Carly Simon -- Anticipation

Wikimedia Commons
via EEIM

Welcome to another edition of Reminiscings of Youth where I present some of the non-Japanese songs that I grew up with as a kid, teen or even young adult. And this time, I would like to go with another example of a negative being turned into a positive...at least, where marketing of a product is concerned.

When it came to condiments, I think that there were a fair share of people who couldn't stand having to wait for mustard or ketchup to slowly drag itself out of the bottle and onto the hamburger or hot dog. For me, that was indeed the case until I learned the inertia method many years later. However, the good folks at Heinz Ketchup took that logistical weakness and made it into something to be savored...anticipated, you might say.

Yes, it was the waiting that was part of the joy of having some of that ketchup on your burger or dog, and what helped it was the usage of a classic 1970s pop song, appropriately titled "Anticipation" by Carly Simon. What I was surprised about was that "Anticipation" had been released so early in the 1970s...November 1971, to be exact...since those Heinz commercials were more of a late 1970s/early 1980s phenomenon. However, listening to "Anticipation" a few times, I can now understand that it was an early 1970s tune with the laidback rhythm and piano.

"Anticipation" reached No. 9 in Canada while in the United States, it hit No. 13. The original song may have been about the giddy and nervous feelings about how a romance might play out, but for me, it'll always be about the ketchup. So, now I've got a Bond movie and a fabric softener plus a ketchup ad that has helped me cotton onto Carly Simon.

At the Japan Record Awards that were handed out at the end of 1971, there were two songs that won for Most Popular Kayo.

Koji Tsuruta -- Kizu Darake no Jinsei （傷だらけの人生）

Masaaki Sakai -- Saraba, Koibito （さらば、恋人）

Roger Whittaker -- The Last Farewell

 

I'll be doing the weekly Reminiscings of Youth post today rather than the usual Thursday because there are some plans for tomorrow, and I did want to focus on one particular folk singer-songwriter. Roger Whittaker passed away about a week ago although I didn't find out about his death at the age of 87 until yesterday. I've often mentioned about seeing those old K-Tel record commercials hawking those disco hits on television when I was a child. Well, Whittaker was another subject of K-Tel as you can see above and yep, that's how I got to know him.

There was one song that I will always remember Whittaker for. "The Last Farewell" was a song that was released in 1971 and it stood out at that time among all of the sunshine pop, psychedelic rock and Motown soul that was inhabiting music. Created by the singer and Ron A. Webster, it was a heroic ballad about a man leaving the love of his life to head out to sea and to go into battle hundreds of years previously...with the hint that he probably won't be coming back home. Now, how did a song like that become a hit?

Well, reading the Wikipedia article about "The Last Farewell", I found out that Whittaker had hosted a radio programme in his native UK, and one of the things that he did was ask listeners to send any poetry or lyrics to him so that they could be made into songs. Silversmith Webster was one of the lucky ones to get through and "The Last Farewell" was created, becoming "...one of the fifty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) physical copies worldwide".

I was in elementary school when I first heard the ballad and the part that always got me was the intro and the outro when those French horns played. It really felt like a heroic ship was about to weigh anchor for the voyage into glorious combat. Not surprisingly, a lot of people felt the same way. After that, I've placed French horns alongside the Fender Rhodes and a cool bass (wood and electric) as my favourite instruments to be heard. It's ironic then that my own personal experience with the French horn was so horrible in junior high school band class. I couldn't blast enough air through that miniscule mouthpiece to make any sound whatsoever and so I made my transition to the clarinet instead.

The other great instrument on display in "The Last Farewell" was Whittaker himself. His voice was so warm and oaken that it was the musical equivalent of a Normal Rockwell painting, and he could have rivaled Burl Ives over who would read "The Night Before Christmas" on Xmas Eve in my mind. That's probably why I had assumed that he was American instead of British for many years. As for the song, it hit No. 9 in Canada while in the United States, it reached No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 but it did reach the No. 1 spot on the Adult Contemporary chart there. My condolences to Whittaker's family, friends and fans.

There were a couple of kayo kyoku from that year which earned Popularity Awards at the Japan Record Awards.

Koji Tsuruta -- Kizu Darake no Jinsei （傷だらけの人生）

Masaaki Sakai -- Saraba, Koibito （さらば、恋人）

Masaaki Sakai -- Namida kara Ashita e（涙から明日へ）

 

Masaaki Sakai（堺正章）has become quite the entertainment legend on television. He's been the veteran silver fox through his many variety show appearances, drama roles and as a recording artist, first with the Group Sounds band, The Spiders, and then as a soloist. One show that I always remember him for is "Chuubo desu yo!"（チューボーですよ!...Saturday Night Chubaw!）, the late-night cooking variety program on TBS that went on for over 20 years.

But he was once a young and lanky actor and to actually see him on the long-running series "Jikan desu yo"（時間ですよ...It's Time）, the TBS family drama centered around a sento, as a long-haired hippie type is to realize how long Sakai has been around. Sakai was one of the main cast members as he played Ken Miyazaki（宮崎健）, a university ronin who was also working at the Matsu-no-Yu（松の湯）bathhouse. In the second season in 1971, aidoru Mari Amachi（天地真理）came onto the show as young Mari（マリ）who lived next door and was studying at a dressmaking school. Of course, Ken goes cuckoo over her.

One of the many insert songs that was used in "Jikan desu yo" was actually Sakai's third single from September 1971, "Namida kara Ashita e" (From Tears to Tomorrow), a whimsical and folksy kayo with a slight country lilt. Mitsuhiko Kuze（久世光彦）, the novelist who would also pen the lyrics for the aforementioned Amachi's 1972 trademark tune, "Hitori Janaino" (ひとりじゃないの）under the pseudonym Natsu Kotani（小谷夏）, did the same for "Namida kara Ashita e" while Takeo Yamashita（山下毅雄）composed the music. The song is about pressing forward and upward despite any of the usual setbacks that are now part of the past.

"Namida kara Ashita e" is another reminder to me about how strong a singer Sakai actually is; he does pop up from time to time on other variety and music programs to sing one of his old hits.

Masaaki Sakai/ASKA -- Saraba Koibito (さらば恋人)

From this week's "Uta Con" is another article. Besides "Hoshikage no Komichi" (星影の小径) that had been covered by J-Canuck earlier in the week - that one shocked me with the fact that it was a Minoru Obata (小畑実) song - there was also "Saraba Koibito". Come to think of it, I'm not very sure why it's in an episode featuring love songs when it's about a bloke leaving his lover with just a written note while she's asleep (ouch!), but I can't complain as I ended up liking it a lot.

Originally by Masaaki Sakai (堺正章), whom I see as comedic TV personality, "Saraba Koibito" was sung by Kiyoshi Hikawa (氷川きよし) that night, and what drew me to it was its music that began dramatically with the banging of the drums which was then joined by the blare of the trumpets. It very vaguely reminded me of some tune I enjoyed somewhere along the way, but for the life of me I can't put my finger on it... Hmm... My gut is pointing to Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour", but I'm not entirely sure whether to trust it or not.

Well, gut feelings aside, when I heard and watched Sakai's take on "Saraba Koibito" later on, while he still sounded pretty good then, similar to what J-Canuck had said in his article on this very song, I had a hard time associating his reedy, slightly husky voice and rather derpy exterior with the character in the song. And then again, with the fellow bothering to leave a letter and Kyohei Tsutsumi's (筒美京平) rather forlorn melody, our character could possibly be more of the nerdy sort rather your typical irresponsible and somewhat shady guy, and for his own personal reasons he has to abandon his lady (with a heavy heart) but is too afraid to tell it to her thinking that she might convince him to stay, and so he did what he did.

Seeing "Saraba Koibito" on "Uta Kon" I thought the title looked familiar, and lo and behold it was in ASKA's cover album "Boku ni Dekiru Koto" (僕にできること) from 2013 and I had been scrolling past it countless times when in the mood to listen to his other renditions of popular kayo from back in the day. With the addition of the acoustic guitar in his version, "Saraba Koibito" got sort of a folk edge to it which I'm not a fan of that and prefer the original, but that's not to say that it doesn't sound good. I couldn't find ASKA's version online, but I managed to find its cover by Tomi-san, who actually did a good job; kinda sounds like the man himself too. Haha, it's a cover of a cover.

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amazon.co.jp

The Top 10 (ザ・トップテン)

When it came to the two big music ranking shows of the 1980s that helped me get more and more into Japanese popular music, I always saw TBS' "The Best 10" (ザ・ベストテン) as the sempai over the kohai of NTV's "The Top 10". And the former was indeed the longer-lasting of the two (1978-1989) while the latter's reign was from 1981 to 1990. Plus, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi（黒柳徹子）who was one-half of the hosting team on "The Best 10" was really just larger than life itself....her hairstyle alone was larger than life.

Basically though, I saw the two programs as two sides of the same coin with their in-studio and onsite guest performances. Still, "The Top 10" which took over for the long-running "NTV Kohaku Uta no Best 10"（NTV紅白歌のベストテン...NTV's Red-and-White Songs Best 10）(1969-1981) had its differences from "The Best 10" in that it ran on Monday nights instead of the latter's Thursdays which kept the managerial teams for all those singers quite happy, I imagine. Also, instead of the mirror ninja wall and the clattering airport terminal-friendly ranking boards at "The Best 10", "The Top 10" had a glittering elevator and a computer screen with a smiling/pouty monkey face to show the rankings on that show.

And of course, there were the hosts. The aforementioned Kuroyanagi and Hiroshi Kume（久米宏）were the mile-a-minute emcees on "The Best 10" but "The Top 10" had the amiable and former Group Sounds cat Masaaki Sakai（堺正章）and perennially pixie aidoru Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）handling things. One thing that I hadn't known was that legendary lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）was the overall major domo of "The Top 10".

Another thing was that "The Top 10" actually ended its run in early 1986. But right there to take its place was "Uta no Top 10"（歌のトップテン...Songs Top 10）. With a change in set design and hosts, the show took the baton and continued until March of 1990 with a few other small adjustments here and there.

For the first year, the hosts were broadcaster Kazuo Tokumitsu（徳光和夫）and former aidoru Mako Ishino（石野真子）with singer/tarento Akiko Wada（和田アキ子）and comedian Shinsuke Shimada（島田紳助）taking over from 1987 onwards.

Beginning with all that VHS footage I saw at my classmate's house back in late 1981, I was hooked on both "The Best 10" and "The Top 10" so that I often would rent out videos of the two programs to catch up on my music. "The Best 10" finished its run in 1989 but I remember seeing "The Top 10" some months into my stay in Gunma Prefecture so when that final episode aired, I realized that an era just ended.

And totally off-topic here but since we are in Easter Weekend, I just wanted to give my tribute to the holiday with "Velvet Easter" and "Peter Rabbit to Watashi". Enjoy the ham and chocolate bunnies and eggs.

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Masaaki Sakai -- Machi no Akari （街の灯り）

           

I came across this song by Masaaki Sakai （堺正章）on one of my compilation CDs of kayo kyoku and found it wistfully comforting. I never mentioned this on my first article featuring the veteran celeb jack-of-all-trades, but he has always had that Chapinlesque quality...comic and dapper at the same time. So, it's with some coincidental irony that one of his notable songs is titled "Machi no Akari" since it can be translated as "City Lights"....which is the title for one of the movies that The Little Tramp himself had produced all the way back in 1931.

Released in June 1973, legendary lyricist Yu Aku （阿久悠）wove his words of a man walking around the metropolis at night wondering when he will find the girl of his dreams. Composer Keisuke Hama （浜圭介）seemed to have squeezed every bit of sentimentality and moon-eyed romanticism into "Machi no Akari", especially with that lonely trumpet backing Sakai up. And what better person to sing this ballad than Sakai himself....someone who comes off as that slightly sad-sack-looking but thoroughly decent fellow?

The song went as far up as No. 20 on Oricon. Not quite the mega-hit but in the years since, a number of singers have covered it, including Hiromi Iwasaki （岩崎宏美）and Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）.

Akira Terao/Masaaki Sakai -- Merry Go Round （メリーゴーラウンド）

Yup, life is indeed a merry-go-round. Never know who you're going to meet once again. That's the kind of idea that, Akira Terao（寺尾聡）, composer and singer of this faintly French pop-sounding ditty was going for. Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子） was the lyricist for "Merry Go Round"; she also helped Terao write a number of songs from his best-selling album "Reflections"which is already listed under his name in the tags. And she also wrote Japanese lyrics for the theme from "Star Wars" for Masato Shimon（子門真人）a few years back (she probably didn't see Carrie Fisher's cringeworthy performance on that verboten Star Wars Xmas special).

Arikawa writes about a man meeting an old flame once more and inviting her for a tea or coffee, and playfully reassuring her that if she needs a shoulder to cry on, she knows who to go to. One of the Japanese commenters on YouTube for this song remarked that this must've been written when Japan was still in a very happy state. Well, 1981....still a decade away from the slow downward economic spiral. In any case, the song is as light and as happy as a fully-fledged hummingbird leaving the nest for the first time.

Strangely enough, "Merry Go Round" didn't get onto the "Reflections"album though I think it fits like a "T".

"Merry Go Round"was actually made for singer/actor Masaaki Sakai（堺正章） as the theme song for his 1981 TV drama "Kid" in which Sakai plays the lead character, a detective. Knowing Sakai's personality, he probably played it light and lovable which kinda sums up the song. Both the arrangements for his version and for Terao's self-cover are pretty similar. (Note: at about the 3:30 mark for this video, it seems to get stuck)

A carousel on The Oasis of the Seas,
one of the largest cruise ships on Earth.

Masaaki Sakai -- Saraba, Koibito （さらば、恋人）

Masaaki Sakai（堺正章） has been a TV fixture for more than 40 years. He's been an actor, a singer, an emcee and an all-round entertainer. And in fact, I used to watch one of his shows late Saturday night on TBS, "Chuubo desu yo"（チューボーですよ....It's A Kitchen!), in which he and a guest try cooking a recipe in the studio kitchen while three professional chefs do the same at their own restaurants in Tokyo (yep, a cooking show at 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday...only in Japan). Sakai is basically the equivalent of a Regis Philbin or an Uncle Miltie (if you're that old to remember Milton Berle) on Japanese TV.

But back in the Group Sounds era of the 60s, he was a member of the Spiders until the band broke up in 1970. He quickly went into a solo singing career and his first single in 1971 turned out to be the one that he's probably the most well known for, "Saraba, Koibito" (Farewell, Lover). The lyrics by Osamu Kitayama（北山修）pretty much reflect the title: a feckless guy leaving the Dear Jane letter on the table while she's sleeping before taking off on his own. However, it's kinda hard to believe a guy with Sakai's nerdy voice being a love 'em-and-leave 'em type.

Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平） provided the music. And it's especially interesting to point this out since in the same year as this tune was released, he also helped launch Saori Minami's （南沙織） debut song, "Juu-nana Sai"（17才....17 Years Old). In that blog entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I mentioned that Tsutsumi created the melody with inspiration from Lynn Anderson's country hit "Rose Garden". Tsutsumi did the same thing here, too, with Sakai's debut. There's definitely that stately string intro in "Saraba, Koibito"that was in Glen Campbell's "By The Time I Get To Phoenix". The other connection is that both Tsutsumi songs won Japan Music Awards: Minami got the Best Newcomer Award while Sakai got the Popularity Award. As I did with Minami and Anderson on the former's blog entry, I have done with Sakai and Campbell. Take a listen and compare.

Released in May 1971, it peaked at No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies and ended up being the 10th-ranked song of the year. 

This last video has nothing to do with music, but to show how versatile Sakai has been over the decades. One of his nicknames is "Mister Kakushi Gei"(ミスターかくし芸....Mr. Hidden Talent). On New Year's Day, Fuji-TV broadcasts a 3 or 4-hour program called "Kakushi Gei Taikai"(かくし芸大会....The Hidden Talent Competition) in which just about every actor/singer/entertainer in Japanese show business has to show some sort of special ability that isn't his/her own. There is a reality show aspect to it as the poor entertainer is worn down to a nub as he/she has to learn something like tap dancing or tightrope walking within a few short weeks.

Sakai seems to be the overlord of this show and has usually been the final guy. This is the 2003 edition in which he showed his prowess as a trick billiard player.