Paul Williams/The Carpenters -- We've Only Just Begun

 

Welcome to the weekly Reminiscings of Youth, and all I gotta say here is that if anyone back in the early 1970s in California whose family was about to celebrate a wedding or a major wedding anniversary had watched this commercial for Crocker National Bank, they would have rapidly used up the tissue box. The jingle here was "We've Only Just Begun" by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols with Williams singing it. 

I remember Williams back then more as a TV personality who showed up on comedy-variety programs such as "Laugh-In", so I had assumed that he was just a wisecracking comedian. It wasn't until much later that I realized his stock-in-trade was as a singer-songwriter. Certainly, I didn't know about him coming up with "We've Only Just Begun". According to the Wikipedia article for the song, it apparently worked a little too well for the Crocker Bank since it did bring in the young customers but they had no collateral for the loans, so the campaign ended up getting suspended.

Still, "We've Only Just Begun" made it onto Williams' 1971 album "Just an Old Fashioned Love Song". It's a very intimate and subdued love ballad that paints the picture of a newly-married couple perhaps having their first dinner in their new house (bought with a loan) consisting of a candle, a spread-out newspaper on the bare floor, a bottle of red wine and Spaghetti-Os. The hope is that it just gets better from there.

Fate had other plans for "We've Only Just Begun", though. Richard Carpenter saw the bank commercial and ran into Williams in the parking lot for A&M Records (both were contracted there) and asked the songwriter whether he could take a crack at the song. Williams didn't seem to have a problem with it, and so as any Carpenters fan would know, "We've Only Just Begun" was released as The Carpenters' third single in August 1970. 

Richard and Karen Carpenter came to think of "We've Only Just Begun" as their trademark tune and I think that out of their huge discography, the song rates as one of their most Carpenter-esque creations. I mean, there are the horns, the lonely woodwind, Karen's incredible vocals and those harmonies between the siblings that still manage to raise the hairs on my neck. The song hit No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary charts for both Canada and the United States, and in the latter country, it stayed at the top for seven straight weeks and it was their most successful single. I recall hearing it plenty of times on the radio. Incidentally, when it was released in Japan, it did so under the title of "Ai no Prelude"（愛のプレリュード...Prelude to Love）.

To think, one of the most eternal romantic pop standards started out as a melodic plea to apply for a loan. Anyways, I managed to find a website listing the Top 10 on Oricon for August 3rd 1970. Unfortunately, I have yet to profile the Top 3 songs on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" but here are Nos. 4-6.

4. Keiko Fuji -- Keiko no Yume wa Yoru Hiraku（圭子の夢は夜ひらく）

5. Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five -- Uwasa no Onna （噂の女）

6. Mari Henmi -- Keiken （経験）

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young -- Teach Your Children

 

Going a little long today but I wanted to finish with a special Sunday Reminiscings of Youth. As one commenter under the above video has mentioned, "We’re losing too many legends". With a sense of melancholy, I agree. On January 18th, the music world lost David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young at the age of 81. 

To be honest, I've only known David Crosby as that old man with the flowing white hair and moustache, so it was fascinating to see him as a young fellow with The Byrds. To me, he struck me as a family's coolest and dude-iest uncle or grand-uncle; the type of guy, for good or for bad, who let a teenager secretly have a first sip of a beer or a first drag on a cigarette even when the parents may not like that. And more often than not, when I've seen him on the news, it's usually for some sort of demeanor that he had committed.

And yet, I also knew him and the rest of this iconic folk band with those exquisite harmonies coming through the radio as a kid, although I can't consider myself a dedicated fan. But whenever one of their songs came on that SONY, I knew exactly who they were. One of those songs was "Teach Your Children", a May 1970 single and a track from CSN&Y's March 1970 album "Déjà Vu". 

Considering the times and circumstances that we're currently living in, "Teach Your Children" still packs a punch despite the short time of a little under three minutes. Perhaps it's a gentle prod or admonishment to folks to teach the generation after and even the one before about the various societal messages in quality as well as in quantity. The spoonful of sugar that helps this medicine go down is the welcoming country swing and perhaps the brevity of the song.

In Canada, "Teach Your Children" went as high as No. 8 on their RPM Singles chart while in the United States, it peaked at No. 16. All my condolences to Crosby's family, friends and fans.

So, what were winning the prizes at the Japan Record Awards for 1970?

Grand Prize: Yoichi Sugawara -- Kyo de Owakare（今日でお別れ）

Best Performance: Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five -- Uwasa no Onna（噂の女）

Best New Artist: Mari Henmi -- Keiken（経験）

Anne Murray -- Snowbird

 

I did mention on Mariko Takahashi's（高橋真梨子）old-fashioned 50s-style country waltz "Futari de Slow Dance"（二人でスローダンス）earlier this week that the upcoming ROY article would also deal with a song that is country in genre. Well, Thursday has arrived, so it's time for another Reminiscings of Youth entry. And it's for a song that wasn't obviously part of my parents' kayo collection, but neither was it a representative of the American standards that my folks also owned. In fact, to this day, we've never even purchased a copy of it.

And yet, Anne Murray's "Snowbird" has remained a part of my early musical memories ever since it was released as a single in June 1970. I already devoted a paragraph to it in Miki Asakura's（麻倉未稀）"Snowbird" which was a far different song released a dozen years later. Just to repeat myself, I did refer to it as a pop hit for the Canadian institution that is Murray who hails from Nova Scotia, but it's been categorized on Wikipedia also as a folk song and an example of soft rock. Reading through that article, I got the impression that even Murray and all those connected in the production of "Snowbird" were surprised that it even ranked very well as a country tune.

Written and composed by Gene MacLellan while he was apparently talking a walk along a beach on Prince Edward Island (which is a most Canadian origin, I'm proud to say), even though my Mom and Dad never bought the single or an Anne Murray record, "Snowbird" was pretty much everywhere else thanks to the heavy rotation airplay that it got on the radio and through TV shows such as the country music-oriented "Tommy Hunter" here in Canada. And it's no surprise since Murray had such a lovely voice paired with the very amenable melody. I have been so attached to that melody that it came as a shock when I realized that the lyrics weren't exactly the happiest.

I've also read that "Snowbird" has been covered by many artists, but I have never heard those versions and to be honest, I can't really fathom the song being sung by anyone other than Murray. My eternal image of the lass will be of her in that short and shaggy haircut wearing bell-bottoms singing her most recognizable hit. "Snowbird" sold well over a million records, hitting No. 2 on Canada's RPM singles chart and No. 8 on America's Billboard singles chart. According to Wikipedia, Murray became the first female Canadian singer to be given an American Gold record.

So, what was coming out at approximately the same time as "Snowbird"?

Saori Yuki -- Tegami （手紙） (July 1970)

Mari Henmi -- Keiken （経験） (May 1970)

Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five -- Uwasa no Onna （噂の女） (July 1970)

The Carpenters -- Merry Christmas, Darling

 

A few weeks ago, I started off the annual Xmas segment of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with the jazz version of "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" via Tony Bennett in the weekly Reminiscings of Youth article. Well, once again, I'm going with something Xmas-y for this week's ROY and though it was released when I was but a wee lad, I didn't actually get to know about it until I was well into adulthood. In fact, I was on my second tour of duty in Japan.

From Wikipedia

Over the years, I've said that jazz, Charlie Brown and Norman Rockwell go great with Christmas. I can also add The Carpenters. I mean, look at that cover for Richard and Karen's October 1978 "Christmas Portrait" album. It absolutely rocks Rockwell well (yes, I'm being cute here), although the cover was actually designed by Robert Tanenbaum based on a 1960 Rockwell painting, according to the Wikipedia article.

As I mentioned above, I first heard "Merry Christmas, Darling" by The Carpenters somewhere and sometime during my life in Ichikawa, and quickly opted to track down "Christmas Portrait" at one of the major CD stores in Tokyo. What I hadn't known is that "Merry Christmas, Darling" wasn't a 1978 creation by the duo but a song that was first released as a single in November 1970! The history behind it goes even further back according to the Wikipedia article which was itself based on a Randy Erickson article printed in "La Crosse Tribune" back in 2005:

The lyrics were written in 1944 by an 18-year-old Frank Pooler, which, according to him, were about a love interest he had at the time. 22 years later in 1966, when he was choral director at California State University, Long Beach, two of his aspiring music students, Karen and Richard Carpenter, who were beginning to have success as a local band, asked him (their favorite professor) if he had any ideas for holiday songs. According to Pooler, they had become tired of the standard holiday songs they were singing. Pooler gave them the lyrics of the song he had written from years before, and told them he did not think much of the original melody. According to Pooler, Richard wrote a new tune for the lyrics—the tune currently used—in 15 minutes. Four years later, in 1970, the Carpenters first recorded and released it as a single.

Always love a song with an interesting story. In any case, the combination of Pooler's lyrics and the new melody by Richard (and The Carpenters are considered to be music legends in Japan) were magic made in heaven, especially in my old stomping grounds because the story sounds perfectly made for Japanese audiences. I've heard a number of J-Xmas tunes (such as "Midnight Flight: Hitori Bocchi no Christmas Eve") over the years which involve the melancholy plot of being apart during the Yuletide with only the mutual Xmas wishes between a couple tying them together, and the same thing is happening here with "Merry Christmas, Darling".

I've read that the 1978 version in "Christmas Portrait" is slightly different in terms of Karen's lyrical preferences but basically the melody and arrangement are the same. Anyways, "Merry Christmas, Darling" is another go-to standard in the run-up to December 25th for me, and even listening to some of their versions of the Christmas classics through "Christmas Portrait", Christmas and Carpenters go together like candy and cane.

Well, considering how late in 1970 the original single came out, I guess we can make our kayo comparisons through what won the Japan Record Awards that year. None of them, though, are Xmas-y in nature.

Grand Prize: Yoichi Sugawara -- Kyo de Owakare（今日でお別れ）

Best Performance: Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five -- Uwasa no Onna （噂の女）

Best New Artist: Mari Henmi -- Keiken （経験）

Mari Henmi -- Keiken （経験）

http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/kusukutu/diary/200908250003/

Yamete~!（やめて...Stop!）....breath flies away like a vapour trail

Yup, I do remember that one sung word although I hadn't known who was responsible for singing that, let alone know the title, until last night's "Uta Kon" (うたコン).

It turns out that sexy purr belongs to singer/tarento/actress Mari Henmi（辺見マリ）and she appeared last night on the NHK show to perform one of her biggest hits, "Keiken" (Experience). Her now-former husband, Teruhiko Saigo（西郷輝彦）, and her daughter, Emiri Henmi（辺見えみり）are already represented elsewhere on the blog so I figure it was time to feature the mother.

"Keiken" was Henmi's 2nd single which was released in May 1970 when she was only 19 years old. It turned out to be one of her biggest hits due to the supposedly racy lyrics provided by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）, especially when she breathed out that lyric shown at the top of the article, and her hand gestures. The protagonist just can't seem to bear her partner's constant affection but neither can she push him away either. The melody by Kunihiko Murai（村井邦彦）also has that steam with the horns, saxophone and guitar.

The song peaked at No. 2 on Oricon and became the 13th-ranked single for the year. It also won Henmi a Newcomer's Prize at the Japan Record Awards. She also got her lone invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen but due to the racy lyrics and the hand gestures by the singer, she wasn't able to actually sing "Keiken" on the national broadcaster. Instead she sang her 3rd single, "Shiseikatsu"（私生活...Private Life）.

I guess things must have been much more puritan way back when since I didn't feel the least bit scandalized from listening to the song. Still can't see how those hand gestures would have been too sexy for the tube even back in the 1970s.