Nicolette Larson -- Lotta Love

 

Welcome to another Reminiscings of Youth article. Last week, I wrote about Roberta Flack's iconic 1973 cover of "Killing Me Softly with His Song" and though I had heard that classic on the radio a number of times when I was a boy, it took a drive home late at night to really infuse the wonder of it into me.

I've had a similar experience with Nicolette Larson's 1978 "Lotta Love" which was indeed a cover as well (to my surprise once more) of Neil Young's original 1976 recording, although that song wouldn't see the light of day until its inclusion in his 1978 album "Comes a Time". On Wikipedia, Young's contemplative original has been categorized as country rock; I would also add the adjective "soft" to the genre as well.

As mentioned, I'd heard Larson's version a number of times on AM radio as a kid, but as with "Killing Me Softly with His Song", "Lotta Love" finally hit me when I was actually watching an episode of the CBS sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati". I forgot what the episode was all about but there was a scene of a Cincinnati sunset as the helicopter shot over the bridge and then "Lotta Love" came on, and I just thought that it was the most amazing collaboration of visual and aural. There was Andrew Love's boss saxophone, Plas Johnson on the flute (he was also the tenor saxophonist on the famous "Pink Panther" theme!), the disco strings and of course Larson's slightly raspy voice.

To me, Larson's "Lotta Love" wasn't country rock; it's been this amazing car stereo-friendly disco AOR tune that tells driver and passengers "Yup, welcome to the city!". It was a hit in both Canada and the US, reaching No. 4 and No. 8 respectively and then it hit the top spot on their respective Adult Contemporary/Easy Listening charts. Larson, who left us all way too early at the age of 45, didn't quite hit the heights of superstardom but was a very popular figure to her fans and on the radio with some of her other songs, one which I will be doing as another beloved example of ROY soon enough. By the way, below is the Neil Young original.

Larson's debut album "Nicolette" was released on September 29th 1978. I found the Oricon Top 10 chart for September 25th that year. What were the top 3 singles on that day?

1. Takao Horiuchi -- Kimi no Hitomi wa Ichi-man Boruto （君のひとみは１００００ボルト）

2. Pink Lady -- Toumei Ningen（透明人間）

3. Masanori Sera & Twist -- Hikigane（銃爪）

Keisuke Kuwata featuring Motoharu Sano, Masanori Sera, Char & Goro Noguchi -- Jidai Okure no Rock 'n' Roll Band（時代遅れのRock'n'Roll Band）

www.goodfreephotos.com

 

I heard about this big collaboration among these older singing veterans last year and then of course, they showed up on the Kohaku Utagassen to perform their song. At first, I thought this special group was called the "Jidai Okure no Rock 'n' Roll Band" (An Old-Fashioned Rock 'n' Roll Band) but it was actually their one-and-only single that got the name. For all of us, the group is the quintet of Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐）, Motoharu Sano（佐野元春）, Masanori Sera（世良公則）, Char and Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）.

According to J-Wiki, Southern All Stars'（サザンオールスターズ）Kuwata had been looking at the state of the world last year with COVID-19, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and natural disasters inflicting themselves in various countries. He decided to give his old buddy, rock singer Sera, a call and they decided to make a song that would be released as a digital single for charity. They then gathered three other singer-musicians around their age of 66: 70s aidoru Noguchi, singer-songwriter Sano and guitarist Char, and once Kuwata got everything written out, they recorded "Jidai Okure no Rock 'n' Roll Band" for release in May 2022.

To give the proceedings that ol' nostalgic reunion effect, the music video was filmed at a Kanto region high school. Furthermore, joining the five in the video were SAS keyboardist Yuko Hara（原由子）, HOUND DOG's Kohei Otomo（大友康平）on drums, and bassist Hama Okamoto（ハマ・オカモト）. In the actual recording, Makoto Saito（斎藤誠）was helping out on electric guitar and Junichi Soga（曽我淳一）was on electric organ. As for the song itself, it's a gallant and summery rock-and-pop tune which is as comfortable as that once-retired leather jacket being taken out of the deepest corner of the closet as the five sing about getting off one's duff and doing something about the world.

"Jidai Okure no Rock 'n' Roll Band" managed to hit No. 1 on the digital charts with 21,000 downloads in its first week. The single is also available on Kuwata's 4th BEST compilation "Itsumo Dokoka de"（いつも何処かで...Always Somewhere） which was released later in November, also hitting the top of the charts and going Gold. Even before listening to the full version and hearing the hoopla about the song, I definitely got that Traveling Wilburys vibe.

Gosanke: Rock Gosanke（ロック御三家）

 

Well once again my memory failed me since I completely forgot about putting up the weekly Gosanke team onto KKP the past weekend. However, at least I have remembered today.

On January 14th, I put up the Shibuya-kei Gosanke（渋谷系御三家）with some relief in that Takao Tajima（田島貴男）of Original Love has mellowed out about having to cringe at being included within that august trio. However, I have to say that when I opted to put up the rock version tonight, I was scratching my head at the inclusion of wunderkind Shinji Harada（原田真二）as one of the Rock Gosanke. I did see that among his genres listed at J-Wiki, rock was indeed one of them, but the tunes that I've put up onto the blog have all swum in the ocean of City Pop and J-AOR; mind you, the one other genre that was listed for him was pop. Maybe his rock tunes came later in his career and I have yet to cover them.

In any case, while Char started up early in the 1970s, both Harada and Sera（世良公則）debuted in 1977 so I'll use that as the year for Labels, although I'm unsure how the tag of Rock Gosanke came about for these three, although it is listed on that "idol.ne.jp" page for Gosanke and in the Yahoo.jp search engine.

Char -- Smoky

Masanori Sera & Twist -- Moero Ii Onna （燃えろいい女）

Shinji Harada -- Shadow Boxer（シャドー・ボクサー）

Masanori Sera & Twist -- Hikigane（銃爪）

 

It's Hump Day today so I figure that Wednesday would be that day when the stresses of life are at their maximum. Meteorologically, folks in Florida are probably going through heightened versions of this because Hurricane Ian is literally knocking on the door as I write this. I'm hoping that everyone is doing OK down south.

Neither psychology nor psychiatry is my strong suit at all, but I do wonder whether the application of rock music helps in alleviating some of that stress; y'know, with primal screams and all. As such, to start off this day on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I have rocker Masanori Sera & Twist's（世良公則&ツイスト）3rd single, "Hikigane" which was released in August 1978. By the way, I threw the word hikigane into the various online translation engines and all I got was "gun claw", so as of this writing, I'm assuming that this might mean "trigger" (although looking at the article for the song, the term was something coined purely by Sera). This might be OK for "Hikigane" since Sera's lyrics seem to talk about a guy ready to pull a trigger on a relationship that has ended up rather toxic; well, as long as the gun is more figurative than literal.

Sera was also responsible for the grinding and grouchy music, reflecting the protagonist's willingness to dump the lass and past circumstances most dramatically into the nearest garbage pail. On Oricon, "Hikigane" reached No. 1 on the singles chart and ended up as the No. 17 single of the year. It did even better on the chart for "The Best 10"（ザ・ベストテン）since not only did it hit No. 1 there for their weeklies, but it hit No. 1 for the year after its feat of staying at the top spot for 10 weeks straight, the 2nd-longest streak in the show's history following Akira Terao's （寺尾聰）"Ruby no Yubiwa"（ルビーの指輪）at 12 consecutive weeks a few years later.

"Hikigane" also helped nominate Sera for a Best New Artist prize at the Japan Record Awards, an accolade that he declined. He didn't even bother showing up at the ceremony which sounds like a totally rock thing to do.

Masanori Sera & Twist -- Anta no Ballad（あんたのバラード）

 

Oh, good heavens! It's been almost nine years since I've put up an article involving a Masanori Sera & Twist（世良正則＆ツイスト）song. Indeed, back in 2013, I put up their famous "Moero Ii Onna"（燃えろいい女）. Well, I was reminded of another one of their hits which came right at the beginning thanks to an appearance by the band on a recent episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）. 

I'd heard of "Anta no Ballad" (Your Ballad) before just from Sera's melody and voice but I never put 2+2 together in terms of identifying the song and band, but that appearance on "Uta Con" finally cemented things. This was Twist's debut single from November 1977, and it's this down-home bluesy rock love song with lyrics also by Sera, driven by those gravelly and smoky vocals of his. 

When he was in his senior year at the Osaka University of Arts, the singer wrote up "Anta no Ballad" and an acquaintance of his who was working at a music instrument shop at the time recommended that the song be entered into the Yamaha Popular Song Contest, according to an article in the Sankei Sports newspaper (via J-Wiki). Well, that acquaintance was right on the money, since it won the Grand Prize there and Sera and Twist got to go to the World Popular Song Festival also sponsored by Yamaha.

"Anta no Ballad" earned another Grand Prize there, too, which led to their official debut. The song managed to break the Top 10 at No. 6 and ended up as the 25th-ranked single for 1978, selling between 500,000 and 750,000 records. It was also included on the band's self-titled album which was released in July of that year and hit No. 1 on Oricon. Finally, "Anta no Ballad" earned Sera and Twist their invitation to perform at the Kohaku Utagassen.

I also found one other interesting point about the choice of title, vis-à-vis one important word in it. The second-person pronoun "you" can be expressed as "kimi"（君）, "anata"（あなた）or "anta"（あんた）among other ways (and these three ways are very intimate). However, according to Sera, when it comes to blues music, only "anta" has the right feeling.

Billy Joel -- Honesty

 

Well, with all of the folks that I've brought onto the Reminiscings of Youth series over the past several months, I just had to once again bring on the Piano Man himself, Billy Joel, after introducing him onto the pages of this blog with "Rosalinda's Eyes" back in December 2020. He and his songs were regular parts of my radio-listening regimen as a kid and of course there are so many of them that I can feature as a ROY article.

However, I think for the Japanese, and perhaps especially for the karaoke fans in Japan, Joel's "Honesty" has been the most popular song for some reason. Maybe it's the gut-wrenching message that the brutal truth is more necessary than comforting words to prop up a relationship, and in a country where heartrending melodramas have thrived for decades, "Honesty" has just been the perfect Joel tonic. In any case, many was a time that this May 1979 single was performed in front of me at karaoke joints, and I've even given it a try. 

The one other Joel song that got a lot of karaoke time was "My Life", and both it and "Honesty" were tracks on his October 1978 album "52nd Street". I always enjoyed telling the students that "My Life" was used as the theme song for "Bosom Buddies", the sitcom featuring a very young Tom Hanks (but that'll be a different article). 

In any case, I've loved "Honesty" for those melancholy piano chords that start it off and then those strings that back up Billy when the refrain comes in. The arrangement is just so lush and although my interpretation may be wrong, the song might be reflecting a relationship in crisis but there's hope at the end that after taking in some of that bitter medicine that the romance or friendship will come out stronger. The US Billboard Hot 100 had "Honesty" peaking at No. 24 while it reached its highest point at No. 9 on the Adult Contemporary chart for the same company. Meanwhile in Canada where it also got plenty of airplay, the single got as high as No. 16.

So, according to "Showa Pops", which singles were coming out in May 1979? And once again, there is some discrepancy between J-Wiki and that site about release dates for two of the songs here.

Twist -- Moero Ii Onna （燃えろいい女）

Yoshitaka Minami -- Monroe Walk（モンロー・ウォーク）

Haruko Kuwana -- Soshite Denwa no Bell wa（そして電話のベルは）

Takenoya Central Heating -- All My Loving/Koi no Vacance (恋のバカンス）

Yesterday, I wrote about "Itsuwari no DJ"（偽りのDJ）by the comic band Daddy Takechiyo & Tokyo Otoboke Cats（ダディ竹千代&東京おとぼけCATS）and at the same time, I discovered something rather special. During my research, I found out that Daddy had been involved in a fun little lark with some good buddies from the music industry called Takenoya Central Heating（竹野屋セントラルヒーティング）thanks to a radio program called "Pioneer Sound Research" on FM Tokyo in 1980.

Those good buddies happened to be Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐）, Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）, and Masanori Sera（世良公則）, and they had a nice little jam session. On the "Itsuwari no DJ" article, I put up TCH's cover of The Beatles' "Twist and Shout". I was so charmed and delighted by the fact that these legends pulled an all-star gig that I have also decided to provide another couple of songs that they did.

One is another Beatles' classic, "All My Loving" (1964) for which I first heard the original on the airplane stereo offerings while on that flight to Tokyo in 1981. Then right after that, TCH gives their rendition of the kayo chestnut "Koi no Vacance" originally done by The Peanuts in 1963. I was able to find out on the J-Wiki article for "Koi no Vacance" (along with the information on the radio program) who was on which instrument: Tats was on drums, Mariya was on keyboard, Daddy and Kuwata were on guitar, and Sera was on bass. Apparently, both Tats and Kuwata have played the songs on their respective radio shows in the past.

Masanori Sera & Twist -- Moero Ii Onna （燃えろいい女）

I first heard "Moero Ii Onna" (Get Excited, Good Girl) years ago on the Fuji-TV Thursday night comedy-variety show hosted by The Tunnels when they did a hilarious parody of "Terminator 2". Taller and crazier Takaaki Ishibashi（石橋貴明）, in Arnie's role, broke character (as he usually does) to playfully "attack" actress-model Miyuki Ono（小野みゆき）, who was playing Sarah Connor while singing the song in question. Several years previously, Ono had been the campaign girl for Shiseido's summer commercial for which "Moero Ii Onna" was the song selected.

Now, getting to the originator of the song, I mentioned about Masanori Sera（世良公則） when I did a profile on "Wakare no Asa"（別れの朝）a few months ago. I've known him more as an actor, notably via his small role as a city doctor in the NHK morning serial "Ume-chan Sensei" last year, but then I came across the above video performing "Moero Ii Onna". He was one scary looking dude with those eyes, but I could see that he had oodles of charisma....perfect for rock. And he did a good job lyrically lusting for that summer girl.

"Moero Ii Onna" was the band's 5th single released in April 1979. As indicated, it was written and composed by Sera, and it managed to peak at No. 3. For the year, it finished in the 25th position with just a little over 400,000 records sold.

As for the story behind the band, during his high school days in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture, Sera had joined a band called FBI which consequently moved to Osaka to progress their career. At the same time, the band's name was changed to Twist（ツイスト）. However, the lead vocal at the time was getting hammered critically, so it was decided that he and Sera (who had been on bass) would switch roles. Then, in 1977, when the members were about to graduate from university and break up the band, it was entered into the Yamaha Popular Song Contest (Popcorn). Sera, who was the sole member who wanted the band to go pro, loaded the deck by making another name change to "Masanori Sera & Twist". They performed "Anta no Ballad"（あんたのバラード....Your Ballad), and like a Cinderella story, they earned the Grand Prix of the contest, and a month later, the song would be given its release as Twist's official debut single. Popcorn had been known for a lot of folk bands participating but with Twist's success in that October, the number of rock acts entering the contest increased.

Pedro & Capricious/Masanori Sera -- Wakare no Asa (別れの朝）

A few nights ago, I came across a YouTube video of Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子） performing this lovely ballad at a concert:

I'd never heard this song before, so I was wondering if this had been a relatively new tune by Takahashi, but it sounded somewhat old-fashioned. And in fact, it was. This was actually "Wakare no Asa"(Morning of Parting), the debut single by the Latin/jazz band Pedro & Capricious, released all the way back in October 1971. As I've mentioned in previous articles on the band and Mariko Takahashi herself, Takahashi had been a member of the band for several years in the 1970s.

Takahashi wouldn't join Pedro & Capricious until 1973, so the very first rendering of this song was with original vocal, Yoko Maeno（前野曜子）. As with Takahashi, Maeno gave a heartrending performance of Rei Nakanishi's（なかにし礼） lyrics which speak of a couple trying to smile through the tears as they spend their last moments with each other. The song also hit a chord with the music-listening public as it hit the top spot on Oricon and became the 8th-ranked song of 1972, selling over 500,000 records. It became Pedro & Capricious' biggest hit of their career which is a revelation for me, since I was also listening for decades to some of their later folkier hits (that have also become permanently attached to Takahashi) such as "Go-ban-gai no Mari e"（五番街のマリへ） and "Johnny e no Dengon"（ジョニーへの伝言...A Message For Johnny）.

This is Takahashi's version of the song when she was with the group.

I've heard about Masanori Sera （世良公則） for years but hadn't really heard his music since I was never all that much of a rock fan. However, I have seen him as an actor on a number of dramas such as last Fall's NHK morning serial "Ume-chan Sensei" as a somewhat unorthodox but kind doctor. Still, I think he's a rocker at heart and in 1994, he released his own rock ballad version of "Wakare no Asa" accompanied by some blistering guitar.

However, all these different Japanese versions all come from a non-Japanese source. In 1967, singer-songwriter Udo Jurgens released "Was ich dir sagen will"(What I Want To Tell You). And a year later, this was also made into a Matt Monro (famous for his rendition of "From Russia With Love", the theme of the 2nd James Bond movie of the same name) song under the title of "The Music Played".

No matter the title and the language, though, it's still a wonderful song to listen to.

Pedro & Capricious -- BEST