I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Welcome to the first weekend of October 2020...definitely much cooler this time around with the temperature hovering around 4 degrees Celsius this morning.
Back in 2018, I wrote about a really nice band called NOVO which had a nice little song called "Ai wo Sodateru"（愛を育てる）which could be described as being a mix of bossa nova and David Foster/Carpenters. I was so charmed by it that I ended up buying the album "Love Is There ~ NOVO Complete Works" which was released back in 2013.
In my writeup back then, I didn't include the first track which is "You Are The Sea", a lovely mid-tempo bossa number written by Sheila Wilkerson and composed by pianist Joao Donato and Jose Marino. Originally, this was the B-side to the January 1973 single of "Ai wo Sodateru", and there's something in the basic rhythm that reminds me of the one for "Up, Up and Away" (1967) by The Fifth Dimension, one of the earliest pop songs that I can remember.
Long ago, I heard a theory in pop culture in which people tended to listen to more ballads when things are not going so well in the world. Considering what most of 2020 has been so far, perhaps listening to songs such as "You Are The Sea" might be what the doctor could order. Still, something like "September" will always be welcome, too.
I'm figuratively and happily eating some crow for dinner tonight (literally, it was fish n' chips) since that package from Tower Records that I had been waiting for actually did arrive earlier this morning. The Canada Post rotating strikes were included in my last article that I wrote on this band NOVO, but they are now over (for now) and the CDs arrived, and one of them was indeed as you can see above the June 2013 release of "Love Is There ~ NOVO Complete Works".
What I found out, though, was that this 2013 release by this band that has been called according to one happy Amazon customer Japan's answer to Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66 is basically a reconfiguration of an earlier NOVO album from 2003 called "novo complete"aside from a couple of additions. One addition happens to be the subject of the first NOVO song that I discovered, the lovely "Ai wo Sodateru"（愛を育てる）in its 2012 form.
Having one go-round with "NOVO Complete Works" earlier this afternoon, I did get that impression of mellow tropicality in the band's music, including the one other 1973 single that NOVO had released, "Shiroi Mori"（白い森...White Woods）. Written by Toshiyuki Nishimori（西森利行）and composed by vocalist and keyboardist Yutaka Yokokura（横倉裕）, the song is a happy-go-lucky bossa nova delight sung by Yokokura and Aoi Fujikawa（藤川あおい）that is pretty darn Sergio Mendes to me. Not quite sure what those white woods are from the lyrics (maybe the white-capped ocean?...couldn't imagine it to be Aspen, Colorado in the winter), though the couple there make a content pair. At the same time as that Mendes influence, I couldn't help but also feel a bit of 60s group The 5th Dimension.
There is also an updated album version of "Shiroi Mori", this time sung slightly more delicately by vocalist Diane Silverson (who is co-vocalist on most of the tracks) and with some more jazz in the arrangement. But hey, there is no doubt about the bossa nova of it all here.
If I've read the liner notes in the album correctly, "Kono Hoshi no Ue de"（この星の上で...On This Star）, this love song was the B-side to "Shiroi Mori". Written and composed by Yokokura, it seems like there's a bit more oomph into his keyboards so I got reminded somewhat of the music of The Carpenters and even Vince Guaraldi.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
The one more song that I will introduce here from "NOVO Complete Works" is the other addition to the 2003 album, "Guanabara Bay" which is titled after the second-largest bay in Brazil according to Wikipedia. Along with the other songs from the album that I've already written about, "Ai wo Sodateru" and "Mado ni Akari ga Tomoru Toki"（窓に明りがともる時）, "Guanabara Bay" has quickly become another favourite of mine with its mix of Latin and AOR.
This time, Yokokura is teamed up with Leeza Miller, and all I can say is that it's amazing about that Sergio Mendes connection, since Miller was one-half of the duet on the 1983 hit "Never Gonna Let You Go" which was a track on Mendes' self-titled album (I remember hearing that song all throughout my junior year in high school). Yokokura was once again responsible for the smooth melody while a person credited as T. Mann took care of the lyrics. Strangely enough, Barry Mann composed "Never Gonna Let You Go", so I'm not sure whether there is a familial connection there.
"Love Is There ~ NOVO Complete Works" is another nice addition to the collection. Surprisingly, despite the 14 songs, the album only takes about 48 minutes of your time...so each song is short and sweet. Since I first heard about Yokokura earlier this year, I've been getting very interested in his back catalog and this album has just kept the interest stoked.
Ever since I first heard of NOVO back in spring this year via their wonderful cover of a Toi et Moi（トワ・エ・モア）commercial song, "Ai wo Sodateru"（愛を育てる）, I wondered about getting their 2013 album"Love Is There ~ NOVO Complete Works". And a couple of weeks ago, I finally pulled the trigger and purchased it from Tower Records. Just one thing...after the official e-mail from Tower that the order was being processed, those two weeks passed by without any word which is unusual. Then this morning, the folks there finally sent word that they were still trying to get a copy of it for which of course, the red alert sparked off in my head and disappointment has started to coalesce. From experience, that's usually not a great sign, although in one similar case, the CD was actually found and shipped.
Plus, there's the fact that Canada Post is going through rotating strike action right now so there is a load of mail and packages that's piling up everywhere at distribution points. The mail will get through but it will take several days and perhaps that will evolve into weeks. Not too great to hear as we approach the Holiday season.
But I will leave it at that and just hope that somehow I will be able to get the NOVO album. In any case, the final straw which happily broke the camel's back for me to decide on purchasing the CD was this song, "Mado ni Akari ga Tomoru Toki" (When The Light Comes On In The Window). This is another track from "Love Is There ~ NOVO Complete Works", and as with "Ai wo Sodateru", the original song was created by lyricist Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）and composer Kunihiko Murai（村井邦彦）for a 1970s folk group...this time it's Akai Tori（赤い鳥）.
As performed so lovingly by Yutaka Yokokura（横倉裕）and Diane Silverson (or Silberson), there is a feeling of 1960s Bacharach in Yokokura's arrangement as the two sing about putting that light in the window to welcome home a loved one...a nice thing to muse about especially when the days are getting shorter as they are now. But the song extends into the feeling of positivity for tomorrow and the hope that better days are ahead. At the end, though, "Mado" ends back in that cozy and warm house with the couple saying "Let's just enjoy the stew for dinner tonight".
As I said above, the original version was a folk/pop song by Akai Tori from their January 1973album "Utsukushii Hoshi"（美しい星...A Beautiful Star）. I'm not sure but that may be the splendid Junko Yamamoto（山本潤子）as the main vocalist since she was part of the group; Yamamoto would later go off to form the vocal trio Hi-Fi Set（ハイ・ファイ・セット）. "Mado ni Akari ga Tomoru Toki" is slightly mellower here with some further assistance by some lovely honeyed horns.
According to J-Wiki, "Utsukushii Hoshi" has the dreaded haiban status, but now I'm interested in getting that BEST compilation by Akai Tori. The band is even more famous for first singing the high school chorus standard, "Tsubasa wo Kudasai"（翼をください）.
Rather inspired by my discovery of Tomoko Fujita（藤田朋子）as a singer today and then coming across Yutaka Yokokura（横倉裕）as the producer for her debut album"The Woman In Me", I was interested in finding out more about Yokokura who also goes by the full-cap name of YUTAKA. According to his Wikipedia and J-Wiki entries, the Tokyo-born singer is also well versed as an instrumentalist being proficient on piano, other keyboards and the koto.
The above video has a track from a 2013 album, "Love Is There ~ NOVO Complete Works" paying tribute to the band NOVO of which YUTAKA was a member in the 1970s. The song "Ai wo Sodateru" (Nurturing Love) with its English title of "Love Is There" on this particular release is a lovely bossa version with Aoi Fujikawa（藤川あおい）sharing the mike with Yokokura. There is something very 1980s David Foster and even Carpenters about the arrangement here. Wouldn't mind sipping a cup of coffee by the sunset as I listen to this.
NOVO's original version of "Ai wo Sodateru" was released as the band's first single in 1973. Although I prefer the new and improved version from "Love Is There ~ NOVO Complete Works", original "Ai wo Sodateru" is also quite sunny with that feeling of the 60s and 70s.
But the source doesn't lie with NOVO, at least not completely. The very first version of the song was as a lush commercial jingle for the Asahi Kasei Corporation which focuses on chemicals and materials science according to its Wikipedia entry. The band behind "Ai wo Sodateru" here was the folk group Toi et Moi（トワ・エ・モア）, and not seeing the song in their discography, I surmised that it was probably never released as an official single but as truly something just for the company. The commercial supposedly came out in 1971.
Kunihiko Murai（村井邦彦）was behind the music with Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）taking care of the lyrics which incorporated the Asahi Kasei name. I'm assuming that one of the members of NOVO, perhaps YUTAKA himself, made the appropriate changes to the words when making "Ai wo Sodateru" their own.
