The Brady Bunch -- The Brady Bunch

 

Today is Family Day and much of Canada is celebrating this regional holiday (under different names depending on the province), although since it's not a federal holiday, we should still be getting our mail. We did have our family get-together last night with some fine platters of sushi.

No matter the level of holiday though, it still means that it's time for a special Reminiscings of Youth article, and under the theme of Family Day, I thought it would be appropriate to bring in one of my fondly-remembered TV theme songs. "The Brady Bunch" was one of the many sitcoms that peppered my childhood through its first run and then reruns. If I recall, it was on Friday nights on ABC for the first half of the 1970s and from what I saw on the Wikipedia page for it, it was never a ratings winner despite its longevity but then Friday nights were usually seen as the death slot of TV shows.

"The Brady Bunch" was the quintessential family half-hour sitcom back in the day. There was nothing controversial about it...just each of the kids having their easily solvable problems and then getting help from the parents, Mike and Carol, and perhaps even their maid Alice. There were some plot lines that I remember from the series which lasted from 1969 to 1974 such as the gang heading to Hawaii and the Grand Canyon, the truth about Jesse James, the kids cutting their own hit songs, and the one depicted above where little Bobby gets his first kiss from a schoolmate portrayed by Melissa Sue Anderson who would become even more famous as one of the Ingalls' daughters on "Little House on the Prairie". In addition, the kids literally grew up right in front of our eyes and even Mike and Carol eventually got groovier with the times in their fashion and hairstyles.

Of course, there is the famous opening credits sequence with the nine squares showing off the parents, kids and Alice with the sweetly sung theme song which delivered how this blended family got together in the first place. However, my memories of "The Brady Bunch" began from the second season when the actors portraying the children sang the theme for the rest of the series. For some reason, reruns of the first season wouldn't start playing on TV here in Toronto until several years later, and it was pretty amazing seeing how young and 60s everyone looked back then. The first season's rendition of the theme was recorded by a sunshine pop band known as the Peppermint Trolley Company with series producer Sherwood Schwarz and prolific composer Frank DeVol (probably one of the great inspirers for Shibuya-kei to be born) creating the song. No matter who sang the theme, it still remains very hummable; I was doing some of that myself while typing this.

After "The Brady Bunch" got cancelled in the spring of 1974, the show was a regular rerun on many a channel, and it seems as if there were folks who wanted to bring it back in some shape or other. I remember "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" and the animated series starring the kids. And a decade later, there was even "The Brady Brides" and eventually a film franchise taking a parodic approach. There was even "The Bradys",  a dramedy sequel that lasted all of a month in 1990; I hadn't even heard of that one since I was in Japan that year.

"The Brady Bunch" did get aired in Japan on Fuji-TV between 1970 and 1971 under the title "Yukai na Brady-ke"（ゆかいなブレディー家）which translates into "The Happy Bradys", and yes, they certainly were. I couldn't find any footage of the Fuji-TV version; the only thing I could find was this Japanese-subbed commercial that aired during the Super Bowl of 2015. Yup, it was epic. And good heavens...there was that episode about Marcia getting her nose broken by a football!

So, with the show premiering on September 26th 1969, what was at the top of the Oricon list at around that time? Here are the Top 3 from September 29th.

1. Mina Aoe -- Ikebukuro no Yoru （池袋の夜）

2. Naomi Sagara -- Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba（いいじゃないの幸せならば）

3. Mieko Hirota -- Ningyo no Ie （人形の家）

Dusty Springfield -- The Look of Love

 

Welcome to another weekly article of Reminiscings of Youth. A few years ago, I posted up the theme from the first "Casino Royale" (1967), the hot mess of a 007 spoof starring David Niven and Peter Sellers which nonetheless inspired Mike Myers' "Austin Powers" franchise. As I said in that article, I have seen the movie once and then bits and pieces on YouTube. However, what I've appreciated most about the flick is the music and that Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass theme penned by the amazing Burt Bacharach that is so infused with the Swinging 60s of Great Britain. If I were ever to get to London someday on a vacation and somehow got a Savile Row suit, I would love to walk up and down the streets with that song in my ears.

However, there was one scene in "Casino Royale" that also caught my attention because of the music and, well, Ursula Andress. I remember she was hopping all about with a bunch of shocking pink feathers and I guess the above footage only shows the seconds or so before that one scene. At the same time, there was the music which was jazzy and oh-so-sexy with a breathy voice that squeezed out "The Look of Love" as if a woman in Bubble Era Japan were trying to get out of her bodicon dress. I think the scene and the song play off of each other very well because of the languid pacing out of both of them, and considering the lunacy that precedes and follows in "Casino Royale", Sellers and Andress having a little intimate fun makes for a pretty calming oasis.

Dusty Springfield was someone that I had heard of before when I was a kid in the 1970s because of those K-Tel LP compilation commercials on television but the song that featured her (can't remember the title) had her sound a whole lot different than those vocals on "The Look of Love". The bossa nova jazz was woven together by Burt Bacharach with Hal David taking care of the lyrics, and it was even nominated for a Best Song Oscar in 1968.

Jazz pianist and vocalist Diana Krall is one of many artists who have covered "The Look of Love", and it's included as the title track for her September 2011 album. The original version was released in April 1967, so what were three songs from Japan that got their release at around the same time?

Naomi Sagara -- Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni （世界は二人のために）

Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets -- Blue Chateau（ブルー・シャトウ）

Yukio Hashi -- Koi no Mexican Rock （恋のメキシカン・ロック）

Bob McGrath -- Good Morning, Starshine

 

It just seems like in the last several days, I've been sadly reading or hearing of famous people I've known in my childhood and adolescence leaving this mortal coil. And yesterday, I heard that Bob McGrath, who was famous as one of the friendly residents of children's favourite avenue, "Sesame Street", passed away yesterday at the age of 90.

As a very young kid, it was always the thing for me to watch Bob, Gordon, Susan and the Muppets including Kermit the Frog, Oscar the Grouch and Ernie & Bert yuk it up on the screen while also providing lessons in the basics and laughs and music. I knew that everyone sang on "Sesame Street", but if anyone asked me to name a singer on the show, Bob's face would immediately come to mind.

Bob and the rest of the gang were such mainstays that I couldn't quite believe it when I heard from Scott of "Holly Jolly X'masu" that he had been big in Japan in the mid-1960s before "Sesame Street", singing some songs in Japanese including "Jingle Bells". Yup, McGrath already has a presence on KKP.

There are a number of songs that I remember McGrath performing splendidly on "Sesame Street" such as "Sing" and "Who are the People in Your Neighbourhood?". But there was also "Good Morning, Starshine". As would be the case for a "Sesame Street" song, it is a happy and uplifting number but as I look back at it now, it's also just about the most hippiest tune, too. I mean, part of the lyrics is:

Gliddy glub gloopy, nibby nabby noopy la, la, la, lo, lo

Sabba sibby sabba, nooby abba nabba, le, le, lo, lo

Tooby ooby walla, nooby abba naba

Early morning singing song

I couldn't understand hippie then and I still don't now. But as I've mentioned time and time again, I have always been more of a melody guy rather than a lyrics person. And as such, I remember enjoying hearing this at home and in the car.

Even though I did hear the above version on the radio many times, I'd always thought of "Good Morning, Starshine" as Bob's song throughout my life. It was only this morning that I realized that the song had actually come from the famous 1967 musical "Hair" after which it was covered by the singer Oliver as a successful single released in May 1969.

"Good Morning, Starshine" has been covered by numerous other singers in the decades to come with one of the most recent versions being by Serena Ryder in 2006.

All I can finish up here is that I hope that Bob is enjoying meeting his old buddies from Sesame Street right now such as Mr. Hooper, David, Luis and (first) Gordon. Sing, sing a song!

Well, who won the big prizes at the 1969 Japan Record Awards?

Grand Prize: Naomi Sagara -- Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba（いいじゃないの幸せならば）

Best Performance: Shinichi Mori -- Minato Machi Blues （港町ブルース）

Best New Artist: Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five -- Nagasaki wa Kyou mo Ame Datta （長崎は今日も雨だった）

John Philip Sousa -- The Liberty Bell (aka The theme from "Monty Python's Flying Circus")

 

And now for something completely different...

This is indeed true because the last couple of Reminiscings of Youth articles dealt with Canadian music, so I figured that it was time to take things back to the other side of the Atlantic in Great Britain. First off, I have memories of the old BBC "Monty Python's Flying Circus" series which was broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Saturday nights at 6:30 after the news. Considering some of the raunchier material that got onto the show, I was surprised by the early time but I guess that the CBC may have excised those parts. 

The series had its run between 1969 and 1974, and being a not-so-little tyke at the time, I didn't really get a lot of the jokes and segments. However, my brother and I had our huge laughs at Terry Gilliam's brilliant animation including the above segment with the homicidal baby carriages.

But over time and reruns, I got to appreciate the wackadoodle humour by Gilliam, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Carol Cleveland. For me, I will always cherish The Bishop, Nudge Nudge Wink Wink, The Upper Class Twit of the Year and the much beloved Lumberjack Song.

Getting back to Gilliam's animation, though, there were those famous opening credits which utilized it against the backdrop of a triumphant march. Of course, the music ended dramatically with that foot and raspberry.

I would like to then formally welcome John Philip Sousa, the American March King, to "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I should have known that it was him who was behind "The Liberty Bell" whose title will be less remembered than the fact that it will always be known as the "Monty Python" theme. "The Liberty Bell" will go down as the oldest song in the ROY category (and one of the oldest songs on the blog proper) since it was first brought to the masses in 1893 with the show using it in 1969. According to Wikipedia, Gilliam himself convinced the producers to use the song as the theme, and since then it's been pretty much immortalized as one of the most famous songs in world comedy although I'm sure that Sousa never thought that it would be used to herald sketches involving a dead parrot, obscene Hungarian-English phrasebooks and the world's deadliest joke.

Since I don't think that I will find any Japanese pop song hits from 1893, I'll go with the premiere year of "Monty Python". There were some award-winning tunes at the 11th Japan Record Awards back then.

Grand Prize: Naomi Sagara -- Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba（いいじゃないの幸せならば）

Best Vocal Performance: Shinichi Mori -- Minato Machi Blues （港町ブルース）

Popularity Award: Kiyoko Suizenji -- Sanbyaku Rokujuu Go Ho no March (三百六十五歩のマーチ）

The 5th Dimension -- Up, Up and Away

 

Yesterday I gave my thoughts on Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）1988 album "Boku no Naka no Shonen"（僕の中の少年）in which one of the tracks was inspired by the works of singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb. Well, for this week's Reminiscings of Youth, I bring you a song that was actually composed by the man and it's one of the first songs that I had ever heard regularly as a toddler.

Listening to The 5th Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" once again after so many years, I did get a thrill up my back, I have to admit. It's such an upbeat song about the simple wonder of flying in a hot-air balloon (not that I would ever get in once since I'm terrified of heights) but I think that the lyrics can be extrapolated to mean any sort of wondrous trip, physical or figurative or romantic. 

Just how the members sing "We can FLY!" and the accompanying horns and strings seem to bring in a flood of dopamine, and the crazy thing is that "Up, Up and Away" is surprisingly short at around 2 minutes and 44 seconds. I'm prehistoric enough to remember seeing The 5th Dimension performing this very song on one of the prime-time variety shows on American network TV; it may not have been this particular program above but I definitely remember the performance.

"Up, Up and Away" was The 5th Dimension's third single from May 1967 and from what I know about music, I think that it's probably one of the best examples of Sunshine Pop or even Champagne Soul, the genre name that's been applied to the group's blend of "...pop, R&B, soul, jazz, light opera and Broadway" according to the Wikipedia article on them. Lamonte McLemore, Marilyn McCoo, Florence LaRue, Ronald Townson, and Billy Davis Jr. were the original members, and I remember McCoo and Davis becoming the later hosts of the 70s and 80s syndicated music ranking show "Solid Gold" after the first host, Dionne Warwick.

The song hit No. 1 on both the American and Canadian singles charts. It was even released in Japan under the odd title of "Beat de Jump"（ビートでジャンプ...Beat and Jump）. In any case, what was also released at around the time of "Up, Up and Away"?

Yoko Kagawa -- Ginza no Maria（銀座のマリア）

Naomi Sagara -- Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni （世界は二人のために）

Yukio Hashi -- Koi no Mexican Rock （恋のメキシカン・ロック）(June 1967)

Naomi Sagara -- Watashi no Suki na Mono（私の好きなもの）

 

I gather that we are continuing on the Valentine's Day weekend kick from the previous article with Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）.

When it comes to the singer Naomi Sagara（佐良直美）, her trademark tune will probably always be "Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni" （世界は二人のために）, the grand heart-on-your-sleeve ballad that the Tokyo native started her career with back in May 1967 when it was released as a single. However, her 2nd single from later in December, "Watashi no Suki na Mono" (The One That I Love) is also another song about l'amour.💕

What "Watashi no Suki na Mono" might lack in the grandeur of "Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni", it makes up for in its bossa nova-inflected sweetness (so I'm not quite why Sagara is being put under siege by some rogue lemons). True to the bossa nova, the underlying rhythm and the flute keep up the melody as Sagara kindly coos some woo. I'm thinking a romantic picnic under a tree in some park somewhere. Taku Izumi（いずみたく）was responsible for the music while Rokusuke Ei（永六輔）, the man behind the words for "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (上を向いて歩こう) , took care of the lyrics here.

Naomi Sagara/Saori Yuki/Masako Mori -- Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba（いいじゃないの幸せならば）

Last night, I was writing about Hiromi Go's（郷ひろみ）"Samui Yoake"（寒い夜明け）and mentioned that I couldn't find a number by the fellow that had been written by Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）who was given that lovely tribute on "Uta Kon"（うたコン）on Tuesday night. Well, there was one song by her that got featured on the show and it is a lovely kayo ballad.

I'm happy to introduce this one, too, since it would be my second song on the blog belonging to Naomi Sagara（佐良直美）, someone whom I had only known thus far for the classic "Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni"（世界は二人のために）, "Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba" (Why Not As Long As She's Happy), her 9th single from July 1969.

However, I didn't just opt for this song purely for quota's sake. "Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba" is also a beautiful, bittersweet and haunting kayo that contrasts rather nicely with "Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni". Sagara's debut is gently optimistic but this particular entry in her discography is gently sad and wistful as the protagonist describes his ultimate parting from a woman who may have a bit of history behind her. Perhaps the relationship couldn't continue because of the innuendo surrounding her or she's dumped him for someone else but his love still remains for her. As long as she's happy, that will be fine with the fellow (I hope).

Listening to the original at the top, Sagara's deeper vocals and the tempo really give "Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba" that gravity as heavy as the footsteps of the sad fellow as he schlumps through the streets mourning his loss. As I said, Iwatani was responsible for the lyrics and Taku Izumi（いずみたく）took care of the introspective melody.

The song was fully in the age of Oricon so it actually hit No. 2 and became the 22nd-ranked single for 1969. It also won a Japan Record Award for Best Song and earned Sagara her 3rd straight invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen.

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/1969/720570530

(excerpt only)

There have been a lot of covers done of "Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba". Fellow singer Saori Yuki（由紀さおり）provided her own version of the ballad in her 2011 album "1969" with Pink Martini. The album hit No. 4 on the Oricon weeklies. It would later become the 99th-ranked album of the year and even greatly improved its ranking the following year as it hit No. 26. On iTunes, it actually even hit No. 1 in Japan, Canada and the United States!

As well, Masako Mori's（森昌子）version amped up the Latin jazz flavour. It appeared on her album "Ano Koro"（あのころ...Those Days） which was released in August 2007.

Naomi Sagara -- Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni （世界は二人のために）

One of the earliest kayo kyoku that I'd ever heard, the singer behind "Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni" (A World for the Two of Us), Naomi Sagara（佐良直美）, is someone that I only remember seeing vaguely in some of the old Japanese TV retrospectives. She had a very boyish appearance when she debuted in May 1967 with this song, a quiet romantic ballad that was composed by Taku Izumi（いずみたく） and written by Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）. Not immediately but sometime after hearing it for the first time and before seeing her on video tape, I'd wondered if the voice was male or female since there was quite a bit of depth in her delivery.

Sagara herself had had doubts about whether this song would actually be a good start for her. In a 2006 interview for an NHK-BS documentary special on kayo kyoku, she remarked "At the beginning, I thought that this lullaby-like song wouldn't sell at all." Actually, it sold at least 1.2 million records, which would signify a mega-hit in Japan. On top of that, it won Sagara the Newcomer's Prize in the Japan Record Awards for that year. The Oricon rankings had not existed in 1967 but when it came into being the following year, "Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni" was ranked at No. 41 on the yearly singles of 1968. Finally, the singer would also make her debut appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen on New Year's Eve of 1967, a little over 7 months after her singing debut, something that was the talk of the town at the time.

For a little over a decade, Sagara would become a familiar face on TV as well as a familiar voice in her records. She was a TV personality and an actress, and even co-hosted the Kohaku 5 times out of her total of 13 appearances on the annual special. However, a scandal involving a tryst between her and another tarento in 1980 led to her virtually disappearing from TV, although she continued to release singles until 1983. A couple of years ago, she did release a new song titled "Inochi no Kokage" (いのちの木陰....The Shade of the Tree), her 48th single.