Mami Horie -- Camouflage

 

On Christmas Eve Eve (and that's not a spelling error...just being cute), I wrote about jazz chanteuse Mami Horie's（堀江マミ）take on "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and was reminded that a few decades previously, she had also tackled City Pop.

In fact, my first ever article on Horie was her 1979 debut single "Loving You", a City Pop tune that begins with some smoking jazz balladry before the rhythm jumps into a jaunty metropolitan beat. Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）was the fellow behind the melody there. Well, this time around, there is another famous singer-songwriter who took care of the B-side, "Camouflage", and it's none other than Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）under her pen name of Karuho Kureta（呉田軽穂）with Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）on lyrics.

Whereas "Loving You" feels like a morning brunch-happy City Pop tune, "Camouflage" sounds like something to sip an evening cocktail to in the style of Junko Yagami（八神純子）. The piano takes us rolling downtown with a bit of Latin feeling while the electric guitar and saxophone arrive to transport us up to the hotel rooftop bar. I can even imagine Horie herself in the bar playing this song itself.

Mami Horie -- I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

 

Happy Monday! And yes Virginia, there is snow on the ground right now and areas north of us will be getting pounded with a lot of the white stuff starting from this afternoon, so those odds of a White Christmas have gotten a lot better. Just hope that the drive up north to the lodges and cottages won't be too arduous.

Back in October, "Holly Jolly X'masu" highlighted jazz singer Mami Horie's（堀江真美）2010 album “The Swingin’ Christmas" which I found to be a delightful collection of the standards. If you have a chance, have a listen to Scott's review of the entire album since he goes into the background of Horie's history as a singer. Interestingly enough, I'd forgotten that Horie already has had a presence on KKP through a gushy City Pop song that she provided all the way back in 1979, "Loving You"; the track was part of the "Light Mellow" compilation CDs.

After listening to "The Swingin' Christmas", I immediately searched for anything of the album on YouTube, and I was soon rewarded with the presence of the first track, Horie's rendition of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" which has had the word mommy strangely misspelled as "mammy", maybe as a portmanteau of Mami and mommy. But that aside, Scott said it best when he refers to Horie's version as one of the better takes on the old Xmas song and describes it as a cute and playful tribute. I can say that it does sound like Mami was at a gorgeous Xmas party of friends and she suddenly decided to sing it with a trio of instrumentalists in the living room. Compare this version with the Big Band Swing take on "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" by fellow jazz chanteuse Yasuko Agawa（阿川泰子）who I covered a few weeks ago after listening to her cover on "Holly Jolly X'masu" as well.

Scott mentions it in the podcast and I've mentioned a little bit of it in "Loving You" but just when Horie was about to get her big break in the music business, she and a music publishing company had a dispute in the early 1980s which unfortunately got her blackballed in Japan for several years. However, it seems as if her redemption began in the 1990s and her career has been in fine fettle for the past few decades. In fact, according to the Casio website, a voice training book that she published has become a bible for singers and in recent years, she has even become a tourism ambassador for her native Kochi Prefecture.

Mami Horie -- Loving You

This is another entry in the "Light Mellow" series of City Pop/AOR tunes from Japan, specifically from the "Avenue" disc.

At the time that Mami Horie's（堀江マミ）"Loving You" was included on "Avenue", the entry was given that asterisk denoting that it was the first time that it had been converted into a CD format, but since then, the original 1979 single has come out via Tower Records.

Horie is now a piano-playing jazz singer and the introduction to "Loving You", her debut single, definitely has those jazz influences, but going into the song full speed, it transforms into the light and mellow mode of City Pop and AOR. It is that type of tune that brings to mind large cocktails, poolside umbrellas and eternally summery weather as Horie gives that love tribute to a currently parted paramour. Indeed it was Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）who composed "Loving You" with Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）behind the lyrics.

From her website, Horie became a professional musician in her teens in her native Kochi Prefecture, and with an invitation from Pedro himself of the band Pedro and Capricious, she moved up to Tokyo. She began her career in a Roppongi jazz club, and she received a number of offers from the major record labels. Afterwards, there was some stormy weather with a dispute with a music publishing company which meant that her songs wouldn't be released. From 1981, she started releasing only jazz music through an indies label, and has basically followed that course ever since.