Miwako Saito -- Koibito wa Itsudemo（恋人はいつでも）

 

Hope you're having a good Sunday after getting filled up with your bacon, eggs and pancakes. I'm still digesting mine so forgive the post-breakfast drowsiness.

Singer-songwriter Miwako Saito（斉藤美和子）first came to my knowledge through Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" podcast when she performed a cover of Kaoru Sudo's（須藤薫）"Anata dake I Love You"（あなただけ I LOVE YOU） on the 1997 compilation album "Winter Gift Pops". My curiosity peaked by the song and her vocals, I dug a little deeper and found out that Saito had her own bands from the 1980s including Tango Europe（タンゴ・ヨーロッパ）which kinda struck me as a prototype of Princess Princess.

Saito also had her solo career and this is where a contact from a fellow named Koki Matsumura reminded me of that. He introduced me to "Koibito wa Itsudemo" (Lover Always Do) which was the singer's debut single from 1986. With Saito and Chuuji Akagi（赤城忠治）providing the lyrics and the latter also composing the tune, it's a fun and quirky pop song with a bit of New Wave in there. And in a way, the song might have heralded the coming wave of sunny Girl Pop which would come within a half-decade through singers such as Mariko Nagai（永井真理子）. It's definitely its own song in terms of an intro that takes its sweet time and the overall length which goes over six minutes.

Saito would release three more singles up to 1988 along with a combination of albums and mini-albums from 1988 to 1999.

Tango Europe -- Tokyo Cinderella（桃郷シンデレラ）

 

In late October, I posted an article featuring a track from Masamichi Sugi's（杉真理）Xmas-ish compilation "Winter Gift Pops" from 1997. The song was Miwako Saito's（さいとうみわこ）cover of Kaoru Sudo's（須藤薫）"Anata dake I Love You"（あなただけ I LOVE YOU）. Now, I had never heard of Saito before but learned back in the late 1970s going into the 1980s, she had been involved with a couple of bands, Neko Musume（猫娘）and then Tango Europe（タンゴ・ヨーロッパ）, the latter of which consisted of five women including Saito, the main vocalist who also went by the nickname of Nyanko（ニャンコ...Kitten）.

Well, I was able to track down Tango Europe's 4th and final single from June 1984, "Tokyo Cinderella". As you can see from the kanji, the usual characters for Tokyo「東京」 aren't utilized here but replaced by「桃郷」which literally means Peach Village. From the lyrics, I gather that a peach village was quite the utopia.

Written by the vocalist under her nom de plume of Nanako Saito（さいとう菜々子）and composed by fellow bandmate, guitarist Junko Koresawa（是沢淳子）, "Tokyo Cinderella" begins rather dreamily before it goes into a jangly and upbeat tune of an odyssey through Japan's largest metropolis. The protagonist leaves her small hometown for Tokyo to search for a man that she fell hard for through a chance encounter and although she realizes that he's already spoken for, she stays in the city despite reservations from her loved ones to see if she can still find a Prince Charming. Sounds like the perfect story for any rom-com J-Drama. 

I hadn't noticed it before, but I now think that after listening to both "Tokyo Cinderella" and her later cover of "Anata dake I Love You" in 1997, Saito has a similar vocal tone and style to future aidoru superstar Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）. At this point, I've only heard the one song by Tango Europe but there is that 50s/60s girl pop vibe that made Saito quite a good match to cover a song by Kaoru Sudo, a singer who also enjoyed singing the music of yesteryear.

Along with Saito and Koresawa, Tango Europe also included bassist Kaoru Sakaguchi（坂口かおる）, drummer Mikiko Ishida（石田美紀子）and saxophonist/keyboardist Yukari "Yukarie" Tsukakoshi（塚越優香）. During their 1980-1984 run, they tried to exhibit their music as a genre called Mi-ha- Funky（ミーハー・ファンキー...Starstruck Funky）. So far, I see their music as being prototypical of what I would hear from Princess Princess and Jitterin' Jinn later in the decade.

Miwako Saito/Kaoru Sudo -- Anata dake I Love You（あなただけ I LOVE YOU）

 

I guess I'll leave Kayo Grace and her boyfriend to their tender moment alone. 💕Anyways, I was listening to Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" podcast from several days ago, and he was focusing on the album "Winter Gift Pops" from November 1997. It was compiled by singer-songwriter and producer Masamichi Sugi（杉真理）and it isn't strictly a Xmas album, but then again, the title is able to skirt that accusation since, well, gifts can be given on Valentine's Day and White Day which are still in the winter season.

Track 5 on "Winter Gift Pops" which starts at around 19:00 of the podcast is "Anata dake I Love You" (I Love Only You) by Miwako Saito（さいとうみわこ）. It sounds just like a song that either Sugi or the late great Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）would create, and guess what? It is indeed Ohtaki who wrote and composed this one while Yasuharu Ogura（小倉泰治）took care of the arrangement which adds a few more interesting bells and whistles to what is a 50s or 60s girl pop song. 

Scott goes into Saito's history but I'll also come in here to say that the Tokyo-born singer began her career in 1978 as the vocalist for the girls' band Neko Musume（猫娘...Catgirl） before starting up another similar band Tango Europe（タンゴ・ヨーロッパ）in 1980 while attending Nihon University College of Art. The band broke up in 1984 after which Saito went on a solo singing career with four singles and seven full albums and mini-albums.

Since listening to Saito's take on "Anata dake I Love You", it didn't take long before YouTube steered me in the direction toward the original singer behind the song, Kaoru Sudo（須藤薫）. This was Sudo's 7th single from November 1981 with Ohtaki and Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）handling the arrangement which really brings back those girl pop vibes from sixty to seventy years ago, and Sudo was one of the masters of the genre. "Anata dake I Love You" was also found even earlier on her debut album "Chef's Special" which had been released in June 1980.

(from 2:34)