Naomi Akimoto -- The Way You Love Me

 

Welcome to another Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP. It's been a few years since I'd featured jazz and City Pop chanteuse Naomi Akimoto（秋本奈緒美）; my most recent article regarding her music was for her "Speak Low" which I wrote about back in 2023.

This time, I'm showing off the panther-y "The Way You Love Me" by Akimoto from her early 1984 5th album "Poison 21". Written by the singer and composed by Masao Nakajima（中島正雄）, it kinda comes across as a nocturnal mantra of lust because repeated mentions of the title make up a majority of the lyrics. Some nice soul-funk from Nakajima as well although I'm going to have to ask YMOfan04 about which synthesizer is providing that low thrumming from the 1980s.

Naomi Akimoto -- Speak Low

 

The first time that I had ever heard of the term "speak low" was a few years back when I saw this YouTube video which is more than a decade old now. It was the name of a Japanese cocktail involving two types of rum, matcha and a hint of yuzu. Wouldn't mind trying that out...and taking that stretcher back to my hotel room in Tokyo.

Now, how did a cocktail get a name like Speak Low? Well, it may have been inspired by a 1943 pop song and jazz standard composed by Kurt Weill and written by Ogden Nash. The above video has Weill himself singing "Speak Low" with him playing the piano, I assume. Its popularity has been such that folks ranging from Frank Sinatra to Barbra Streisand have covered the song over the decades.

I'm sure that a lot of Japanese jazz singers have also covered "Speak Low" but I can say that Naomi Akimoto's（秋本奈緒美）version of the song is quite different. Now, I just posted a song by her less than a couple of weeks ago which breaks my Prime Directive of waiting at least a month before posting a song by the same artist. Then again, just like on "Star Trek", the Prime Directive gets bent or broken all the time. 

Besides, I was so smitten by her "Speak Low" that I couldn't resist. Resistance is futile, after all. A track on her 2nd album "One Night Stand" from June 1982, an album that seems to consist of covers of jazz songs, her "Speak Low" has been rearranged into Japanese City Pop or 80s American urban contemporary. I could almost swear that David Foster or Greg Phillinganes or Rod Temperton had something to do with this one. As for the Japanese lyrics, they were supplied by singer-songwriter Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）.

Naomi Akimoto -- Tonite

 

Just some lingering thoughts about the Hanshin Tigers winning it all earlier today. It's been the case that whichever team in professional Japanese baseball takes the championship, their corporate owners celebrate and their customers get the benefits. The Tigers are owned by the Hanshin Electric Railway Company, so does that mean free rides for the next few days? Otherwise, do any of their stations' commercial establishments provide massive sales or freebies? 

Anyways, we'll see over the coming days. But allow me to show off "Tonite" by Naomi Akimoto（秋本奈緒美）from her 5th album "Poison 21" from February 1984. Written by the actress and singer herself and composed by Masatoshi Nishimura（西村昌敏 ）, who was also part of Friends of Earth, the 1980s nostalgia waves emanating from this song were quite heavy due to that synth rhythm and even the sax solo. I swear that the late Laura Branigan could have covered this one; it just seems to be the right fit for what she was singing back in the day. As well, Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）was helping out on backing chorus, electric guitar and synthesizers.

Did feel like getting a mullet, a silver-gray jacket and a skinny tie after hearing this one. It was pretty much around that time that the Tigers had last won a Japan Series championship.

Naomi Akimoto -- Silent Communication（サイレント・コミュニケーション）

 

Up until I started doing this blog, I had only known Naomi Akimoto（秋本奈緒美）as an actress and a TV personality. It was through YouTube that I discovered that she'd also been a singer, and according to her J-Wiki profile and the writeup about her on "idol.ne.jp", she grew up with jazz because of her father's love of the genre and the performances of Sarah Vaughan, notably her "Misty". So, she began her career as a jazz singer.

I was always getting confused by that third album of hers "The 20th Anniversary" from December 1982 since I was always going "She doesn't look THAT old!", but the powers-that-be were probably just trolling fans at the time because the title actually refers to the 20th anniversary of her birth. Akimoto was just on the cusp of her 20th birthday (January 13th 1983) and her official entry into adulthood. It's on that album where you will find the one track that was also her debut single, "Silent Communication". It had been released a couple of months earlier.

Those first several seconds had me wondering what kind of song I was going to get; was it going to be tropical or even synthpop, but the rest of it was some good ol' swing jazz thanks to composer Abraham McCrory with Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）supplying the lyrics. Breathlessly delivering "Silent Communication", I was getting some Marilyn Monroe vibes and "I Wanna Be Loved By You". Considering the jazz in there, I had assumed that the song would be used in some sort of commercial for whiskey, but actually it was used to advertise a Glico chocolate brand called Dione (the commercial above actually has Miki Asakura singing instead).

Along with "Silent Communication", "The 20th Century" also has "Bewitched" which was the first Akimoto song that I had posted a few years ago.

Gosanke: The Jazz 3As of Being

Being HQ in Roppongi
via Japanese Wikipedia

 

To be honest, I thought that I was pretty much done with the Gosanke（御三家）file with last month's personally imagined Gosanke Girl Bands. However, researching material for Sayuri Aso's（麻生小百合）1982 "Candy Jazz" album the other day, I found out that Aso, Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）and Naomi Akimoto（秋本奈緒美）had been known as Being Jazz 3A（ビーイングジャズ3A）or The Jazz 3As of Being on account of the first letter of their three family names and the fact that all three chanteuses were under the employ of the Being entertainment conglomerate at the time. Heck, Aran was one of the founders! As for the jazz part, I think Aso was the only representative part of that genre, strictly speaking (ah, but I hadn't heard Akimoto's "Silent Communication" yet), but I gather that whoever had come up with the moniker for the three was probably throwing a lot of genres into the jazz blender which is what City Pop was doing as well.

Sayuri Aso -- Misty

Tomoko Aran -- Kanzen Hanzai（完全犯罪）

Naomi Akimoto -- Bewitched

Commuting to Work with City Pop (and more)

It’s Oliver Ebisuno, coming back to Kayo Kyoku Plus after a long break. For some time now, in spite of work and personal stuff, I wanted to make an update on the blog, but always felt either unmotivated or drained from strength when sitting in front of an open draft editor. I think the time is right for a special post; to be specific, an Author’s Pick text. Shamelessly, I admit that J-Canuck’s Driving to City Pop two-parter provided me with much needed dosage of inspiration.

Evidently, I do not live in Japan and there are no prospects of me visiting the country in the nearest future, but I thought it would be fun to mix my love for Japanese music with my personal experience, that is, commuting to work.

The city I live in is such a hole in the middle of nowhere (and forgotten by the Almighty) that basically right after finishing high school I had to get used to commuting. I had to undergo a one-hour trip by bus while studying for 5 years, the same applied to PhD studies, and my first employment. Last year, I switched jobs and now I also commute by bus, but this time to a different city, which is located roughly an hour away from my place of residence.

Being on the bus for two hours per day (please bear in mind that this is a “there and back again” route) gives me a lot of time to do various sorts of stuff like reading, browning the web, but also listening. For years, I was never that keen on the idea of listening to music outside of the comfort zone of my home, but I warmed up to the idea after the pandemic.

Now, en route to work (and most importantly coming back from it) I can’t help but listen to Tomoko Aran. Her albums Fuyuu Kuukan and Last Good-bye really calm me down and put me in a positive mood, especially in the morning. The same also goes for Toshiki Kadomatsu’s After 5 Clash and Hitomitoi’s City Dive albums.

When I am in a more adventurous mood, then I reach for music that is more charged with Synth-Pop or Rock. In such instances, Yoko Oginome’s Route 246 Connexion and Chisato Moritaka’s Mi-ha prove to be invaluable. Very rarely, when I feel deeply melancholic, I decide to desperately turn to Wink’s Best of selection or Naomi Akimoto’s Poison 21. Please refer to the selection of my favourite songs from the aforementioned albums here:

 1. Tomoko Aran -- Midnight Pretenders (1983)

 

2. Tomoko Aran -- Last Good-bye (1986)

 

3. Toshiki Kadomatsu -- Step into the Light (1984)

4. Hitomitoi -- Dive (2012)

5. Yoko Oginome -- 246 Planet Girls (1987)

6. Chisato Moritaka -- 47 Hard Nights (1988)

7. Naomi Akimoto -- Lion in My Pocket (1984)

8. Wink -- One Night in Heaven (1989)

That’s it for the moment, I sincerely hope that you enjoyed my list of suggestions. I should also add that apart from the aforemtioned songs/albums, I also tend to listen to either Pet Shop Boys or Animotion while commuting. Thank you for reading.

Image sources: The feature photograph at the top of the post was taken by me on a bus to work on wintery night at 5 AM. I usually sit at the back, so it was easier for me to make sure that the faces of other commuters won’t get caught by the phone camera. The image of Akina Nakamori next to Mercedes was found on Pinterest. All the hyperlinks lead to previous Kayo Kyoku Plus posts.

Naomi Akimoto -- Telepathy

 

Listening to this "Telepathy", a track on actress/singer Naomi Akimoto's（秋本奈緒美）5th album from February 1984, "Poison 21", something was squirming about in the back of my memories: Where have I heard this before? It all sounds so familiar.

Well, tracking the song on the JASRAC database, the realization of who created the song for Akimoto provided the instant resolution to my quandary. The singer did provide the lyrics but it was musician and composer Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）behind the music, and that's all I needed. "Telepathy" is another version of Sato's "Sweet Inspiration", the first track from his June 1984 5th album "Sailing Blaster" but with different lyrics by Akimoto ("Sweet Inspiration" had Cindy providing the words) and of course, with that different title.

Now, which version came first? Yes, I do realize that February is a long way before June, but after that article on Tetsuji Hayashi's（林哲司）"Back Mirror" over the weekend in which I describe about how his "Rainy Saturday & Coffee Break" was actually recorded before Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）version although the latter came to the public's ears before the former, I'm no longer 100% sure whether "Telepathy" was released before "Sweet Inspiration" or vice versa. But no matter. I like both versions with Akimoto's take having the more straight-ahead pop arrangement (with Sato on backup vocals) although it begins with a bit of synthpop and contains a bit of that funkiness which really comes out on "Sweet Inspiration".

Naomi Akimoto -- Bewitched

Can't quite remember which article I included this in, but I did make a "Bewitched" reference via the lovely Elizabeth Montgomery. I can say that my very early years had been spent watching episodes of the witch who just wanted to spend a grounded life with her darling Darrin, much to the chagrin of her mother Endora. Considering that I was born in 1965, it was the colour episodes that I got to know first but then later, I was able to see the very early shows in black and white.

That title has ingrained itself so much into my head as the representation of the one of the most remembered ABC sitcoms in my life that I couldn't help but think Samantha Stevens when I came across this song by Naomi Akimoto（秋本奈緒美）with the same title.

"Bewitched" is a track on her 3rd album "The 20th Anniversary" from December 1982, and Akimoto joins folks such as Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）and Jun Fubuki（風吹ジュン）as actresses whom I didn't know had past careers as singers. Yup, Akimoto is someone that I've known for her appearances in TV dramas, commercials and variety shows. But indeed, she started out as a jazz singer in that same year of 1982 according to her J-Wiki profile which makes me wonder whether "The 20th Anniversary" is mostly a jazz record. I say mostly because "Bewitched" is definitely in the City Pop vein of the body of Japanese pop music.

I had to use the Daemonskald method of tracking down photos of the actual record and was successful in finding out that Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）provided the lyrics while a fellow named Jim Reevs took care of the mellow melody. Nice touch especially with the harmonica; ever since I first heard Toots Thielemans on one of the tracks for the classic "The Dude" by Quincy Jones (which has the amazing "Ai no Corrida"), I've included the harmonica as one of the things that I like to hear for when it comes to 70s/80s urban contemporary on either side of the Pacific.

One other thought was that "The 20th Anniversary" was a pretty odd title for an album for Akimoto who was just starting out in the business. But apparently, the Nagano Prefecture native was only a few weeks away from her 20th birthday. Yup, she recorded a City Pop tune at the age of 19; not too shabby at all considering that she sounds quite mature. That must have been quite the tale she told at her seijinshiki: "Oh, and I've already recorded 3 albums!"

Hey, I managed to find a commercial with her.

Ah, what the heck. Here is "Velas" by Ivan Lins and performed by Toots. Enjoy the rest of your evening!