Just for Fun...The J-C AI Gallery -- Kentaro, Hideki and Megumi

 

Kentaro Shimizu -- Shitsuren Resutoran (失恋レストラン）

Hideki Saijo -- Boomerang Street （ブーメランストリート）

Megumi Asaoka -- Watashi no Kare wa Hidarikiki（わたしの彼は左きき）

(Well, stage left...)

Carpenters -- Top of the World

 

Well, baseball season got officially under way earlier this afternoon for our local Toronto Blue Jays. Happily, their first game against the Tampa Bay Rays was a successful one with the Jays defeating the Rays 8-2, so I guess then that at least for today, Torontonians and the Jays are on....top of the world!

OK, let us all get our coughs out of the way after that last statement. It's very healthy to clear our phlegm. 😖Anyhow, for this week's regular Reminiscings of Youth article, I've returned to Carpenters and their hit single "Top of the World". Released on September 17th 1973, this may have very well been the first Carpenters' song that I had ever heard about since it just seemed to be getting onto the radio all the time when I was a kid. I didn't know what a steel pedal guitar was at the time but it's the chief instrument that has always gotten into my head whenever I heard this feel-good tune.

And though "Top of the World" has been categorized as a soft rock song on Wikipedia. it's because of that steel pedal guitar and the chorus work that has made me consider it as more of a country pop tune. As I said, too, it was a very successful one since it hit No. 1 on both the American and Canadian charts as well as in Australia. Even in Japan, it made it up to No. 21 on the regular Oricon charts.

"Top of the World" has gotten its fair share of covers over the decades, and my first reference to the song was through Shonen Knife's cover which I posted about back in 2017. Of course, because Carpenters are absolute legends in Japan, the original song has been used for commercials and even television dramas. As well, personally, my friends and I have performed this one all the time at karaoke. But obviously, none of us hold a candle to Karen Carpenter.

September 17th 1973 was also a date that does show what was up at the top of the Oricon single charts thanks to the site which I discovered a few months back. What was up at Nos. 1, 2 and 3...and for that matter, what was up at No. 6?

1. Tulip -- Kokoro no Tabi （心の旅）

2. Megumi Asaoka -- Watashi no Kare wa Hidarikiki（わたしの彼は左きき）

3. Agnes Chan -- Sougen no Kagayaki (草原の輝き）

6. Carpenters -- Yesterday Once More

Tommy Ambrose -- People City

 

Reminiscings of Youth is providing a second article tonight in addition to the regular one earlier. Nope, there is no statutory holiday in Canada today nor is there one in Japan. It's just that I was reminded yesterday that my hometown of Toronto became 190 years old, and yep, the above picture is from 15 years ago. I was thinking about how I could possibly bring this point into a ROY article and I found the perfect song.

But before that, I should provide some background context. I've mentioned about some of our TV stations here in Toronto over the history of "Kayo Kyoku Plus". We have the major Canadian networks: CBC and CTV, joined by Global in the 1970s. But for T.O., we also got our own little local station in 1972 called City TV, founded by Moses Znaimer along with a few other people although Moses was indeed the face of the then-Channel 79 Cable 7. My impression was that it was truly an independent and slightly rough-around-the-edges station with its own eclectic group of original shows such as "Boogie", Toronto's answer to America's "Soul Train", and the late-night softcore porn show "The Baby Blue Movie"...which I swear that I never saw. 😲

Some pretty hip personalities were born on City TV as well, a few of whom even made the really big time in the United States. There was J.D. Roberts who was one of the mullet-sporting hosts on the popular music show "The New Music" who is now veteran news anchor and reporter John Roberts, currently on Fox News. And then there is the voiceover guy above giving the station identification. He would later become one of the original cast members on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and several years after that, he even got to be one of the very first Ghostbusters. Yep, it's Dan Aykroyd.

But for a channel known for its devil-may-care approach to programming and young and cool on-air personalities, founder Znaimer went with a very soothing theme song for the station and basically one that became the theme song for Toronto itself. "People City" was used as the sign-on and sign-off song for City when stations used to sign on and off daily and it was created by Tommy Ambrose and Gary Gray with the former singing it. 

Released as a single by Ambrose in 1973, the song is a mix of very sweet and comfy classical pop and AOR. Just watching the accompanying video brings back a lot of memories of my childhood in Toronto. Good heavens, the fashion (and the public transit) back then! 

There was even a documentary regarding "People City" a few years ago which was provided by YouTube channel Retrontario. I've read comments here and there that "People City" ought to be revived as Toronto's theme or anthem once more, but I think the song, as much as I appreciate it, would probably need to be rearranged greatly since the Toronto that Ambrose was singing about back in the 1970s is not the Toronto we have now. Still, the Ambrose-and-Gray original is a nice aural reminder of what was.

For this ROY, I can provide the songs that won the Popular Prizes at the Japan Record Awards in 1973.

Megumi Asaoka -- Watashi no Kare wa Hidarikiki（わたしの彼は左きき）

Garo -- Romance (ロマンス)

Kenji Sawada -- Kiken na Futari （危険なふたり）

Saori Minami/Megumi Asaoka/Mariko Takahashi -- Irozuku Machi（色づく街）

 

Unfortunately, the above photo is a poor one (especially since it was taken in 2019) to illustrate the fact that this autumn has been seen to have one of the more vibrant outputs of colour in recent years. Scientists have placed credit on a seeming perfect storm of meteorological factors. So, I gather for all of those Torontonian photographers, get those shots of trees and leaves when you can since I'm pretty certain that by Halloween, a lot of the flaming foliage will be on the ground...perhaps under some snow.

On last night's episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）, the show did place a bit of emphasis on the fall-themed kayo. And I got to be acquainted with a Saori Minami（南沙織）song that I hadn't heard before or at least hadn't heard in a very long time. "Irozuku Machi" (The Colourful Streets) was featured, and this was the 70s aidoru's 9th single from August 1973.

Written by Mieko Arima（有馬三恵子）and composed/arranged by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, it's a light and fairly frisky aidoru tune of the times by Minami who sings about a young girl whose heart is filled with regret after a romantic breakup. Well, autumn is the time for such things, at least according to all of those kayo songwriters. In terms of Tsutsumi's arrangement, I'm gathering that along with the Fender Rhodes of City Pop, the growling electric guitar of contemporary enka and the bluesy saxophone of Mood Kayo, those plucky strings in "Irozuku Machi" have been rather emblematic of those 70s aidoru songs or pop tunes in general during the early part of that decade. Moreover, if I am going to be specific about instrumentation here, then I also have to mention that electric organ and bass in Minami's original song since they lend a certain French swing.

"Irozuku Machi" hit No. 4 on Oricon and ended up as the 37th-ranked single of 1973. It also got Minami to appear on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen for her third of eight appearances on the New Year's Eve special. Her eighth and final appearance in 1991, which was her first time on the program in fourteen years, had her sing that same song. It was also a track on Minami's 7th album "Hatachi Mae"（20才まえ...Before Turning 20）from September 1973 which peaked at No. 5 on the album charts.

The J-Wiki article for the song mentioned that it has become a kayo classic throughout the decades with everyone from newbie aidoru to veteran singers covering it. One of the earliest examples of this was via Megumi Asaoka's（麻丘めぐみ）cover in 1974 via her album "Golden Deluxe"（ゴールデン・デラックス）. The arrangement doesn't seem to be all that different from Minami's original version.

However, I did find a very dramatically different cover by smoky-voiced chanteuse Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）through her 1989 album of covers, "Sha"（紗...Silky Gauze）. This time, "Irozuku Machi" has been taken off the autumn streets of Tokyo and whisked off to the romantic settings of Rio as the song is given a bossa jazz treatment. My compliments to the arranger.

Also from the J-Wiki article for "Irozuku Machi", it was learned on a 2000 episode of the NTV newsmagazine series "Super Terebi Jouhou Saizensen"（スーパーテレビ情報最前線...Super TV Information Cutting Edge） that teenager Noriko Kamachi（蒲池法子）had recorded at least some of Minami's trademark tune on a demo tape, just before she made her debut as aidoru Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）. I can only speculate that the year commemorated Seiko-chan's 20th anniversary in show business, thus the revelation. Unfortunately, the video has been taken down.

J-Canuck's Valentine Choices

I was watching the news this morning when the newscaster read out that two-thirds of Canadians had little interest in Valentine's Day. Perhaps I would have tut-tutted the information and gone onto a reinforced soapbox and exhorted "What is wrong about LOVE?!", but then again, when I'm frankly as romantic as a Vulcan after a successful Kolinahr ritual, I don't think that I really can earn that soapbox.

Anyways, I was still surprised to realize that I had never put out a Valentine's Day list of my own in the 7 years of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", although JTM did release his "Romantic 80s Playlist" back in 2014. Well, it is indeed Valentine's Day today, so allow me to give some of my choices for the Day of Love. There are of course tons of kayo/J-Pop...way too many, in fact, to even sate a comprehensive list of which this is certainly not. In point of truth, there are songs that are knocking me upside the head like a Gibbs' slap at this moment for not being included. So, all I can ask humbly is that if any of you folks have your own choice for an ideal J-Valentine's song, please inform me.

Incidentally, all of these already have their own articles so this is more of a summary.

1. Megumi Asaoka -- Watashi no Kare wa Hidarikiki (1973)

Let's start with something nice and 70s and kayo-like by the adorable Megumi Asaoka（麻丘めぐみ）. "Watashi no Kare wa Hidarikiki"（わたしの彼は左きき）is a spritely and proud tune about the fact that one lady's Mr. Right is always on her left with the premise being that they are blissfully together and in love. Somehow, I've gotten the impression that is not so much a boyfriend-girlfriend situation but more of a just-married couple starting out on their life together.

2. Anzen Chitai -- Koi no Yokan (1984)

Those opening notes from Anzen Chitai's（安全地帯）"Koi no Yokan"（恋の予感）are enough to get me all nostalgically moody. I don't think the song was ever meant to be recorded with Valentine's Day in mind but there's something about Koji Tamaki's（玉置浩二）delivery and the songwriting by him and Yosui Inoue（井上陽水）that makes this ballad ideal for an intimate dinner or a romantic walk in a park on February 14th (we are talking about Tokyo...not Toronto).

3. Sayuri Kokusho -- Valentine Kiss (1986)

If I'm doing a Valentine's Day list of Japanese pop songs, then Sayuri Kokusho's（国生さゆり）"Valentine Kiss"（バレンタイン・キッス）has just got to be included. No exceptions! When compared with the mature themes of the above "Koi no Yokan", "Valentine Kiss" possesses the spirit of a 1950s novelty pop confection and the image of a junior high school girl nervously leaving homemade chocolates secretly in the school shoe box of a boy she likes. From personal experience, I hope that the lucky lad gets to the box early enough, lest those sugary creations end up smelling like feet! By the way, "Valentine Kiss" peaked at No. 2 on Oricon and ended up as the 14th-ranked single of the year.

4. Yumi Matsutoya -- Anniversary (1989)

"Anniversary ~ Mugen ni Calling You"（無限にCALLING YOU...Eternally Calling You） is probably one of Yuming's（ユーミン）most heartfelt ballads about a bride ready to take the walk down the aisle, and she's absolutely sure of her life choice. I think that people in that situation would need to grab for a Kleenex when they hear this special single. Although I don't think that this particular song has made it up to my own Top Ten list of Yuming songs, "Anniversary" has most likely made it onto BEST lists by other fans.

5. Mariko Nagai -- Zutto (1990)

"Zutto" was forever and always a love song that wafted through the air and inside the karaoke boxes and bars around that time. And it's the reason that Mariko Nagai（永井真理子）has stayed with me as one of the notable singers during my years in Gunma Prefecture on the JET Programme. Her plaintive "ZU-TTO, ZU-TTO, ne" strikes a nearly automatic Pavlovian response in listeners to start swaying from side to side.

6. Reimy -- Marry Me (1990)

Reimy（麗美）may not have become a huge superstar on the level of Yuming or Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）, but she still has gained a loyal cadre of fans including me for the lyrics and music that she created. "Marry Me" is one of my favourites as an intimate love letter of a ballad with a down-to-earth arrangement and a great guitar solo. Plus, of course, the title itself is an invitation for my list.

7. Kazumasa Oda -- Love Story wa Totsuzen ni (1991)

Kanchi! Ahhh...life and love in one of the biggest and most vivacious cities on Earth, and with a theme song that brings to mind a certain time and place. Poor wishy-washy Kanji Nagao in "Tokyo Love Story" had to make that difficult choice between the ever-lovable yet unpredictable force-of-nature Rika and the more down-to-earth Satomi, his old crush from high school in Ehime Prefecture. Not exactly an ideal Valentine situation but I still had to include "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni"（ラブ・ストーリーは突然にー）as a song of the season with oomph. The above video is a short clip of the song but at least, it actually has Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）singing one of his best songs.

8. Yutaka Ozaki -- I Love You (1991)

I not only think that "I Love You" by the late Yutaka Ozaki（尾崎豊）is the song to be performed at a wedding reception but I could easily see it as the ideal proposal ballad. Plus, wouldn't it be something if the proposer sang it with a guitar bandied over his shoulder? An old friend of mine actually did just that when he popped on a Shinkansen from Tokyo to his girlfriend's home hundreds of kilometres away, although I don't know whether he sang this particular Ozaki ballad. But obviously since they did get happily married with kids, it was all good.

Anyways, this was just a sampling of some of my choices for a February 14th custom. Nothing happening here at home today but perhaps I will pick up a chocolate bar tomorrow.

72% cacao

The Works of Koji Makaino （馬飼野康二）

Time for another attempt at a retrospective for a veteran songmaker, and the subject this time is Koji Makaino. For some reason, when I see or hear the name, I always think of one of his later compositions, "A-RA-SHI", the debut single for the current top band on the Johnny's Entertainment hill, Arashi（嵐）. But obviously he's been plying his trade from far back. The other thing that I've been struck with is his name itself which sounds pretty rare to me (according to one website dealing with Japanese names, it ranks in the 17,000s for the top 50,000 names). And when I did a bit of checking, I found out that "Makaino" may have originated in Shizuoka Prefecture, the land of green tea. However, songwriter Makaino was born and raised in neighbouring Aichi Prefecture which is the land of some of the more intriguing examples of Japanese comfort food such as miso katsu and ten-musu.

Koji Makaino was born in 1952 into a family associated with music. His father, Noboru Makaino（馬飼野昇）, was a composer of go-tochi songs (ご当地ソング...songs about specific cities and towns), and his older brother, Shunichi（馬飼野俊一）, also became a composer and arranger. The brothers' interest in music started from an early age as the family got involved in a tango band and also in the backup band for singer Yoshiko Ohtsu（大津美子）.

Makaino got his formal education in music at the Shobi College of Music in Tokyo although he dropped out to join a Group Sounds band, Blue Sharm（ブルー・シャルム）, in 1967. However, the band only lasted until 1970 and produced only 4 singles. A couple of years later, he started cutting his teeth on arrangement when he helped out on Hideki Saijo's（西城秀樹）3rd single, "Chance wa Ichido"（チャンスは一度...Just One Chance）, a short-but-sweet song that sounded like something from the go-go-boot friendly age of the 1960s. It managed to peak at No. 20 and from that point forwards, Makaino focused his talents on composition and arrangement.

From what I've gleaned from his long list of creations on his J-Wiki file, Makaino has done a lot of work for aidoru representing the last few decades of the 20th century and into the 21st. Another dynamic example of his aidoru work was "Yuki no Naka no Futari"（雪の中の二人...Couple in the Snow）for Megumi Asaoka（麻丘めぐみ）as her 10th single from December 1974 for which he was listed as composer. That song reached as high as No. 16 on Oricon.

However, Makaino didn't just keep himself on retainer for merely the teenyboppers. He has also created works in the Mood Kayo and straight pop genres with examples like Shigeru Matsuzaki's（松崎しげる）heart-on-a-sleeve ballad "Ai no Memory"（愛のメモリー）from 1977 and the cutesy kayo "Otoko to Onna no Love Game"（男と女のラブ・ゲーム）from 1987.

One other example of his non-aidoru compositions that I just found was the surprising union of 70s folk singer Akira Inaba（因幡晃）and late 80s/early 90s former aidoru Shoko Aida（相田翔子）of Wink fame to perform "Kureta no Shiroi Suna"（クレタの白い砂...The White Sands of Crete）as Inaba's 34th single from April 2004 although it is also a track on Aida's 3rd solo album "This Is My Love" which was released much later in September 2013. Listening to this glossy ballad, I realized that Makaino has had quite the romanticist inside of him since "Ai no Memory".

Moving on...or back...to the 1980s, Makaino kept busy with the aidoru of a different breed then. He composed "100% Danjo Kousai"（100%男女交際...100% Boy-Girl Dating）for saucy Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）in April 1986 as her 18th single. It's as perky as a Kyon-Kyon tune goes but it has some nice backing by the orchestra. As for the title, it had originally been "Akarui Danjo Kousai"（明るい男女交際...Cheerful Boy-Girl Dating） but was changed into "100%" during a delay in the release. According to the article for the song, Koizumi was far from pleased with the name change saying it was the worst on a radio program. Still the song hit No. 2 on the charts and was the 86th-ranked single for the year.

Geez, where have you been all of my life? I never heard of this Hikaru Genji（光GENJI）song until a few days ago, but man, I really like "Waratte yo"（笑ってよ...C'mon, Smile）. Makaino composed and arranged the band's final No. 1 hit which was released in November 1990 as its 11th single. It's got a lot of oomph with a spritz of Latin and a percussion that will hammer your ears into submission above a certain sound level. It became the 82nd-ranked single of the year.

Still a lot to explore about Makaino but in consideration of the limits of the number of categories I can place in the Labels section, I will have to stop it here with Yasuko Naito's（内藤やす子）"Omoide Boroboro"（想い出ぼろぼろ...Tattered Memories）. This was arranged by Makaino as Naito's 3rd single from September 1976 and it's also a fine discovery by me. I love the combination of the rock guitar with those soaring and shimmering strings. I've got an impression that Makaino liked to put in a nice layer of lushness into his arrangements, no matter what the genre was or who the singer was.

In fact, I like this last song so much, I will give it its own individual entry entry as soon as I can. There's a bit more I can add in my comments here in the body and also in the Labels.

Megumi Asaoka -- Watashi no Kare wa Hidarikiki （わたしの彼は左きき）

To be honest, I first came across this song when it was used in a parodic way for a curry rice commercial several years ago. I've heard and seen the middle-aged Megumi Asaoka（麻丘めぐみ） on TV as an actress and a personality, but never made the connection between her and this song until I watched one of those Showa-era music retrospectives, and a young Asaoka showed up to sing "Watashi no Kare wa Hidarikiki"(My Boyfriend is a Lefty).

Written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也） and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, it was released as Asaoka's 5th single in July 1973. This would be one of the Osaka-raised aidoru's most successful songs, peaking at No. 1 on the Oricon charts, and earning the Popularity Award at the Japan Record Awards. The song was also a track on her 4th album, "Megumi to Wakai Nakama Tachi" (めぐみと若い仲間たち....Megumi and Her Young Friends) which peaked at No. 13.

The then-18-year-old also earned her spot on the 1973 Kohaku Utagassen . What also helped her was her cute princess-style haircut (as has been described on J-Wiki) and the choreography involving her left hand. But of course, the song itself was infectiously bouncy and bubbly enough as well.....which explains why it was re-made into a commercial jingle decades later.

As for the significance of the title, I think it rather ironic since even now there is a feeling amongst a lot of Japanese families that any child born left-handed should be "trained" to change to a proper right-handed ability. It seems that Senke's song hints in the second verse that even if that boyfriend remains left-handed, his girl will still love him all the same. Awwww...