Earth Wind & Fire -- September

 

OK, first off, the First Day of Autumn 2026 isn't today; it actually arrives in Toronto at 8:04 pm September 22nd, so more than 24 hours from now (although it feels a whole lot cooler today). For another thing, there is no national holiday happening here in Canada anytime this week but there are three consecutive holidays over the 21st to the 23rd in Japan: Respect-for-the-Aged Day on Monday, the First Day of Autumn on Wednesday and a government-sanctioned day off on Tuesday to act as a generous bridge. Mind you, there is a powerful typhoon wracking the nation right now, so I'm hoping that everyone there is safe and sound.

And yet, I'm putting on a special holiday edition of Reminiscings of Youth today. Why? Because it is the 21st of September and I love "September" by Earth Wind & Fire so much. I already made one ROY about it back in 2020 but I just felt that it deserved another article because it is so upbeat, happy and joyful. It's pretty much impossible to stay still when listening to it. Furthermore, when I did write the first post for "September", I was reminded by my own words that it was during the COVID lockdowns when no one was out dancing. Well, they should be dancing now whether it be in Area 51 or any dance hall near you.

They were dancing to it back then in 1978 when it was first released and they're dancing to it now.

It was a nice way to finish "Night at the Museum".

And of course, the remix crowd had a field day with "September". This is the one by Phats & Small, by the way.

If you were one of the lucky ones to have seen EW&F in concert live, consider yourself truly blessed. The dancing must have been amazing!

Back in my original post in 2020, I mentioned that I couldn't find any monthly Oricon charts before 1980. Well, that was then and this is now. I can give you what was up at Nos. 1, 3 and 5 for September 25th 1978 (although I know that "September" was actually released in mid-November that year).

1. Takao Horiuchi -- Kimi no Hitomi wa Ichi-man Boruto （君のひとみは10000ボルト）

3. Masanori Sera & Twist -- Hikigane（銃爪）

5. Southern All Stars -- Katte ni Sinbad （勝手にシンドバッド）

Patrick Hernandez -- Born to be Alive

 

Ah, yes, YouTube...finder of lost memories of music. Perhaps I should say that it is a corrector of wrong memories of music. To explain, I had thought for the longest time that the disco hit "Born to be Alive" was a song by Canadian singer Gino Vannelli but it was actually by French singer Patrick Hernandez. And look, the names and origin nations may be vastly different (aside from the fact that both Canada and France have French as official languages), but both singers have huge mops of hair, boomer voices and plenty of charisma. I remember who I thought was Vannelli singing "Born to be Alive" as he popped up on a TV commercial for one of those K-Tel record compilations. It was no wonder that for some bizarre reason, I couldn't find the song on my own Vannelli BEST compilation.

What made it worse was that I hadn't even known the name of the real person behind "Born to be Alive". However, one day not too long ago, YouTube burst forth with some video shorts playing that very song for some ambitious dancing folks, and I finally had my singer. Interestingly enough, I remember this song being played at one of our junior high school presentations when a few of the girls decided to have a dance to this Hernandez hit. I gotta admit that hearing the song again after so long, I can imagine this still bringing the masses onto the dance floor to hoof it up with abandon. And back in the day after its release in November 1978, it struck No. 1 in a number of countries including Canada, America, Italy and Mexico.

And that begs the question, what Japanese singles were coming out in November 1978?

Anri -- Olivia wo Kikinagara （オリビアを聴きながら）

Hiroshi Madoka -- Musoubana （夢想花）

Momoe Yamaguchi -- Ii Hi Tabidachi (いい日旅立ち)

Various -- I Only Want to Be with You

 

There are times when music critics and regular listeners totally agree on how good one particular song is. Of course, there are many more times when views and opinions clash between them and even among the two groups. And then there are songs that seem to have critics coming out with their knives unsheathed almost immediately as if they were Starfleet reacting to a sudden Borg incursion. 

Regular listeners end up looking rather bemused and stunned wondering what is up with all the hate. But apparently that was the case with "We Built This City" by Starship (and I'll have to take care of that as a ROY pretty soon...I actually like the song) and I have found out that it was also true with this week's subject of Reminiscings of Youth.

I am talking about "I Only Want to Be with You" which I had first thought was a one-and-only by Nicolette Larson released in July 1982. I used to hear this enjoyable rock-and-pop tune by the late Larson on radio all the time and though I didn't ravenously pursue the single, I always enjoyed hearing it on AM. Considering her other songs that have been highlighted on KKP, her take on "I Only Want to Be with You" was her having fun in a Linda Ronstadt way. And yet, reading the critique on Wikipedia, she was pretty much kicked into the end zone by a frustrated football player. And Larson wasn't the only one.

Several weeks ago, when I decided that I would feature "I Only Want to Be with You" under ROY, I discovered that the original version had been recorded by none other than Dusty Springfield back in 1963. Created by Mike Hawker and Ivor Raymonde, I actually like the old arrangement here with all of the hip-swinging it must have induced. Even for the original, a critic years later gave one of the all-time great backhanded compliments by referring to "I Only Want to Be with You" as a piece of lint but an entertaining enough piece of lint. Well, the lint reached No. 4 in the UK.

More than a decade later, the Bay City Rollers gave their own take on "I Only Want to Be with You" which was recorded right here in Toronto. Released in August 1976, this cover featured some powered-up strings. I couldn't find any punches hitting this one so maybe the band escaped. It did hit No. 3 in Canada and No. 12 in the United States.

Another big surprise landed on me on finding out that a 1979 take on the song had been recorded by the New Wave and rock band The Tourists. The Tourists included a couple of members, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart who would later front the far more successful Eurythmics. Again, I've liked the basics about "I Only Want to Be with You" so I'm also a fan of this one especially with Lennox's vocals but once again, the knives were out (along with paint and tomatoes)...making the cover for the single look rather appropriate. Poor Annie looks shellshocked.

From Wikipedia

The second version that I'd ever heard of the song after Larson's cover was Samantha Fox's single from January 1989. I'd known about Fox through earlier songs and I'd heard that she was showing up in a lot of topless shots in UK newspapers. This form of the song was unsurprisingly 80s dance-pop. It reached No. 31 in the States while in Canada, it peaked at No. 29.

Wikipedia also mentions that many other covers in various languages including Japanese have been created...which goes to show that no matter the bricks and arrows aimed at a song, if it's catchy enough, it will remain deathless. Personally, I will always prefer Larson's version. And let us go with Larson's version when it comes to what was being released as singles in Japan in July 1982.

Yoshie Kashiwabara -- Shiawase Ondo（しあわせ音頭）

Hidemi Ishikawa -- Yu-re-te Shonan（ゆ・れ・て湘南）

Shibugakitai -- 100%...So Kamo ne!（100%…SOかもね!）

Gerald Fried -- The Ritual/Ancient Battle/2nd Kroykah (aka "Star Trek" Fight Music)

Wikimedia Commons

Considering that I've become a lapsed Trekkie in recent years, I completely forgot that tomorrow will be 60 years to the day since the very first "Star Trek" episode was televised on NBC. 

It was the episode "Man Trap" that started the whole ball rolling on September 8th 1966...in America. But the crazy thing I found out very recently was that Canada had actually cut to the chase by broadcasting "Man Trap" two days earlier on September 6th on CTV at 7:30 pm. That's a little early in the evening to be showing a man-killing salt vampire but hey, maybe Gene Roddenberry was feeling a bit daring.

It is a holiday Monday so it is time for a special Reminiscings of Youth but several years previously, I already posted an article on Alexander Courage's original theme for "Star Trek" so I was kinda knocking my head about what I could do to pay further tribute to the series. And then, an idea struck me.💡

On September 15th 1967, the second season began with "Amok Time", the episode where we first got a taste of Mr. Spock's culture including the ultimate example of Vulcan randiness, pon farr. It all climaxes (sorry, pun intended...haha) with a battle to the death between Spock and Captain Kirk. I always love a good battle with a lirpa and an ahn-woon.

Also, accompanying the fight was composer Gerald Fried's music that may rival Courage's theme as the most recognized piece of music from "Star Trek" even for non-Trekkies. Titled officially as "The Ritual/Ancient Battle/2nd Kroykah", I'd just like to call it the "Star Trek" fight music. It kinda has that atmosphere of gladiator games and no-holds-barred hand-to-hand combat with the dissonant horns and rapid-fire percussion. No wonder it was used for a lot of other fight scenes in the show since.

I gained quite the smile when I heard the fight music being used again on one episode of the current series "Strange New Worlds" a few seasons ago.

Gerald Fried (February 13, 1928 – February 17, 2023) was a composer and conductor who created scores for many TV shows and movies from the 1950s to the 2010s, and I read on his Wikipedia file, he provided music for the original "Mission: Impossible" TV series, "Gilligan's Island", "My Three Sons", etc. So, basically I had plenty of Fried (aural) food even before I was five years old. Anyways, LLAP!

By Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

So, what else was coming out of Japan in September 1967? Well, I've got two singles that got released around that time.

Masayoshi Tsuruoka & Tokyo Romantica -- Otaru no Hito yo （小樽のひとよ）

The Tigers -- Mona Lisa no Hohoemi（モナリザの微笑）

El DeBarge -- El DeBarge

From Discogs

Welcome to another Thursday Reminiscings of Youth session where I take a look at some of those English-language songs or albums that impressed upon my own ears, soul and mind when I was but a wee lad...namely back in the 1970s and 1980s.

I also sometimes touch upon movies from way back then and this time, it's "Short Circuit" from 1985. I had forgotten the fact that it starred Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg, two thespians who I would send out a "Where are they now?" alert. To be frank, I never got around to seeing the movie although the cute robot Johnny Five was all the craze in that summer along with the phrase "No. 5's alive!".

And this is where this week's ROY target comes in. It's El DeBarge's first solo album "El DeBarge" from May 1986 and three songs from that release are known to me and not surprisingly, all three were released as singles throughout that year. Arguably, the most well-known of them is "Who's Johnny?" which was made into the theme song for "Short Circuit". This was basically my only connection with the movie and I'd say it's the poppiest song that I've ever heard by El...right down to the childish way he sings out the title from time to time. It could even have made for the coolest theme song to a Saturday-morning cartoon. But this was something I was hearing on heavy rotation on the radio. It made it to No. 3 on America's Billboard. Peter and Ina Wolf were responsible for the songwriting.

 

Meanwhile, the dream team of Burt Bacharach, Bruce Roberts and Carole Bayer-Sager took care of "Love Always", and this one and the next song are the tracks that have held better sway over me since this is El in his element: R&B and soul. As much as I have loved the full family's "All This Love" from several years before, "Love Always" is another wonderful ballad by the solo DeBarge that has lived rent-free in my head all these decades. Maybe part of the reason is that it's been compared to the music that Michael McDonald has covered according to the album writeup on Wikipedia, and I'm a huge McDonald fan.

In the same paragraph, "Someone", a splendid mid-tempo track that hovers between "Who's Johnny?" and "Love Always", has also been compared to the works of Stevie Wonder. Created by Jay Graydon, Mark Mueller and Robbie Nevil, this is a song that I also heard regularly on the Toronto radio stations and once I got weaned off of radio after graduating from university, I lost contact with it while forgetting the title and maybe even the singer. I'd figured that it was El behind it but without the title and the fact that life was interrupting me for several decades, I could never confirm it. Well, doing the research on the album for ROY, I finally found it again and it still sounds as wonderfully 80s soulful now as it did back then. Another check off my list. "Someone" got somewhere in the Top 20s on Billboard.

"El DeBarge" did OK by peaking at No. 24 on Billboard. It did even better on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart by coming in at No. 8. So then, what Japanese singles were being released in the merry month of May 1986?

REBECCA -- Raspberry Dream

Miki Imai -- Tasogare no Monologue （黄昏のモノローグ）

Yuki Saito -- Doyoubi no Tamanegi （土曜日のタマネギ）

Tim Curry -- Time Warp

by Alan Light via Wikimedia Commons

This may go down as one of the tougher and more intense years in terms of famous people passing away. We lost Dolly Parton a couple of days ago and just in the last few hours, I've been hearing of other celebrities leaving this mortal coil. Alongside the news of Parton passing away, the news scroll here on television also mentioned that actor and singer Tim Curry had also died.

For recent generations, Curry may have been known for his roles as hapless and/or somewhat clueless characters on movies like "Home Alone 2". I also remember him as Chief Medical Officer Petrov on the Red October in "The Hunt for Red October" back in 1990,

But my memories go even further back when Curry played the terrifying but charismatic Dr Frank-N-Furter in the original 1973 London and 1975 Broadway productions of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and then the 1975 cinematic version with a very young Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick. Now, I wasn't even a pre-pubescent kid when "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" came out so I missed out on all of the bread tossing and other audience participation stuff. The bits of media that I got about this bizarre show in the pre-Internet age frankly scared the heck out of me, and I think the good doctor was most likely the first instance of me ever seeing a guy dressed up and made up like a girl

Dr. Frank-N-Furter got his own song: "Sweet Transvestite". However, I don't know that one although I did hear that Curry (along with the rest of the cast) was able to sing the one song that I do know from the show, the rock-n-roll "Time Warp". Yet, it wasn't through either the movie or the play that I first found out about it. 

Like a lot of high schools, my junior high school had regular after-school dance parties in the cafeteria. My crippling shyness, uncoolness and dancing ability (which could be compared to a hobbled T-Rex stuck in a tar pit) meant that I very rarely attended those gigs. However, against my better judgment and due to peer pressure, I ended up at one of those dances, and strangely enough, at the persuasion of one young lady who took pity upon me, she dragged me onto the floor to do "Time Warp". I should've listened more intently to the lyrics by Richard O'Brien (music by both him and Richard Hartley) since they basically instruct listeners how the dance is done, but then again, I was never much of a lyrics guy anyways. It would be years before I realized that "Time Warp" was a part of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". 

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" made its very first appearance in London on June 19th 1973. I was able to find the Top 3 of Oricon for the day before.

1. Kenji Sawada -- Kiken na Futari （危険なふたり）

2. Miyoko Asada -- Akai Fuusen（赤い風船）

3. GARO -- Kimi no Tanjoubi （君の誕生日）

As I said above, it's been a tough year already for famous people leaving Earth. Within the last 12 hours, I've also heard about the passings of the following people that I also got to know. For these folks and for Curry, my condolences to their families, friends and many fans.

voice actor Peter Cullen (August 26)

artist Yayoi Kusama (August 14)

singer/TV personality Jaye P. Morgan (August 24)

Dolly Parton -- 9 to 5

Wikimedia Commons

It's been a rather sad week for music fans overall. Last week, I posted a ZZ Top song for Reminiscings of Youth due to the passing of band drummer Frank Beard. And now in the last 48 hours, we've lost superstar Dolly Parton and the great Tim Curry, both at the age of 80. I'll be posting about both people today for a special double ROY.

I have mentioned this in past KKP articles but our family used to watch a fair bit of country music television decades ago including "Hee Haw" in America and "The Tommy Hunter Show" up here in Canada. And a number of times, we got to see the force of nature that was Dolly Parton in the 1970s. Yes, she jumped out on the stage like a particularly buxom Annie Oakley with the big hair and long nails, and even more than her music, she was able to win people over with that friendly charm that practically invited everyone over to her place for dinner and dancing.

And then at the turn of the decade, the 1980 movie "9 to 5" was released which starred Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as three harassed employees of a scummy boss played by Dabney Coleman. Sadly, I don't remember much from the film aside from Coleman getting his comeuppance and Tomlin's dream sequence which featured her as Snow White. However, what has remained with me up to now is the upbeat and surprisingly short theme song by Parton herself. "9 to 5" hit the record store shelves in November 1980 and I remember it for the singer's happy-go-lucky vocals, the intrepid pounding piano and Parton's nails clacking away like a typewriter. 

"9 to 5" hit the top of the charts in both Canada and the United States. It was nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars and three other awards at the Grammys. I also saw that even Buckingham Palace paid tribute to Parton with the King's Guard providing their own version of the song. I offer my condolences to Parton's family, friends and fans.

The song was released on November 3rd 1980 so what was hitting the top of the Oricon chart on that day?

1. Seiko Matsuda -- Kaze wa Aki Iro （風は秋色）

2. Toshihiko Tahara -- Hatto Shite! Good （ハッとして!Good）

3. Junko Yagami -- Purpletown (パープルタウン）You Oughta Know By Now

ZZ Top -- Legs

 

Starting off this week's Reminiscings of  Youth on a sad note, I saw the news scroll yesterday state that Frank Beard, the drummer and founding member of the rock group ZZ Top, had passed away at the age of 77 on August 17th. My condolences to his family, friends and fans.

I wasn't a huge ZZ Top fan but there were a few songs that I remember during my youth in the 1980s. One especially was "Legs" which came out in 1984 and had one memorable video. Beard and his two main mates, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill in their iconic hats, sunglasses, long coats...and beards as they carried their furry guitars, acted as the scruffiest guardian archangels while their leggy and beautiful angels helped out a mousy young lady (and her admirer by association) somewhere in an American suburb to succeed over a lot of resistance. It was basically a contemporary rehashing of Cinderella and the classic tale of the bullied getting some revenge on the bullies. I saw the music video for the first time last night and remarked "Yep, that was some fashion back then!"

"Legs" was a song and video that held onto the charts and television screens for a very long time as I recall. I thought it was just a propulsive rock song but according to its Wikipedia article, it's got a lot of genre labels: blues rock, electronic rock, synth-pop, boogie rock, pop rock and new wave. But I'll stick with the rock label. The video itself won the 1984 MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video and the song managed to hit No. 9 on the Canadian charts while in America, it peaked at No. 8.

Since Wikipedia only gives the release year for "Legs", let's find out which two acts won Best New Artist honours in that year's Japan Record Awards.

Issei Fuubi Sepia -- Zenryaku, Michi no Ue Yori （前略、道の上より）

Koji Kikkawa -- Monica（モニカ）

Devo -- Whip It

 

There have been a few times in the past when a bunch of us have gone out to dinner. Certain couples were with us and one time, at one restaurant where some hit music was playing over the speakers, the male half of the happy duo stated that the next song to play will be their song. Well, much to everyone's hilarity, it turned out to be Depeche Mode's "Master and Servant". I'm sure that their relationship took a turn there, and once again, the safety word was indeed APPLES.

I never experienced that situation ever again and probably never will (things on that level of funny are truly one-of-a-kind events). Still, I think this week's entry on Reminiscings of Youth could be another song that no couple would want as their go-to song, but man, it's still fun. 

Several years ago, I posted Devo's "Jocko Homo" which was the first song by the band to get up onto the blog but actually, the first ever song that I'd ever heard by The New Wave Boys of Akron, Ohio was "Whip It" that was their August 1980 single. And as I explained on "Jocko Homo", I first came across the catchy and absolutely weird and kinky "Whip It" through a K-Tel compilation record commercial which showed a part of that (in)famous music video including a bunch of dude ranch tourists, a motherly type whipping up some cream, a couple of other ladies in various stages of undress (well, one only lost her shoes), and the band itself festooned in red flower pots and sleeveless turtlenecks. Man, those were wild and woolly days in music video production!

Not only was it the first time I got to know a little about sadomasochism (so, whips can be fun😈) but I also got informed on what New Wave was all about. The strange lyrics which could be taken as motivational encouragement against any and all challenges or a first-round exercise in S&M paired with the herky-jerky delivery of the vocals and those synths definitely made "Whip It" one of the most famous songs of the 1980s. In a way, the Devo song seared the image of New Wave bands as stoic and robotic performers at their keyboards.

"Whip It" just missed the Top 10 by that much on either side of the world's longest unmilitarized border with it coming in at No. 11 on Canada's RPM and No. 14 on America's Billboard. Of course, a lot of folks liked to do their covers of "Whip It", including the late great Catherine O'Hara as Brooke Shields (2:10 of the video below)..

Remember...when in doubt: WHIP IT GOOD!😁

Now, what was hitting the record store shelves of Japan when "Whip It" came out in August 1980? We have a few here.

Hiromi Iwasaki -- Ginga Densetsu（銀河伝説）

Mayumi Itsuwa -- Koibito yo （恋人よ）

Yoshimi Iwasaki -- Anata Iro no Manon （あなた色のマノン）

Linda Ronstadt -- Just One Look

 

Not only did I hear "Just One Look" on the radio but I also heard plenty of it as a commercial jingle for cars. I just forgot it was for the Mazda. By the way, the actor speaking in the ad ended up becoming a doctor at "General Hospital". In any case, "Just One Look" renditions by different singers and bands were used in other commercials; that title was just perfect for selling.

But the first time was on radio. Didn't know at the time that this wasn't even an original by Linda Ronstadt but a cover version done by her, but it has been the one that I will always remember. Released as a January 1979 single, it's a tune that starts off country congenially but then becomes progressively buzzier with the rock edge. I also didn't realize that the main chorus is only heard once and at the end of this fairly short song at just a little over three minutes. Ronstadt's cover did modestly well on the Canadian and American charts by  posting somewhere in the 40s but in the former's Adult Contemporary chart, "Just One Look" placed in at No. 4 while on the latter's East Listening chart, it had a No. 5 ranking.

The original "Just One Look" was recorded by singer-songwriter Doris Troy for release in May 1963 with Troy and Gregory Carroll creating the song. It's an even shorter tune with the main chorus basically acting as a fadeout coda. 

We have here the Top 3 singles of Oricon for January 22nd 1979, a day before Ronstadt's cover was released.

1. Pink Lady -- Chameleon Army (カメレオン・アーミー）

2. Alice -- Champion （チャンピオン）

3. Godiego -- Gandhara （ガンダーラ）

Billy Joel -- The Bridge

 

Looking at the above public domain-friendly photo from Wikimedia Commons, he's got considerably less hair and he's got more of a paunch but he'll always be Billy Joel to me (ha, ha). Yup, the Piano Man turned 77 a few months ago but I will always see him in that work-a-day suit tickling the ivories. 

A few weeks ago, I did a Reminiscings of Youth posting on Level 42' s "Running in the Family" album, one of those EPs that I put onto audiotape as one of the go-to listenings during those times overnight when I just had to get a thesis done or cram for an exam during university. Well, I forgot that Joel's July 25th 1986 album "The Bridge" was another one of those musical energy drinks that I had also transferred to tape. Incidentally, it is a holiday here in Toronto so I'm doing the usual special ROY post.

"The Bridge" isn't up there with Joel's absolute best such as "The Stranger" or "Turnstiles" or "An Innocent Man", and even Billy himself agreed with his critics that "The Bridge" wasn't the greatest work he's created. But I have to state that even a self-professed not-so-great album by Billy Joel is still not a bad thing at all. Having said that, I'm not giving "The Bridge" the same treatment as my two-parter on "The Stranger" in which every track was deserving of some comment.

One reason that I ended up buying Joel's 10th studio album was because of "Big Man on Mulberry Street", a Big Band jazz blast that was the Piano Man's contribution to a "Moonlighting" episode in which Maddie Hayes, played by Cybill Shepherd, dreams an epic old Hollywood song-and-dance sequence starring his love-and-hate detective partner David Addison, played by Bruce Willis. 

Yep, you (who are younger than 40) read that correctly...Bruce Willis. As with Joel, he now has less hair and more of a paunch, but back then, who knew that he could trip the light fantastic with a bunch of choreographers? But seeing that sequence and hearing "Big Man on Mulberry Street", the story of a nebbish in New York City who punched way too high above his station in life, I was just so impressed that this 70s pop-and-rock guy could swing jazz as well that I knew I had to get "The Bridge" just for this track.

Tracks from the album did make it out as singles. And I did hear "Modern Woman" and "A Matter of Trust" on the radio all the time, but to be honest, they never really stuck with me. However, if "Big Man on Mulberry Street" was the reason that I purchased "The Bridge", then the first track "Running on Ice" was the reason that I've kept "The Bridge" all these years. 

"Running on Ice" is the equivalent of Charlie Brown skating and failing horribly as he takes out every single Peanuts character on the frozen pond and with everyone from Lucy to Snoopy out to get him, he just causes more mayhem. I heard it has been used in a spoof drama on the US version of "The Office" and perhaps it can be used for some sort of comedic ice hockey montage. The drums by Liberty DeVitto are incredible and absolutely vital for the song to work.

I've known that Joel is a singing chameleon of sorts. He's done Ray Charles on "New York State of Mind", Mick Jagger on "It's Still Rock n' Roll to Me" and even Frankie Valli for "Uptown Girl". But I had no idea that Joel was channeling The Police for "Running on Ice". I had been wondering why he clipped his vocals so high on that one and it turned out he was trying to emulate Sting. 

The last song I'm featuring here is another jazzy one and speaking of Ray Charles, he finally and successfully got associated with Joel on "Baby Grand". Billy may not have been able to get the legendary Charles to do "New York State of Mind" initially but a decade later, the two of them were having fun with their ballad in tribute to the baby grand piano.

In Canada, "The Bridge" made it up to No. 10 on RPM while it reached No. 7 on America's Billboard. Its highest rankings came in Australia and Japan where it peaked at No. 2 in both nations. So, as usual, let's find out what singles were coming out onto record store shelves in Japan in June 1986.

KUWATA BAND -- Merry X'mas in Summer

Kyoko Koizumi -- Yoake no MEW （夜明けのMEW）

Onyanko Club -- O-saki ni Shitsurei（お先に失礼）

Morton Gould -- So In Love/Night and Day

Wikimedia Commons

This week's Reminiscings of Youth will be a little more unusual and involved so please bear with me today. For one thing, this really ought to be one of those Reminiscings of Babyhood articles actually, but I'll explain as we go along.

For citizens and international residents of Japan of a certain age such as myself, there was the weekly Sunday night Hollywood movie of the week on TV Asahi that lasted for decades since the 1960s. So, folks could watch anything from that decade to something more contemporary like a Steven Seagal action flick but it had to fit within the tight two-hour slot with commercials...which often meant that the movie had a fair amount of footage slashed out. Annoying as heck, but that's the way it was. 

The host of "Nichiyou Youga Gekijo"（日曜洋画劇場...The Sunday Western Movie Theatre） for most of its time was the avuncular and dapper movie critic and tarento Nagaharu Yodogawa（淀川長治）. He always showed up at the beginning of the show to introduce the film and then wrap up with his thoughts about it for a few minutes before signing off with "Sayonara, sayonara, sayonara". 

Then, there were the ending credits for "Nichiyou Youga Gekijo" which had stills or slow-motion footage of the movie just presented while this really dramatic and melancholy-sounding song played in the background. In fact, I found the music so sad that I was more than happy to switch the channel. I wouldn't find out until literally several days ago that the piece was a Cole Porter standard called "So In Love" as interpreted by conductor and arranger Morton Gould.

"So In Love" was a song used in one of Porter's famous musicals "Kiss Me Kate" from 1948. It was also used in the 1953 cinematic adaptation, but Gould's interpretation was presumably from 1951. Now that I've heard the whole thing above, I have a better view of it as something more epic and moving. Japanese commenters have complimented it as being very nostalgic since they used to watch the Sunday movie of the week when they were younger.

But "So In Love" hadn't been the main target for my ROY ROB this week. That was merely a happenstance stumbling discovery. Actually, it was for another Porter classic "Night and Day" which had been created in 1932. I remember getting to see it performed on the 2004 "De-Lovely", the Porter biopic musical starring Kevin Kline where I could glean some more insight into what the song was about.

Now, I realize that there have been many renditions of "Night and Day", sung and instrumental. But the reason that I started all this was that I remember the very first rendition that I heard of this song and it was by the aforementioned Morton Gould through his 1961 record "Kern/Porter Favorites" although that track later showed up on our "RCA 50 Years Of Hits In Stereo" that I wrote about last October. 

According to his Wikipedia article, Gould was a master of interweaving different musical genres into formal classical structure without losing any of the main elements from either the adopted genres or the original song. Gould had a few more contributions to my family's "RCA 50 Years of Hits In Stereo" which were "Brazil" and "Blues in the Night" and I note that he was epic and playful with those.

With "Night and Day", he showed that same verve for grandness. His take took the ultimate song of pining away in love and made it into his own overture movie. To me, his "Night and Day" sounds like a romance between two people rudely interrupted by war with the happy and grateful return interpreted as this huge orchestral rush. And it just happened to be a song that I heard often enough as a kid on the old RCA stereo.

So, let's see about some of the major singles of 1961 in Japan.

Kyu Sakamoto -- Ue wo Muite Arukou (上を向いて歩こう)

Yujiro Ishihara & Junko Makimura -- Ginza no Koi no Monogatari （銀座の恋の物語）

Hitoshi Ueki -- Suudara Bushi (スーダラ節）

Olivia Newton-John -- Twist of Fate

By Alan Light via Wikimedia Commons

The last time I brought Olivia Newton-John into Reminiscings of Youth was a little over a year ago when I wrote about her early 1970s ballad "I Honestly Love You". When I look back on her career from that time forward a decade, it's amazing how much she changed her style. And yes, I'm well aware that we are approaching the 4th anniversary of her passing.

From a well-scrubbed country lass back in those 1970s to a New Wave diva of the early 1980s (and a disco gamine in between...along with her time in "Grease"). Yep, I'm referring to the above music video for her October 1983 hit "Twist of Fate" which I saw a lot on the video shows. I'm not sure whether a lot of folks actually watched the movie that it was attached to, the 1983 "Two of a Kind", starring Newton-John and her old buddy from "Grease", John Travolta, but the song and the video sure were popular. 

As I mentioned, "Twist of Fate" was a synthpop/New Wave-y concoction produced by David Foster and created by Steve Kipner and Peter Beckett that was catchy and pretty much screamed "I'M OF THE 80'S!" in its arrangement. Maybe it could have gotten folks onto the dance floor as well. But it was the music video that got my attention at least with a glammed-up Olivia strutting into a seemingly futuristic court. I swear that she looked halfway to becoming a live-action version of Memphis Group art. I think even the singer mocked herself in a later interview about how much lipstick she spackled onto her mouth for the video, although I thought she looked dang hot to be honest.😉

In Canada, "Twist of Fate" reached No. 5 on RPM while in the United States, the song peaked at No. 5 as well. So, what was up on the Oricon charts on October 24th 1983, a few days after the release of this OJN hit? Just for fun, let's go with Nos. 18-20.

18. Tomio Umezawa -- Yume Shibai （夢芝居）

19. Yuki Katsuragi -- Bohemian （ボヘミアン）

20. H2O -- Omoide ga Ippai （思い出がいっぱい）

Level 42 -- Running in the Family

 

It's been said that Level 42's "Something About You" from 1985 remains as the band's biggest accomplishment, and I couldn't disagree since it was the first song that I heard by the English group on the radio and it really grabbed me by the shoulders and has never let go. However, having said that, I think Mark King and his guys released a lot of other great tunes as well, some of which I'll be writing about on this week's Reminiscings of Youth...this time as an album, namely their March 1987 "Running in the Family".

Buying the LP and then recording it onto audiotape, "Running in the Family" became one of those go-to albums that I played whenever I had to pull an all-nighter during university. In fact, it was one of three LPs that I put onto tape, the others being Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）1986 "Wagamama"（わがまま）and "Uchuu Senkan Yamato Kanketsuhen Tehma Ongakushuu II"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト 完結編 テーマ音楽集Ⅱ）, one of the soundtracks for the 1983 anime movie "Final Yamato". Yes, it's a rather eclectic musical triumvirate but I was playing these guys non-stop while typing away to desperately get my thesis done and keep away that bothersome gnat called sleep. The cups of green tea helped as well.

I just wanted to feature my three favourite tracks from "Running in the Family" although the entire album is great. These three were all released as singles with arguably the most famous one being "Lessons In Love" that had actually been released almost a year before the album itself. The album, by the way, has been categorized as a sophisti-pop creation which I'm not sure about. Sophisti-pop is something that I actually think has plenty of champagne-clinking strings and brass along the lines of Swingout Sister. "Lessons In Love" certainly sounds more like funk-rock plus pop, and it's an infectiously fun piece either in its original four-minute-and-change form or the longer extended take, and I think it was the latter where I first heard "Lessons In Love" which was another grab of my shoulders. I got to know more about the famous King slap-bass technique through this one, too.

"Lessons In Love" reached No. 14 in Canada and No. 12 in the United States while it reached No. 1 in nations like Denmark, Finland and Spain.

The second of my favourites is the title track. "Running in the Family" is a cheerful melodic treatise on the average family with average rambunctious kids. In a way, although the band's description of the family is not really dysfunctional, I've often wondered if this could have made for a pretty cool theme tune for a movie on a really dysfunctional family such as "The Royal Tenenbaums". The blasting synth riff will always live rent-free in my head. The single was released in February 1987 and it was also hitting the Top 10 in several countries including the band's own UK.

"To Be With You Again" starts off on Side B of the original LP and it has such a great intro that I was always looking forward to it on the tape to get my eyes and brain fully awake once more in the overnight hours. It's quite the soaring piece and I have to mention here that I've always liked the vocal combination of keyboardist Mike Lindup with his high voice and King's deeper and grounded tones. The song was also the first single from "Running in the Family" to be released after the album's release by coming out in April 1987. It did more modestly than the aforementioned songs although it did come in at No. 6 in Italy and the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the album reached No. 6 in Canada, No. 23 in America and No. 2 in the UK. I haven't done all-nighters since the first George Bush was US President but wouldn't it be nice to place that audiotape into the machine again (although I'm still worried about Jaws!)? Then again, I have a perfectly benign record player that can handle the LP.

So, what were three singles in Japan that were being released in the merry month of March 1987?

Fuyumi Sakamoto -- Abaredaiko (あばれ太鼓)

Checkers -- I Love You, SAYONARA

Miho Nakayama -- Hade!!!（「派手!!!」）

Bonnie Tyler -- It's a Heartache

Wikimedia Commons

I was watching the local news here when the breaking news hit the screen that singer Bonnie Tyler had passed away at the age of 75 today. Apparently since the information came out regarding her death, her 1983 hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart" has been getting a lot of looks. Tyler already has recognition on this blog for that very song and I'd been thinking of using today's ROY slot to give tribute to her 1984 "Holding Out for a Hero", but then, I realized that when I had posted Miki Asakura's（麻倉未稀）cover of the song, I basically treated the article also as a proto-ROY one.

So, I've gone back several years before her really large feathery hair music video days in those 1980s and back to her 1970s days to listen to her "It's a Heartache". Released on November 4th 1977 as her 5th single, this was created by Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe and I remember it as this genteel country ballad that got a lot of airplay on AM radio. And strangely enough, I only heard it on radio and never saw the face behind the song. At the time, I wasn't much for remembering names so I was surprised years later that it was indeed Bonnie Tyler who had sung this one although it should have been recognizable because of her famously husky voice.

"It's a Heartache" was a No. 1 hit in several countries including Canada and France. In the United States, it got as high as No. 3 while in the UK, it reached No. 4. 

Speaking of her husky voice, that all came about from a surgical procedure earlier to remove some nodules from her vocal cords. "It's a Heartache" was one of her first recordings following that surgery and from what I've read on the article for the song, her "new" voice made the song and most likely her entire career from that point onwards. Of course, I was interested in how Tyler had sounded in her first few singles before surgery so I pulled out her debut single "My! My! Honeycomb" from 1976. To be honest, I find her voice here to be a smoother version without the extra burr.

The Oricon rankings had their weekly report on November 7th 1977. So, what was up at the top of the list? Also, my condolences go out to Tyler's family, friends and fans throughout the world.

1. Pink Lady -- Wanted

2. Joe Yamanaka -- Ningen no Shomei （人間の証明）

3. Momoe Yamaguchi -- Cosmos (秋桜)

Whitney Houston -- How Will I Know

 

So far, in the Reminiscings of Youth file, I've only put up one Whitney Houston article and that was for the fabulous "Saving All My Love for You". She was one of the great love song balladeers.

But of course, Houston could do the upbeat stuff, too. And this one, her November 1985 single "How Will I Know" was one long-lasting hit on the airwaves as well as the video ones. I think it was pretty much fait accompli that I would see the music video for "How Will I Know" weekly for months on end. My impression of the video was that Whitney and her dancers were going through a labyrinth designed jointly by United Colors of Benetton and the makers of fruit-bottom yogurt. The song was a synthpop-funk treat that was created by George Merrill, Shannon Rubicam and Narada Michael Walden, and I couldn't quite believe that it had been first offered to Janet Jackson but was passed over to Houston.

In Canada, "How Will I Know" reached No. 1 while in America, the song was also a No. 1 hit. It also hit the top spot in Iceland. At the time, everything Houston touched turned to gold. So, what else was hitting the charts over in Japan on November 25th 1985, a few days after "How Will I Know" had been released?

1. Akiko Kobayashi -- Koi ni Ochite (恋におちて）

2. Checkers -- Kamisama Help!（神様ヘルプ！）

3. Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe -- Garasu no Palm Tree（ガラスのPALM TREE）