Michael Bublé -- Fever

 

The above is a photo of what was once the small Tower Records branch underneath the skyscraper village known as Shiodome between the Tokyo neighbourhoods of Ginza and Shimbashi (the store closed down in March 2021). Compared to the massive main store in Shibuya, the Shiodome branch was cute and petite but it still had plenty of shelves to be perused and I used to visit it a fair bit. To give credit where credit is due, the photo is actually a shot that I copied from Minato Eye no Minato-ku Tsuushin's site. I haven't been able to find my own photo of the branch itself so my apologies to the site if I've overstepped my bounds here.

Now, the reason that I'm even mentioning one of my old CD haunts for this Reminiscings of Youth article is that Shiodome Tower Records was where I first heard Canadian jazz singer great Michael Bublé. He's already been mentioned here at KKP through "Spider-Man" and "Sway" but this is the first time that he gets his own ROY article (and it won't be the last either). 

I had already known about jazz chanteuses Diana Krall and Holly Cole, but when I entered that Tower branch in 2003, I had yet to hear about Bublé from Burnaby, British Columbia. However, he'd been around the jazz world for a few years already when I encountered a display shelf filled with copies of his third album "Michael Bublé" and it just so happened that the first track was playing on the store speakers. That song was "Fever", a steamy tune that I had heard in the past from Peggy Lee as a "torchy lounge" song as has been described. What I hadn't known was that Lee's rendition was also a cover of the 1956 original by Little Willie John.

Well, getting back to the Bublé cover, I noticed that the steam was piping hot there (always love a good wood bass) but there was also some of that Las Vegas ring-a-ding-ding swing as we hit the climax. I read one comment on YouTube where the person still enjoyed "Fever" despite the jazz orchestral trappings. I ended up buying "Michael Buble" because of the swing. Thus began a very nice addition to my jazz collection.

"Michael Buble" came out on February 11th 2003. What were two songs in Japan that hit the Top 10 the day before?

1. Hikaru Utada -- Colors

3. Miyuki Nakajima -- Chijo no Hoshi （地上の星）

Masayo -- ¿Quién Sera? (Sway)

 

I've often referred to my backlog of songs...songs that I've discovered on YouTube and marked as a Favourite tune to be written about at a future date. Well, that list has grown months-long so it's been the case that some of those more temporally distant ones have been somewhat forgotten to me. 

However, I've been determined to get back to those early songs and give them another listen. One such song is the spicy "¿Quién Sera?" as sung by Latin singer Masayo as the title track for her second album which was released in 2007. It sounds so danceable that it might even induce ME onto the floor but that's all I will say lest I unintentionally induce some nightmarish images into your head. It took a bit of doing but I was able to track down Masayo's website where I learned that she went to Cuba by herself in 2000 to learn the basics of the music from that nation under the tutelage of percussionist Óscar Valdez (nope, neither the boxer nor the soccer player). In 2001, she was able to release her first album recorded in Cuba.

From what I've read on the song's article on Wikipedia, "¿Quién Sera?" was originally recorded in 1953, created by Mexican songwriters Luis Demetrio and Pablo Beltrán Ruiz as a bolero-mambo instrumental with lyrics added the following year for Pedro Infante to sing.

While I was listening to "¿Quién Sera?", I was wondering why the song sounded so familiar. Easy to answer since not long following Infante's version, American lyricist Normal Gimbel tore out the original melancholy lyrics of a man being all lovelorn. In their place, he added the words of a fellow falling for his dancing partner for her ability to sway and swivel, and thus, the song was renamed "Sway" with Dean Martin recording this English-language cover in 1954 as well. Although I don't remember whether Dino's was the first version that I had ever heard, I have heard "Sway" over the decades and the most recent take was by Canadian jazz cat Michael Bublé.

Billy Van Singers and Laurie Bower Singers -- The Theme from "Spider-Man" (1967 cartoon)

 

I figured that I would be including the increasingly media-ubiquitous world of Marvel Comics into "Kayo Kyoku Plus" someday. After all, I have a hero of the DC universe already included here although not as a ROY article, so I gotta make mine Marvel! And why not start Marvel's entry into my humble little blog with a hero who's been quite close to my heart in terms of childhood and personality? Rather ironic considering that because of my first summer trip to Japan in 1972, I ended up with a years-long case of arachnophobia (them spiders are big in Wakayama).

Of course, true believers, I am talking about The Amazing Spider-Man. Yes, we all know about the various incarnations of Peter Parker and his alter-ego over the past 20 years on the big screen starting with Tobey Maguire, then Andrew Garfield and now Tom Holland, but for this Torontonian, it all began with the animated series that went from 1967 to 1970.

"Spider-Man" the cartoon was a joint production between the United States for the animation and Canada for the voice acting according to the Wikipedia article for the series. Every morning when I woke up at the bleary-eyed hour of 6:30 for school (ugh!), the TV would be on CHCH-TV on Channel 11 from the city of Hamilton, west of Toronto with "Spider-Man" beginning my childhood day. He'd be fighting folks like the Rhino, the Green Goblin and J. Jonah Jameson constantly.

What also greeted me was the finger-snapping vocal jazz of the theme song. Although I would later come to realize that jazz and standards were my musical companions for the early years of my life, at the time I was hearing the "Spider-Man" theme, it was just one catchy tune starting with the lyrics "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can...". By the way, I have to mention that the song was created by Paul Francis Webster and Bob Harris.

Little did I know that the theme was actually recorded right here in my city by members of The Billy Van Singers and Laurie Bower Singers, and I was especially surprised by that first group since Billy Van was a Canadian comedian who was also a part of my TV experience as a kid through his appearances as a featured player on the old "Sonny & Cher" variety show, the local game show "Party Game" and the kids' series "The Hilarious House of Frightenstein" where Van played a scion of Dracula. Maybe there was as much maple syrup flowing through Peter Parker's web shooters as there was web fluid!

It's a pity then to find out that the singers got paid for the recording session but never got any of the residuals, especially since that very theme has been used even in the latest movies with Tom Holland. When we caught "Spider-Man: Homecoming", the audience cheered the moment when Michael Giacchino provided an epic orchestral version during the introduction of the logo.

But even earlier in the "Spider-Man" franchise, there was an excerpt of Michael Bublé's even jazzier love letter remix to the theme in the ending credits of "Spider-Man 2" in 2004. Partnering with Junkie XL, the original song got fortified with warp engines, some amazing Big Band swing and Bublé's grand voice. My only regret is that it wasn't used in that final scene of the movie when Spider-Man got that kiss and approval from Mary Jane and flew out in joy while he was on his way to another rescue with police choppers accompanying him. Yup, I indeed bought the single!

March 12 2021: I received a tweet from Greg Oliver who has written a biography with Stacey Case on Billy Van. I would like to thank him for providing a clarification about what I've written above.

Cool article. It was quite common for arrangers like Billy Van and Laurie Bower to collect up friends to do jingles in that era. Billy Van, however, was NOT one of the voices on Spider-Man. His then-wife and sister-in-law tell the story in my book.

So, what was released in September 1967 in Japan when "Spider-Man" first made its way onto TV screens? Interestingly enough, the first entry here by the Queen of Kayo Kyoku is quite swingy (but in a 60s rock sense) in itself.

Hibari Misora -- Makkana Taiyo （真赤な太陽）

Mieko Hirota -- Nagisa no Uwasa（渚のうわさ）

Kenichi Mikawa -- Niigata Blues （新潟ブルース）