hiromi Ohta's（太田裕美）12th single "Doll" from July 1978. Created by the songwriting dream team of lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, Ohta sings this smooth if jaunty song of slightly melancholy intent in the setting of Yokohama.
If I've interpreted Matsumoto's lyrics correctly, the young lady here may be recovering from a broken romance while feeling somewhat out-of-sorts just like a doll without any strings or owner to love her. I was a little confused by the repeated statements of celluloid initially; was she referring to her life being like a film (melodrama is part and parcel of the kayo experience, after all)? However, I figured out that celluloid in katakana refers actually refers to a certain type of doll as pictured on J-Wiki.
"Doll" peaked at No. 21 on Oricon and has been included on Ohta's 8th studio album"Elegance" from August 1978 which went as high as No. 13. The singer also performed this particular tune on the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of the year.
From the brassy Miki Hirayama（平山三紀）, I have the just-as-brassy "Beautiful Yokohama", and this one is an especially auspicious tune because the song happened to be Hirayama's debut tune released in November 1970. Tsutsumi was once again the composer but back at that time, his lyrics-writing partner was Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）, and as I recall from doing other articles, those two were quite the tandem, too.
Hirayama was all of 21 with that husky voice of hers when she recorded it as this worldly young woman who made Yokohama her oyster and her men her pets tightly wound around her finger (two of the many men's names that she mentions happen to be the songwriters' sons). According to the J-Wiki article on this song, Hirayama had been attending the Takarajima Music Office for singing lessons at the Hotel New Japan. It just so happened that both Hashimoto and Tsutsumi had founded the organization and offered her "Beautiful Yokohama" as her first original tune. The cover of the single was also photographed with Hirayama at Yamashita Park right by Yokohama Bay. Ranking at No. 64 on the singles chart, the song was placed in her debut album"Beautiful Album"（ビューティフル・アルバム）from November 1971.
My final example is Machiko Watanabe's（渡辺真知子）"Minato Scope"(Port Telescope). When I saw that katakana for the second word in the title, I'd first thought that it was the translation for "scoop" which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But then on reading Akira Ito's（伊藤アキラ）lyrics, I realized that Watanabe's protagonist was looking through a telescope on a cruise ship entering the harbour in Yokohama to see if she could improbably spot her old flame and probably her memories with the guy. Watanabe came up with the City Pop melody punctuated by the buzzy electric guitar.
It certainly comes across as another fresh City Pop discovery and Watanabe's vocals sound as wonderfully resonant as ever. "Minato Scope" was the B-side to her 12th single from February 1982, "Suki to Itte"（好きと言って...Tell Me You Love Me）. Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）arranged everything.
As mentioned, I'll take a look at some of the other tracks in individual articles in the coming weeks and months, but otherwise, I'll see if I can get Disc 2 up here in March.
Last month, I introduced Yoshiko Miyazaki（宮崎美子）onto the pages of KKP through a track that was on one of her three albums"Mellow" (1981). Up to then, I'd known Miyazaki as the cheerful veteran actress/tarento who first got her fame from her bikini-clad figure in a Minolta commercial.
Well, that track that I first talked about, "Ima wa Heiki yo"（今は平気よ）, is quite the technopop treat provided by Akiko Yano and Ryuichi Sakamoto（矢野顕子・坂本龍一）, and I mentioned there that although Miyazaki's vocals weren't supremely strong, the bubbly synthesizers rather compensated for that. However, Track 3 on "Mellow", "Orgel no Koiuta" (Music Box Love Song), is a straight-ahead mellow pop song written and composed by singer-songwriter Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子）who has had her own hits of the past.
"Orgel no Koiuta" is a pleasant song to be sure with arrangement by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）and it's got a pretty interesting bend in the melody when it goes into the instrumental bridge. In fact, I would say that this was something ideal for someone like Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）who has tackled the more romantic and baroque pop (aka Fashion Music) of the time. Again though, Miyazaki's vocals aren't the strongest and the wobbliness especially shows up in the higher notes, but at the same time, there is something about that which reminds me a little of Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）who was just starting her own career in music at the same time.
As much as I will always know and cherish singer-songwriter Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子）for the very first song that I ever heard from her "Kuchibiru yo, Atsuku Kimi wo Katare" (唇よ、熱く君を語れ）and one of her classics from the 1970s, "Mayoi Michi"（迷い道）, I think there are some other hidden gems by her, especially within the City Pop genre.
One such song that I've found is "Mayonaka no Highway" (Midnight Highway) which was her 15th single from May 1984. Starting off with a near-fantasy sort of melody, the song then starts bombing down the expressway at high speed. Not quite sure if that sports car is having the ride of its life at the bewitching hour since the beat is perhaps more suitable for prime time, but it's something really nice to hear on the car radio on Van Paugam's highway in Tokyo.
Watanabe herself provided words and music to "Mayonaka no Highway". She certainly has the City Pop chops with those dramatic keyboards and guitar solo. From the arrangement, I would have thought that it was the combination of Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）behind this one. The single also made it onto her 10th studio album, "B Flat Minor ~ Ai Suru koto dake Sureba Yokatta"（B♭m 愛することだけすればよかった...Just Loving Would've Been Enough）from October 1984.
I actually heard this on YouTube's J-Channel last week and I was rather glad that I could find it elsewhere on the site.
Not knowing too much of Machiko Watanabe's（渡辺真知子）material after the 1970s, it's great to know that she's been behind songs such as "Hoshi Furu Yoru ni Ki wo Tsukete" (Be Careful on the Night When The Stars Fall) which was a track on her 1987 album"Soi". Written by Watanabe and composed by Minoru Komorita（小森田実）, the song is an appealing mix of that late 1980s sophisticated City Pop, sultry Latin and perhaps even a hint of Matt Bianco. It's pretty darn classy; I can only see this in the setting of some of the more expensive parts of Tokyo, and Watanabe's voice gracefully adorns any imagined couple tripping the light fantastic on the tango floor.
It's too bad that the original recorded version can only be heard as an excerpt at iTunes or on the J-Channel radio if you're lucky to catch it when it comes up. Still, I've heard it and now I want to get it.
Well, thanks to uploader and commenter Midori, here is the full recorded version! My gratitude!
I've always had a soft spot for some of the old kayo that would be perfect listening in a bar or snazzy nightclub. Mood Kayo is obviously one of the genres but there's also some of the Latin-flavoured numbers in New Music.
Welcome back to the blog, Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子）! It has been a few years since she was represented here and though I think I've already gotten her major hits on board, I'm pretty sure that there are also some numbers by her that are worthy of discovering.
Case in point is her 3rd single from August 1978"Blue". I keep forgetting that despite her abilities as a singer, she is also a songwriter and she did create the words and music behind this sad ballad about falling for a guy who is still blue about breaking up with the lady who may still be his one and only true love.
"Blue" is a nice example of sophisticated pop, and although I'm not sure whether Watanabe had meant it to be a City Pop tune, I cannot imagine any other setting than a metropolis when I listen to this song. Mind you, "Blue" could make it at some sort of resort by the ocean. As I said at the top, it fits into that category of easy listening at a bar or lounge while nursing that drink although not while a romance is on the rocks.
According to the J-Wiki article about "Blue", Watanabe herself stated that it was the first song where she was given carte blanche to write it however she liked, and even the Queen of New Music herself, Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）, gave open praise to Watanabe and the song (this was through a 1982 interview in the journal "Shuukan FM"[週刊FM...Weekly FM]). Also, Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）supposedly has covered it in one of her own albums although the article didn't mention which one.
However, I managed to find another fine singer in the atmospheric New Music tradition doing a lovely cover version of "Blue". I don't know whether Junko Yagami（八神純子）had ever recorded the song officially in one of her albums but perhaps the above video is of her doing a one-off performance at a concert (actually it's from a radio broadcast...check the comments below). Listening to it, Yagami does make it her own.
The original version by Watanabe hit it as high as No. 10 on Oricon, selling a little over 300,000 records. "Blue" is also present on her 2nd album "Fog Lamp"（フォグ・ランプ ）from November 1978.
Indeed it is February 29th 2016, Leap Day. In my view, we're in the midst of some rather unusual activities: we just had the Oscars handed out last night, tomorrow will be Super Tuesday in the United States, and today is the National Hockey League's Trade Deadline Day! For that last one, this has become such a quintessentially Canadian tradition that it should be made into a national holiday.
So, we've covered the cinematic, political and athletic. So why not go musical as well here?
These are my 5 choices for Leap Day since they all have something to do with jumping, flying and other synonyms within the title or the lyrics. The songs are not in any particular order.
1. Yoshie Kashiwabara（柏原芳恵） - Koibito tachi no Café Terrace（恋人たちのキャフェテラス）
This is the only entry on the list that has not had its own article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" so I gather that I will be giving the largest paragraph here. The biggest thing I remember about the song is that lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）provided the phrase "Hop, skip, jump" for a ditty about a girl who just can't seem to raise the gumption to meet up with a guy she likes at a café despite her ardent feelings for him. This was Yoshie's 8th single from February 1982 composed by Masami Koizumi（小泉まさみ）, and it has that folky bouncy flavour that I often associated with the aidoru's earlier releases. It peaked at No. 9 on the Oricon weeklies scoring over 190,000 sold and was the 72nd-ranked song for 1982. "Koibito tachi no Café Terrace" (Lovers' Café Terrace) was also a track on her 6th album"Summer Sensation" from June of that year.
Part of the exotic climes kayothat was popular back in the late 70s, Shouno's most famous song has certainly got the right verb in the title. At the time, tourists were probably hankering to fly over to those amazing far-off places.
This was the song that sparked my idea to put up a Leap Song list in the first place. When you have that epic repeated lyric of tonde in there, it was pretty much fait accompli.
One of the classic Mariko Takahashi songs that has become rather rare to find on YouTube, so we've got enka singer Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）pitching in as a guest singer of the blissful soaring song.
After getting that great launch to her career with the jaunty "Mayoi Michi"（迷い道）in 1977, Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子） may have felt a bit let down with her 2nd single,"Kamome ga Tonda Hi"(The Day That The Seagulls Flew). Or to be more accurate, she may have been more disappointed with her recording company's reaction to it. Although "Mayoi Michi" was a megahit in sales with over 800,000 records sold, "Kamome" was apparently treated as a relative failure since it "only" did half as much business. According to J-Wiki, Watanabe was somewhat crushed when some of the staff remarked at the time that the song should've been relegated to the B-side.
Surprisingly, though, a lot of kayo kyoku fans and myself see it as one of Watanabe's most representative works. It may not have broken the Top 100 of 1978, but after its release in April of that year, it did earn The Best Newcomer Prize for Watanabe at the Japan Record Awards, giving her some vindication, since she did compose the song., while Akira Ito（伊藤アキラ） wrote the lyrics. As for the lyrics, they talk of a relationship going sour as Watanabe sings about walking along that harbour alone while the seagulls fly and squawk about. One doesn't usually hear about seagulls getting such a lyrical treatment, especially when they're usually seen as the rats of the avian kingdom.
Along with the fact that "Kamome" has now entered the annals of kayo kyoku legend, it has also become immortalized in some other interesting ways. For one thing, at Horinouchi Station in Watanabe's hometown of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, an excerpt of the song is played as the warning chime for passengers to get on the train.
And for a bit of Japanese baseball trivia, the song is the mascot's theme for the Chiba Lotte Marines, the regional baseball team when I was living in Ichikawa (and it had been Bobby Valentine's old team before he entered....and fled....the Boston Red Sox last year). In the above video, it looks like the real singer dropped by to sing her old chestnut right at home plate itself a few years ago.
Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子） made her debut in 1977 with "Mayoi Michi"(Lost Road), a song that she wrote and composed by herself. She's been labeled a singer in the New Music/Pop/Jazz categories. I think "Mayoi Michi" fits wholly into the middle category of pop. The song talks about the confusing paths that love takes, and melodically Watanabe's magnum opus illustrates that feeling.
Unlike a lot of New Music/folk singers in the early part of the decade, Watanabe was more than happy to appear on radio and TV, virtually at the same frequency of any aidoru at that time. Not quite sure what sort of reaction she got from her fellow New Musicians on that point.
The song, released in November, ended up as the 11th-ranked song of 1978 on Oricon, and was part of the 14th-ranked album from that same year, "Umi ni Tsureteitte"（海につれていって...Take Me To The Sea). For me, it's one of the representative songs for kayo kyoku in the 70s.
My first Machiko Watanabe（渡辺真知子） song was this one....a cheerful, breezy number whose title seems to translate as "Hey Lips, Talk Passionately About Yourselves". Watanabe hails from Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture and debuted in 1977 with "Mayoi Michi"（迷い道...Lost Way）, a mix of kayo kyoku and New Music. "Kuchibiru yo" is even more in the New Music/City Pop vein. Her 7th single was released in January 1980 and peaked at No. 4 on the Oricon weeklies, eventually becoming the 24th-ranked single of the year. It was also a track on Watanabe's 5th album, "Libra" which was released in August 1980.
Composed by Watanabe herself and written by Ryo Shoji (東海林良）, it was picked up as a commercial jingle for Kanebo Cosmetics. For me, it struck me as being a very car radio-friendly tune to be played in the summer.
Here is the video with Watanabe and Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）performing the signature song together.
