On Behalf of Tanabata（七夕）: It's 7!

Wikimedia Commons
via Immanuel Giel

 

It is (or was in Japan) July 7th 2025 which means another day to celebrate Tanabata, commemorating the star-crossed lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi. This year, though, is particularly auspicious because July 7th is falling in the 7th year of Reiwa (another way of saying 2025 in Japan) and so people noticing that it is the 7th day of the 7th month in the 7th year, much hay has been made out of it. For example, couples have been flooding their local city halls to register their marriages today and in a lot of supermarkets, some products have been priced at 777 yen. 

Now, I've done my commemorating of the holiday sometimes on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for specific songs in the past, but this time, I've decided to become a little more ambitious by applying a few gimmicks to this Author's Pick.

First off, let's provide three songs that have something to do with the number 7.

(1967) The Echoes and The Misuzu Children's Choral Group -- Theme from Ultra Seven （ウルトラセブンの歌）

(1996) Dreams Come True -- Shichi-gatsu, Nanoka, Hare （7月7日、晴れ）

(1986) Checkers -- NANA (yes, I know...this is more of a pun on the number 7 in Japanese, but hey!)

OK, the next three deal with songs that were actually released on July 7th.

(1986) Shonentai -- Diamond Eyes（ダイヤモンド・アイズ）

(1987) Miho Nakayama -- 50/50

(1990) Hideaki Tokunaga -- Kowarekake no Radio （壊れかけのRadio）

And finally, we have someone here who was born on July 7th 1949: 

(1982) Masaki Ueda -- Osaka Bay Blues

May your wishes come true!

Masaki Ueda feat. Cindy -- SONG OF LOVE

 

Welcome to Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP! A few years ago, I posted this article on a scintillating duet between the soulful and bluesy singer-songwriter Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）and the just-as-soulful and sweet singer-songwriter Cindy titled "Letting You Go ~ Ai no Kageri"（愛の翳り）. I mean, this was a 1985 song that would have had Bobby Caldwell clapping in appreciation.

Early last month, a commenter for "Letting You Go" gave me a tip on another collaboration between the two that occurred about a decade later when Ueda released his 28th album "Sweet Voice" in October 1995. Titled "SONG OF LOVE", it's indeed another soulful ballad that was composed by Ueda and written by Clay Rowley, and though in agreement with the commenter that it's not quite as spine-tingling as the earlier ballad, "SONG OF LOVE" is still a pretty hopeful love song with Ueda and Cindy giving their all behind the microphone. I wonder if they had ever performed this in concert; would like to know if there's a video out there for that.

Osaka Songs

 

Well, the Osaka Expo is now fully underway. Back last week, I posted a Kaori Mizumori（水森かおり）enka in commemoration of the event, and earlier today, NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン ）provided a song festival for Osaka in tribute as well. I realized then that I may not have put up a list of Osaka-based kayo kyoku on KKP as of yet, and checking some of the key files, I apparently have not done so. Therefore, without further ado, here are some of those songs, a few of which were featured on "Uta Con".

(1976) Senri and Mari Unabara -- Osaka Rhapsody （大阪ラプソディー）

(1986) Takajin Yashiki -- Yappa Sukiyanen （やっぱ好きやねん）

(1981) Harumi Miyako & Tadashi Miyazaki -- Futari no Osaka （ふたりの大阪）

(1982) Masaki Ueda -- Osaka Bay Blues

(1979) BORO -- Osaka de Umareta Onna （大阪で生まれた女）

And of course, we gotta pay tribute to the 1970 Expo in Osaka.

(1967) Haruo Minami -- Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa (世界の国からこんにちは）

Masaki Ueda -- Chiisana Uchuu（小さな宇宙）

 

Wasn't exactly doing any Boxing Day shopping this morning because I wasn't looking for any sales, but I did go downtown to pick up some new earphones for my relative's new Fii0 portable cassette player. They aren't cheap but they are working swimmingly much to everyone's satisfaction as they are enjoying their old enka songs on some ancient audiotapes.

It is Friday so no enka today. Instead, we have our usual urban contemporary numbers to consider, and to start off the final Friday for 2024, we have Masaki Ueda's（上田正樹）"Chiisana Uchuu". This could translate directly as "A Small Space" but that really doesn't reflect the singer-songwriter's feelings in his lyrics. At first, I had assumed that the song which occupies a track on his October 1978 album "Push & Pull" was supposed to be another happy-go-lucky tune involving a romantic couple. Instead though, it actually talks about one guy's joy at presumably moving into his own pad and treating the view of the night sky outside his window as his framed universe. So I gather that a more proper emotional translation can be "My Little Piece of Heaven".

For such a lyrically stationary tune, "Chiisana Uchuu" is a pretty pleasantly traveling disco-laced City Pop tune that brings more images of flying through space over Tokyo or bombing down the expressways criss-crossing the megalopolis. Enjoy the strings, Ueda's soulful vocals, the galloping rhythm and the guitar solo. I usually associate the singer with blues and/or soul, but he does pretty well with the disco, too.

J-Canuck's Favourite Ballads by Male Singers

 

Ahh...yes. Getting all moony-eyed are we? As a sequel to last night's J-Canuck's Favourite Ballads by Female Singers, I now have the male singers and their songs of love to finish things off. 

(1987) Takao Kisugi -- Sugao no Ashita e （素顔の明日へ）

(1984) Anzen Chitai -- Koi no Yokan（恋の予感）

(1983) Jun'ichi Inagaki -- Natsu no Claxon （夏のクラクション）

(1982) Masaki Ueda -- Kanashii Iro ya ne (悲しい色やね)

(1982) Tatsuro Yamashita -- Your Eyes

Talking Heads -- Burning Down the House

 

Welcome to another weekly edition of Reminiscings of Youth. When it comes to the rocking New Wave band Talking Heads, the subject of this article wasn't actually the first time that I had heard them. That prize goes to "Once in a Lifetime" from 1981 with that weird video of David Byrne looking like the most unpopular professor on campus while he's repeatedly proclaiming "You may find yourself...". 

I will eventually come to that one for a ROY article later this year but I wanted to begin the Talking Heads file on KKP with their July 1983 single "Burning Down the House". The song wasn't only popular but its music video was in heavy rotation on the local Toronto video show "The CHUM 30 Countdown" and other similar programs. With this one and the one for "Once in a Lifetime", I had assumed that Talking Heads was a British band because my impression was that the really oddball videos came from the UK. Actually, they were from another island altogether: Rhode Island in the United States.

There's something like a "OK...let's get down to business!" beat with "Burning Down the House" which is why I've liked this one for so long. Maybe there was a movie or TV drama that used it during some sort of caper montage but if that were the case, I have yet to see it. The drumming and then the slashing guitar (or is that a keyboard?) in the bridge are my favourite parts of the song along with Byrne's unique vocals. "Burning Down the House" peaked at No. 9 on US Billboard and it was the Heads' highest-charting single there while in Canada, it went a tad higher by placing in at No. 8.

So, what was hitting the Oricon Top 10 for July 1983? Well, we've got Nos. 4, 5 and 7.

4. Kozo Murashita -- Hatsukoi (初恋）

5. Masaki Ueda -- Osaka Bay Blues

7. Rats & Star -- Me Gumi no Hito （め組のひと）

City City Pops by J-Canuck

 

Looks like KKP AI representative Kayo is having her fun behind the wheel of a sports car. Pretty impressive if you ask me, especially considering that she was born a couple of weeks ago. 

Anyways to make things clear, I wasn't stuttering when I came up with the above title. It's just that I had one of my rare brain waves about putting up a small and incomplete list of City Pop tunes that basically spell out the city. Y'know...it is a city so why not sing about that city?

 (New York City) Junko Yagami -- Purpletown (パープルタウン）You Oughta Know By Now (1980)

(New York City [though I like to think Tokyo]) Minako Yoshida -- TOWN (1982)

(Yokohama/Kobe/Nagasaki) Yasuha -- Fly-Day Chinatown (フライディ・チャイナタウン) (1981)

(Osaka) Masaki Ueda -- Osaka Bay Blues (1982)

(Tokyo) Masayuki Suzuki & Momoko Kikuchi -- Shibuya de Go-ji (渋谷で5時）(1994)

(Nagasaki) Masashi Sada -- Nagasaki-City Serenade （長崎小夜曲）(1982)

Masaki Ueda -- Night Train to the Stars

 

There was that episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）about two weeks earlier which had hit my head and heart so hard that I quickly devoted space on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" to it. Singer-songwriter Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）was part of the lineup, and though I didn't mention it in that article, I had to say that I was a tad worried about Ueda's health since he looked so frail at the age of 74 and I know that one of his contemporaries, Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）, had passed away some weeks ago at the same age. However, he and fellow singer-songwriter Diamond Yukai（ダイアモンド☆ユカイ）took care of the former's famous hit "Kanashii Iro ya ne" (悲しい色やね....Osaka Bay Blues) with caressing aplomb.

"Osaka Bay Blues" is one of the great City Pop songs by Ueda with all of its stylish bluesiness. Recently though, I came across the B-side to the original October 1982 single, "Night Train to the Stars" which is actually a bit more playful and upbeat. Written and composed by the singer, the night train of note is simply the metaphor for a couple of enjoy their evening together, fueled not by coal but by some fine and strong libations. As someone who went a little overboard on the screwdrivers and creamsicles early in his drinking career, I can certainly sympathize.

The arrangement was handled by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）, and there's an interesting melange of tropical, some Tin Pan Alley and maybe even some Steely Dan swimming about. Plus, a rock guitar crashes into the proceedings from time to time. Perhaps those aforementioned libations include the Scorpion Bowl, another product made from a melange of ingredients.

"Uta Con"（うたコン）October 24th 2023

 

It's darn rare for me to put up a quartet of articles on a Tuesday and it's pretty darn unusual for me to post an article on a particular episode of any show, let alone NHK's "Uta Con". However, after having last week's broadcast of the kayo kyoku program cancelled on Japan TV because of all of the copyright concerns regarding Western musical tunes being covered in that one, we (and notably I) were given a memorable episode this week since a lot of the songs featured were ones that got me into this crazy musical world (and blog) in the first place. I just had to mention this episode and well, this is a blog after all. I can use it as a diary.

As I mentioned only some minutes ago in the previous article, there was the somber announcement that Yoshinori Monta（もんたよしのり）of Monta and Brothers had passed away on October 18th. However before and after that, I was able to catch a lot of the Japanese songs of my youth that got me interested in kayo kyoku, enka and all that jazz. A lot of it was powered by a tribute to singer-songwriter Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）with the appearance of the man himself along with guests EPO, Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）, Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）, Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）and Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）. In a way, it was like getting a sneak preview of that Hayashi tribute concert that will be happening in Tokyo on November 5th.

Well, anyways, here was most of the lineup:

Sayuri Ishikawa -- Amagi Goe （天城越え）

Hitomi Ishikawa -- Machibuse（まちぶせ）

EPO -- DOWNTOWN

Miki Matsubara -- Mayonaka no Door （真夜中のドアー）

Masaki Ueda -- Osaka Bay Blues

Momoko Kikuchi -- Mou Aenai Kamoshirenai（もう逢えないかもしれない）

Masaki Ueda & Junji Ariyama -- Osaka e Dete Kite kara（大阪へ出て来てから）

 

Among the many YouTube channels that I'm subscribed to, one of them is "VIRTUAL JAPAN" which has had plenty of video walks around Tokyo, but then this one came up a few years ago which features a stroll in good ol' Osaka. The Kansai metropolis will be hosting a major Expo in 2025 but I think that even without a world exhibition, it ought to be bringing in the tourists from all over.

But let's head back almost half a century, shall we? Considering Masaki Ueda's（上田正樹）huge hit of "Osaka Bay Blues" in the early 1980s and this song, fans could be forgiven for assuming that the soul singer and songwriter had been a native Osakan. However, he was born in Kyoto and as far as I know, I don't think that he had ever been raised in Osaka although his career started in the nightclubs and discos there.

"Osaka Bay Blues" is a soulful City Pop ballad but back in the 1970s, Ueda was probably more into the blues and rock scene. His debut album from May 1975 was "Bochi Bochi Iko ka"（ぼちぼちいこか）, a title in the Kansai dialect meaning "Shall We Get a Move On?" and it was a joint collaboration with singer and guitarist Junji Ariyama（有山淳司）. One of the tracks is the amiable "Osaka e Dete Kite kara" (Since Coming to Osaka), a bluesy and jazzy number written and composed by Ueda about a fairly schlumpy fellow quickly going over his five years and counting in the city within four and a half minutes. In that aforementioned Kansai dialect, Ueda sings about the guy not exactly making his fortune there but still getting pretty comfortable in his adopted home. Considering how open and gregarious the Osakans are, I'm not surprised. 

Go-Touchi Songs（ご当地ソング）: The Kinki region

Wikipedia.jp

Moving along from the Chubu region, last Saturday's area for our "Go-Touchi Songs" series, we come to the region of my relatives and ancestors, Kinki. Most of my extended family hail from Metropolitan Osaka and Wakayama Prefecture and the rest of Kinki consists of Metropolitan Kyoto, Hyogo, Nara, Shiga and Mie Prefectures. And indeed, the Johnny's Entertainment duo of the KinKi Kids was named as such since they were the first Johnny's group to come from the area. However, I remember on their old Saturday night variety show "Love Love Aishiteiru"（ラブラブ愛している）, the Domoto boys admitted sheepishly that they found out that Kinki's homophonic namesake in English was "kinky" which earned them some unintentional giggles overseas. 

1. Yuko Nagisa -- Kyoto Bojou （京都慕情）for Kyoto (1970)

2. Harumi Miyako -- Osaka Shigure （大阪しぐれ）for Osaka (1980)

3. Masaki Ueda -- Osaka Bay Blues for Osaka (1982)

4. Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five -- Soshite, Kobe （そして、神戸）for Kobe (1972)

5. Kaori Mizumori -- Kumano Kodo （熊野古道）for Wakayama Prefecture (2006)

We've got some regional delicacies from Kyoto with yatsuhashi（八つ橋）and Osaka with takoyaki（タコ焼き）. Next week, let's take care of the Chugoku region.

Masaki Ueda & South To South -- Mukade no Kinzo（むかでの錦三）

 

Getting to know singer-songwriter Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）for the first time through his 80s material such as his "Osaka Bay Blues", I had only seen him as a smooth City Pop balladeer with that characteristic raspy and bluesy voice. But because of our work on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I've been finding out more of his early times in the 1970s.

Case in point: he got a band together which made its debut at the One Step Festival in Fukushima Prefecture in August 1974, according to J-Wiki. Known as Masaki Ueda & South To South, they released an album in December 1975 titled "Kono Atsui Tamashii wo Tsutaetain'ya"（この熱い魂を伝えたいんや...Lemme Tell Ya About My Passionate Soul）. It's quite the appearance of Ueda in the shaggy long hair and denim outfit after getting used to his cool 80s history teacher look.

Anyways, one of the tracks on "Kono Atsui Tamashii wo Tsutaetain'ya" is "Mukade no Kinzo" (Kinzo the Centipede) in which Ueda sings about himself as the titular Kinzo, a strutting Kansai gangster who's living the life that he wants without any problems with the world as his oyster. He was responsible for words and music behind this bluesy funk fest which sounds as if it had received some inspiration from some of Stevie Wonder's works back in the day. That very recognizable raspy voice of Ueda is right there as well.

Masaki Ueda -- Samui Nohara（寒い野原）

Haven't put up a Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）in a while and the majority of his songs on KKP have come from the 1980s. I've only written one of his that was actually his debut single from late 1972, "Gin'iro no Taiyo ga Moeru Asa ni" （金色の太陽が燃える朝に）.

As I recall, "Gin'iro no Taiyo ga Moeru Asa ni" was more along the lines of a proud get-it-out-there kayo such as Kiyohiko Ozaki's（尾崎紀世彦）"Mata Au Hi Made" （また逢う日まで）, but his "Samui Nohara" (Cold Plain),  a track from his September 1977 third album, simply titled "Ueda Masaki", is something a little different. For one thing, I think that it comes across as a transitional tune, heading more into that familiar bluesy soul that I first knew him for a la "Osaka Bay Blues" but not quite there as of yet.

I'm not quite sure if it's a straight-up City Pop tune although I hear that de rigueur bass and keyboard. Perhaps I can also classify it as New Music, but even if it straddles that borderline, it's got that appealingly strutting main rhythm thanks to the percussion and bass. At the same time, the addition of that flute keeps things nice and light and floaty, and maybe there's even some feeling of a refreshing early morning because of it (although I'm not quite sure who would still be strutting across the plain at 4 am in the morning). Among it all is Ueda's slightly leathery voice which is quite worthy for the blues, but I don't think "Samui Nohara" is a blues song at all. It's quite the happy track with words by Kiri Kawamura（河村季里）, melody by Ueda and arrangement by Makoto Yano（矢野誠）.

Masaki Ueda feat. Cindy -- Letting You Go ~ Ai no Kageri（愛の翳り）

 

Happy Friday and getting into the City Pop for today with a really nice recommendation from Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio".

Never knew that soulful Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）and singer-songwriter Cindy were involved in a duet but I was introduced to their work together on the song "Letting You Go ~ Ai no Kageri" (Cloud Over Love), which is a track on Ueda's 1985 album "Silence"（サイレンス）. Written by Ralph F. McCarthy and composed by Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）, the ballad pairs Ueda's characteristic heartfelt raspiness and Cindy's smooth-as-butter vocals over some of that mellow City Pop balladry for pure relaxation. It's just too bad that McCarthy's lyrics are about the slow disintegration of a romance but I can't deny the lovely music.

According to the site Groovenut Records, the album "Silence" also has Ueda exploring genres such as rock, blues and reggae, so there is quite a variety to enjoy. However, I'm quite happy as it is with this one track right now.

Masaki Ueda -- Wagamama（わがまま）

Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）, who is currently the sophomore anison singer, has been given the eternal title of The King of Love Songs. Well, to share the wealth so to speak, perhaps I can knight another wonderfully cool crooner as The King of Kansai Soul. The recipient of that sword tap on the shoulder is Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）, born in Kyoto and partly schooled in Hyogo Prefecture, and who's been most famous to me for his "Osaka Bay Blues" originally recorded in 1982.

In the same year that Martin came out with one of my favourite songs by him, "Mou Namida wa Iranai"（もう涙はいらない）, Ueda released his September 1992 single "Wagamama" (Selfish). When I first heard "Wagamama", I automatically recognized his similarly smoky vocals but this time with a City Pop arrangement that reflected those early 1990s, primarily through the synths and other keyboards. Once again, it's all about the champagne-and-caviar feeling for that era of City Pop although I think by 1992, the Economic Bubble had already burst.

Written and composed by Ueda, the mellow and loving melody also has lyrics of some consternation from the protagonist who's actually hoping the affair will end but not because of any loss of love. Apparently the whole thing has been too exquisitely painful.

To end the article, I guess my final comparison between Suzuki and Ueda is that whereas the former looks like a nightclubbing tough guy, I've always found the latter to be more of the professorial cool guy. Would be interesting to know whether the two soul singers have ever collaborated.

Masaki Ueda/Daisuke Inoue -- Takako

Being raised in the K-Tel record commercial era, I was privy to a lot of songs that were titled with single names, usually because they were the target of love for the singer. There were of course "Sherry", "Johnny Angel" and "Laura". But the same was true in kayo kyoku. We've had "Sachiko", "Junko" and even "David".

Now, allow me to introduce the soulful "Takako", a lovely sunset song sung by the just-as-soulful Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）. Written by Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and composed by the late Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）, this ballad simply soars into the early evening sky and I would think that any young lady with that name would feel properly complimented.

The arrangement by Katsu Hoshi（星勝）has a lot of talent involved with folks like Yuji Toriyama and Makoto Matsushita（鳥山雄司・松下誠）on guitar, the chorus group EVE, and the Joe Strings. It's epic and soothing at the same time, and it's no wonder that "Takako" won an award for arrangement at the Japan Record Awards that year. The ballad was a May 1984 single for Ueda.

Inoue himself covered "Takako" in his 1989 album "Sapphire Blue". His version sounds slightly more pensive and elegiac, and even has a bit more of the "lonesome cowboy" feeling to it. I think both the Ueda original and the Inoue cover even have a hint of Righteous Brothers in the verses. But in the end, I have to go with Ueda's "Takako" since I get so much feeling from its arrangement and the vocals.

Masaki Ueda -- Light Foot（ライト・フット）

Although as a university student, alternate Fridays were often spent with friends hitting the dance spots in Toronto, when I went to Japan on the JET Programme, basically my evenings of flopping about like Fred Flintstone rather than Fred Astaire came to a rather abrupt end. For one thing, most of my two years on the programme were spent in the mountain town of Tsukiyono in Gunma Prefecture which barely met the requirements of being a town in terms of population (it's now part of the city of Minakami).

Mind you, on the final night of my JET orientation in Tokyo, a small group of us did head out to one of the dance places in one of the Shinjuku hotels. As I remember it, the dance floor was no bigger than a model's catwalk, so the dancing was restricted to some rather intense shuffling (with my moves, I would have been arrested on multiple counts of assault easily). The only other memory I had of dancing during those two years was when some of the English teachers at my schools and I ended up going to some place in the nearby city of Numata which held the somewhat schizophrenic role of disco and karaoke bar...on the same night. I kid you not...it was 40 minutes of karaoke singing and then 20 minutes were given over to the mirror ball and dry ice fog as folks danced as hard as they could for those 1200 seconds. Only in Japan...

Anyways, some time ago, I discovered this City Pop song by cool singer Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）called "Light Foot". The YouTube video has it titled "Just Dance The Night" which I think is a better title, but actually it is part of the lyrics.

A track on his 1983 album "Husky", "Light Foot" starts out with some seemingly heraldic keyboards before the bass comes bombing in to join those happily jangly synths with the familiar soulful voice of Ueda. This can be another fine tune to have on the car stereo while driving through the night streets of Tokyo on a Friday night...hopefully heading to a proper dance club with plenty of room and time to kick up one's heels.

The songwriters for "Last Foot" are Chinfa Kan and Tetsuji Hayashi（康珍化・林哲司）, no strangers to the local urban contemporary music in that decade of high living. And the two also came up with Ueda's most famous song, the soulful "Osaka Bay Blues". Not quite sure what the title is about, but my image is that of the folks at around midnight trying to find an all-night cafe (in Roppongi, that would have been Almond) after hoofing it so much that they had to take off their shoes to give their aching feet a break. Most likely, it would have been too late for them to catch the train or subway since they used to close around midnight...yep, in a world-class city, that was the time for the final commutes home. Things have improved slightly since then...perhaps.

Masaki Ueda -- Gin'iro no Taiyo ga Moeru Asa ni （金色の太陽が燃える朝に）

https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm16163556

The only song that I had heard by soulful singer Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）up to now was "Osaka Bay Blues", an urban contemporary ballad that was a hit for him in 1982. But being a particular fan of City Pop and R&B from either side of the Pacific, I always felt that I should give Ueda some more listening. And thanks to YouTube, I have been able to hear a few of those other songs that are not "Osaka Bay Blues".

Tonight, I have decided to go with his debut single from December 1972, "Gin-iro no Taiyo ga Moeru Asa ni" (The Morning of a Golden Sun). It's one of those songs that I have come across which doesn't easily categorize itself solidly in any one genre. Written by Takashi Yanase（やなせたかし）and composed by Makiko Kinoshita（木下牧子）, it starts out over several seconds sounding like some sort of mysterious New Music tune before it proudly launches into a mix of old-style soul kayo that could have been sung by Akiko Wada（和田アキ子）and a 60s happy song performed by Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）. However, there is no mistaking the distinct sandpaper voice belonging to Ueda.

Yanase's lyrics are just as positive as Ueda invites someone to take a fun trip anywhere in the nation while the weather remains gorgeous. Considering all of the unseasonable snow we've been getting here in Toronto, that is an idea that I would love to hold onto. Keeping on Yanase, as I was thinking about what to write here, there was something flashing in my head indicating some sort of familiarity with that name. Well, Takashi Yanase had a bigger job as the manga artist behind the still much-beloved "Anpanman"（アンパンマン）.

Masaki Ueda -- Osaka Bay Blues

I came across Masaki Ueda's（上田正樹）"Osaka Bay Blues" on a video tape of "The Top 10"ranking show on which he performed live right from Osaka Bay. And then I was fortunate enough to get the single on a compilation tape of kayo kyoku hits that I'd bought in Chinatown. Ueda debuted in 1972 and is known as an R&B/soul singer-songwriter from the Kansai area. Of course, he naturally sings the Kansai dialect-inflected lyrics like a pro. The creators were actually Chinfa Kan and Tetsuji Hayashi （康珍化・林哲司）.

The song, which was released in October 1982, peaked at No. 5 on Oricon and became the 26th-ranked tune for 1983. "Osaka Bay Blues"is actually the sub-title with the main title being "Kanashii Iro ya ne"(悲しい色やね....Sad Colour Isn't It?)

Thanks to www.early-times.com for the ranking information.