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.
Showing posts with label Rumiko Koyanagi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rumiko Koyanagi. Show all posts
This saying has been making the rounds in Toronto for a few weeks now: maybe we're done with winter but winter isn't done with us. And sure enough, it isn't. We're getting another dumping of the white stuff including some freezing rain, and the high temperature come Tuesday will be -6 degrees Celsius. Just makes one want to flee for the warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?
Today signifies the Ides of March and thus we are still about a week away from official spring, but hopefully viewers will forgive me if I opt to jump the gun and get some spring here on KKP. We have Candies'"Haru Ichiban" (春一番）and Yoshie Kashiwabara's（柏原芳恵）"Haru Nanoni" (春なのに）as prime representatives of the season. However, I also found this proud harbinger for spring recently.
"Sakura Zensen"(Cherry Blossom Front) was Rumiko Koyanagi's（小柳ルミ子）17th single from January 1976 (so I guess the songwriters were also pushing for an early spring back then, too, huh?), and it's notable for that sharp trumpet heralding the coming of spring and perhaps better things to come. Within Koutarou Aso's（麻生香太郎）lyrics, there is reference to a past love that became part of history during the dark winter but also a look forward to warmth, high school baseball season and of course those hothouse strawberries...all in the prefecture of Kagoshima.
Koji Tokuhisa（徳久広司）took care of the melody while Shunichi Makaino（馬飼野俊一）was the arranger. "Sakura Zensen" maanged to peak at No. 21 on Oricon, and apparently though it didn't get onto one of Koyanagi's studio albums, it has been included in some of her BEST collections.
One day, I was reading through the J-Wiki article on enka and there was a list of all of the enka songs that actually made it to No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies. Among them, one song was Rumiko Koyanagi's（小柳ルミ子）"Fuyu no Eki"(Winter Station) which was her 13th single.
Released in October 1974, just from that jaunty arrangement, I don't really consider it to be an enka song per se; it strikes me more as a straight-up kayo kyoku, and even the article for "Fuyu no Eki" itself has it categorized as such and not as an enka. Written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, it's characterized by a jangly guitar and Koyanagi's light and airy vocals. With the season and the setting in the title, I figured that it would be about a romance that has hit its reluctant end.
As mentioned in the first paragraph, "Fuyu no Eki" hit No. 1 on Oricon through three non-consecutive weeks and it ended up not only as the 63rd-ranked single for that year, it became the 27th-ranked single for 1975. Koyanagi would also get her 4th invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1974 to perform "Fuyu no Eki" during her 18 straight years of appearing on the annual New Year's Eve special.
If I'm not mistaken, it's Presidents' Day down in the States while up here in Canada, we're celebrating Family Day. Wherever you are, I hope you are having a good day.
Of course, being a holiday today means that we've got a special Reminiscings of Youth article and in keeping with the family theme, I've opted to go with another one of my fondly remembered TV show themes. I'm not sure if I have remembered this correctly but at one point on the ABC Friday night lineup, it was the sitcom trio of "The Partridge Family", "Bewitched" and "The Odd Couple" that kept my eyes on the screen.
Probably out of the three shows, "The Partridge Family"was the one that has filled me with the most nostalgia because the plot did involve a family-based band led by Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones) and their brand of pop-rock music along with the fashion of those times (bell-bottom pants, flimsy vests and wide lapels). Of course, the theme song, the gently rock-n'-rollin' "Come On Get Happy" by Wes Farrell and Danny Janssen has been the song from "The Partridge Family" to stick with me all these decades.
In fact, "Come On Get Happy" is so iconic in my brain that I was surprised to find out that Early Installment Weirdness (coined as a trope in "TV Tropes") had also settled into "The Partridge Family" starting with the September 1970 pilot episode when "Together (Havin' A Ball)" was used while the clan was actually performing it.
And then for the rest of the first season, "When We're Singin'" was used as the main theme. If it sounds familiar, it is because the Farrell melody would be used for "Come On Get Happy" but the original Diane Hildebrand lyrics would be replaced by Janssen's words. The theme I've always known would be used from the second season forward from September 1971 until the show's cancellation in 1974.
Well, why don't we go with what was on the Oricon chart on September 27th 1971? I've got Nos. 1, 5 and 6.
First off, welcome to August 2024! In the course of making this weekly Reminiscings of Youth article, I came to realize how many television shows that I've seen and millions of others have seen that had been produced under the MTM Enterprises banner in the 1970s and 1980s. The production company had been founded in 1969 by the late great entertainer Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker to create the former's classic sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". The theme song "Love is All Around" by Sonny Curtis has already been featured here as a ROY tune along with Steve Carlisle's theme song for "WKRP in Cincinnati", another MTM production. There are many more theme songs of shows under Mary's banner that I can easily put up here on KKP since they are so memorable. But of course, I have to finally mention that the logo is none other than Mimsie the Cat who wasn't actually owned by Mary and Grant but by one of the staffers at MTM.
Now, actually I had originally decided to put up this particular theme song because the star of its show, comedian and actor Bob Newhart, had passed away last week at the age of 94 and I would have posted it then but I already had one other ROY song in the pipe.
The strange thing is that though I had already known about Mary Tyler Moore because of her past famous role on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" as Laura Petrie and even became a great fan of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", I knew nothing about Bob Newhart at the time. And to be honest, I don't remember having seen a single episode in its entirety (I did come across certain scenes in the reruns) from his own long-running MTM-produced series which ran from 1972 to 1978 (and it usually followed "Mary Tyler Moore"). I just remember that he played the calm but droll Dr. Bob Hartley the psychologist while the fetching Suzanne Pleshette had the role of his wife, Emily. It would be years before I found out in junior high school (via one of his comedy albums in the school library) that he had been a standup comedian with the button-down mind since the late 1950s with his famous series of telephone call routines.
The other thing and it is the biggest thing that I remember from "The Bob Newhart Show" is the theme song by Lorenzo and Henrietta Music; Lorenzo was even the co-creator of the sitcom itself. For a show revolving around a nice but unassuming character, "Home to Emily" was quite the epic musical accompaniment with the swinging jazzy brass as he did his commute home in Chicago from his office. But then, as he approached his apartment, the orchestral boil came down to a soothing simmer thanks to a flugelhorn (I think) as ol' Bob can now think about having a nice dinner and evening with his wife.
Later on, the opening credits opted to reverse the process and have the good doctor head over to work from home. Music's theme song then got a major disco-funk revamping which made me wonder how much cooler did Dr. Hartley get and did that translate into more clients?
Looks like a number of artists entertained the possibilities of "Home to Emily" such as composer and arranger Patrick Williams. The more, the merrier. And also, my condolences to Newhart's family, friends and fans including those who discovered him later on in life as Professor Proton on "The Big Bang Theory".
"The Bob Newhart Show" made its premiere on CBS on September 16th 1972. Well, I managed to find out what the Top 3 singles were on Oricon a couple of days later.
Well, we're still about a month away from official summer. However, it's definitely been feeling like summer here in Toronto over the past couple of days with the temps going into the 90s and plenty of sun. Besides, this ROY song for this week has been getting played again via a commercial for some sort of drink...maybe it's beer or a wine cooler.🍻
"Summer Breeze" is a song that I hadn't heard in years but it was a pretty frequently played tune on AM radio when I was a kid. The crazy thing is that the duo behind it, the soft rock Seals and Crofts, was a group that I always confused with Sid and Marty Krofft, the pair behind the bizarre kids' show "H.R. Pufnstuf". For that matter, I also got them confused with "arts and crafts", probably because the musical duo and the hobby both seemed so down-to-earth. For the record, it's James Eugene Seals and Darrell George Crofts.
The song was released as their second single in August 1972 and as the title track for their fourth album which came out in September. In both Canada and the United States, the mellow-as-can-be "Summer Breeze" reached No. 6 and it even was considered the No. 13 song on Rolling Stone's"Best Summer Songs of All Time" list. Listening to it once more after so long, I could imagine that "Summer Breeze" could have been one of the inspirational songs for Japanese groups such as Bread & Butter and Makoto Matsushita's（松下誠）The Milky Wayduo. And the title was also adopted by City Pop band Piper for their own album in the 1980s.
Now, there were two singles which were released in August 1972.
Happy Monday! I heard this particular song on an episode of "Songs of Japanese Spirit" on NHK's broadcast satellite service the other day and was interested in it enough that I tracked it down to it being one of Rumiko Koyanagi's（小柳ルミ子）singles from the 1970s. There are a number of her songs that I've known for decades such as her early hit "Watashi no Joukamachi" (わたしの城下町）and her 1983 "Ohisashiburi ne" (お久しぶりね）, and perhaps I may have heard this one here sometime in the past. However, for all intents and purposes, I'm treating "Nakinurete Hitori Tabi" (Traveling Alone, Drenched in Tears) as a new Koyanagi treat.
Written and composed by the late singer-songwriter Eigo Kawashima（河島英五）, this was Koyanagi's 26th single from July 1978. Just from the title alone, I could tell that this was another "broken romance, will travel"kayo kyoku that has been popular among singers and songwriters, and it's also deemed as a go-touchi (local or regional) song focused on the cities of Kyoto and Kanazawa. I think what stands out here is that especially melancholy melody spiked with the twangy guitar. Perhaps something in the arrangement can also hint at some enka-ness as well.
"Nakinurete Hitori Tabi" managed to peak at No. 30 on Oricon. Weirdly enough, the song was also used in a commercial for mosquito coils. Perhaps the surviving bugs fled to Kyoto and Kanazawa out of grief for their fallen comrades. 🦟
So, how is that post-Xmas dinner digestion doing by you? Sleepy from all the turkey? We had ours tonight but thanks to a cup of strong coffee and a really good Strawberry Dream Cake, I'm still doing quite well. Not feeling really sleepy but I figure that within an hour, all that sugar and caffeine are going to wear off and I'll simply collapse like an old lung.
Anyways, I had assumed that the article on the final Xmas article for KKP's Christmas season 2023, EPO's "Twinkle Christmas" would be the last one for today. However, I realized that I had to complete my other tradition of putting up a Reminiscings of Youth article on a national holiday, and after all, since I'm filled with beans (or what used to be beans) at the moment, I might as well do something danceable because I'm vicariously needing to dance it up as we enter the final week of the year.
I am talking about Talk Talk's big hit "It's My Life" from January 1984. Yup, we're fast approaching the 40th anniversary of its release and I remember it first of all for its strange video featuring the late vocalist Mark Hollis at the zoo as it looked like a nature documentary was going all New Wave and dance remix on me. I always loved Hollis' haunting delivery and the combination of synths/percussion banging away, and in fact, I was looking for its remix version on the dance remix radio shows of my youth.
"It's My Life" hit No. 31 on Billboard Stateside although it hit the top spot on the dance charts down below. Meanwhile in Canada, it peaked at No. 30 and in the band's native Great Britain, it did a modest No. 46, although I read on its Wikipedia article that it did get a third lease on life and reached No. 13 when it was reissued in 1990.
Dance your dinner away please! Anyways, I'll give you Nos. 8, 9 and 10 from the January 1984 Oricon weekly chart.
Right at the end of last month, I posted a Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）article for her "Pearl Colour ni Yurete"（パールカラーにゆれて）single because I'd seen her performance of the song on an old episode of "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）. Well, on the same episode, there was also 70s aidoru Rumiko Koyanagi（小柳ルミ子）.
Her contribution for the evening was her 20th single"Aitakute Kitaguni e" (I'm Heading to the North to See You) from September 1976. A pretty intrepid tune with a bouncy beat possibly reflecting the female protagonist's feelings and that train ride up north of Tokyo, the lass is quite assertive in asking the love of her life to take her up there with him (hometown or job transfer?) if there's room in the apartment. Oh, those Tokyo ladies!
"Aitakute Kitaguni e" was written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Tadao Inoue（井上忠夫）, formerly of the Group Sounds band Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets（ジャッキー吉川とブルー・コメッツ）and someone who would change his name to Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）in 1981. The song would peak at No. 15 on Oricon and Koyanagi got her 6th invitation to come onto NHK's Kohaku Utagassen to sing it at the end of 1976.
Over the weekend, I caught some live YouTube coverage of the annual Gion Festival in Kyoto. It's good to see some of the venerable events back in Japan again, although the weather all over the country has been volatile, to say the least.
Last year around this time, I also acknowledged the return of the Gion Festival with a 1986 song by Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）simply titled "Gion Matsuri"（祇園祭）that could possibly fall into that middle ground between kayo kyoku and enka known as New Adult Music. This time, I have a much earlier song from June 1974 titled "Hitori Bayashi ~ Gion Matsuri yori" (Lone Musical Accompaniment ~ From the Gion Festival) by Rumiko Koyanagi（小柳ルミ子）.
Considering Koyanagi's status in the music industry back then, the song has been categorized as an aidoru tune but with some of the traditional melodic affectations imbued, I couldn't help but also throw in the enka tag, too. Maybe it indeed skews a little closer to that genre compared to "Gion Matsuri" by Tanimura. There's also a certain child-like innocence in the arrangement and even the vocals by the singer herself as if the famous Kyoto festival were being seen by a little kid for the first time (most likely on the shoulders of Dad considering how crowded the streets can be to witness the gorgeous floats).
Koyanagi's 12th single"Hitori Bayashi" reached No. 21 on Oricon. It was written by Makoto Kitajo（喜多条忠）with Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）as the composer. The song was also a track on her 8th album"Koyanagi Rumiko ~ Atarashii Tomodachi"（小柳ルミ子 －あたらしい友達－...New Friends） which was actually released a month earlier, although the J-Wiki article on the song warns that the arrangement is different there.
The news has been rolling in from all sources over the past hour. I hadn't heard anything from Tina Turner in the last few years and I knew that she was getting up there in years, but it's still hard to believe that even in her 80s, the vivacious Grande Dame ofR&B and the Queen of Rock n' Roll would be anything but the rapidly sashaying and high-powered entertainer. Alas, her death has been announced today at the age of 83.
This will be a special Reminiscings of Youth then regarding Tina Turner. In the early 1970s, I was too young to know much about Turner aside from her appearances on various music-variety shows on TV. My image of her had been of her in that slinky spangled dress working hard on the stage and behind the mike, and I thought that she vibrated so hard that she threatened to disintegrate the floor beneath her.
The song that I always associated with her in the early days was "Proud Mary" in partnership with her ex-husband Ike Turner. Released as a single in January 1971, I had no idea that it was a cover of the original version by rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival back in 1969. But arguably, Ike and Tina took ownership of "Proud Mary". The part of the Turners' song that I am most familiar with is the latter half where the song clicks into high gear with those horns, and my image of Tina begins shimmying on the stage. She could have powered the electric generator for Memphis with her performance.
"Proud Mary" by the Turners hit No. 4 on US Billboard and it went as high as No. 11 on Canada's RPM charts. I'll be devoting the regular ROY article tomorrow to Tina as well since it's also a song that has remained with my memories as I was growing up in the 1980s.
The following were winners at the Japan Record Awards in 1971.
The male trios had an original Gosanke（御三家...The Big Three） and then a new Gosanke for the next generation, so the same thing happened with the female trios. In the 1950s, there was the Ganso Sannin Musume（元祖三人娘...The Original Three Girls） starring Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ）and Izumi Yukimura（雪村いづみ）. But then in the early 1970s came the birth of the Shin Sannin Musume (The New Three Girls) featuring aidoru Rumiko Koyanagi（小柳ルミ子）, Mari Amachi（天地真理）and Saori Minami（南沙織）.
Unlike the original Sannin Musume, Koyanagi, Amachi and Minami never appeared in any rom-com movie, but they did have their opportunities to show up in magazines and TV music shows, including the 1972 Kohaku Utagassen. In the article for the Shin Sannin Musume on J-Wiki, I was even able to find the catchphrases for each of them:
Rumiko Koyanagi: Minna no Koibito（みんなの恋人...Everyone's Lover）
Mari Amachi: Anata no Kokoro no Tonari ni Iru Sony no Shirayuki Hime（あなたの心の隣にいるソニーの白雪姫...The Snow White of SONY, Close to Your Heart）
Saori Minami: Minami no Shima kara Kita Cynthia（南の島からきたシンシア...Cynthia from the Southern Islands）
All of them had their singing debut in 1971 with Amachi having the latest one in October.
Once again, Saturday is among us so it's time for the latest round of go-touchi songs, a series that I began about a month ago to commemorate some of the geographically based kayo depending on the official regions within Japan. Last week, we took care of the Kinki region including Osaka. This time, we're doing a two-for-one deal just like I did for the very first entry which looked at Hokkaido and the Tohoku region up in the north. Today, it will be the small island of Shikoku which consists of Ehime, Kagawa, Kochi, and Tokushima Prefectures and the westernmost Chugoku region on the main island of Honshu which has Hiroshima, Okayama, Shimane, Tottori, and Yamaguchi Prefectures.
6. Angela Aki -- Home for Tokushima Prefecture (2005)
As usual, let's finish this off with some scrumptious dishes from the two areas. Today, we have Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki（お好み焼き）and then sanuki udon（讃岐うどん）from Kagawa Prefecture. Next week will be the final segment as we look at Kyushu and Okinawa.
For this week's Reminiscings of Youth, perhaps I should have done this one a few days ago since it was indeed a rainy Monday, but what's done is done. In any case, the Carpenters' "Rainy Days and Mondays" can still hit me pretty hard depending on my mood after all these years, although when I first heard it as a kid on the radio, it was the melody and Karen's incredible voice that got into my head without knowing the lyrics.
Created by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols as Karen and Richard's April 1971 single, "Rainy Days and Mondays" zoomed up the Billboard singles charts to reach No. 2, just behind Carole King's"It's Too Late/I Feel the Earth Move", itself no slouch in the legendary pop song category. In Canada, it peaked at No. 3, although on the Adult Contemporary charts for both the US and my country, the song did reach No. 1. Of course, along with Karen's vocals, it was the harmonica, the sax solo and those famous Carpenters harmonies that have stayed with me despite the theme of sadness and loneliness.
Who were some of the winners at the Japan Record Awards in that year of 1971?
Well, I was traipsing through Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）J-Wiki file the other day when I realized that she and Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）got married in April 1982. Whoa! That would mean that last month, the First Couple of City Pop just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. Finding out that the traditional 40th anniversary gift is ruby, I wonder whether the two got a gift from Akira Terao（寺尾聰）...very inside joke there.
Yes, I forgot to laugh, too. Anyways, realizing that piece of Japanese popular music trivia and also knowing that the upcoming June is a favourite time for those weddings to take place, I figured that I could create a short list of wedding-themed songs. Now, I also know that there are many many of those songs all over the kayo and J-Pop spectrum, but these are ones that came relatively readily to mind once that idea came into my head. Plus, they already have representation on the blog, so here we go in no specific order.
Since the above video fades away rather abruptly, I'm wondering if we only got three-quarters of the song but I'm still enjoying it. When I heard Rumiko Koyanagi's（小柳ルミ子）"Lady Lonely" for the first time, I began getting images in my head about wandering the streets of Roppongi or Akasaka back in the 1970s when the economy was pumping away as well as the hips at the discos there. I can certainly understand the new City Pop fans when they say that they would love to go back in time to Tokyo of that decade.
And this is very much the 1970s style of City Pop with the disco strings and horns, the bouncy bass and the dancing Fender Rhodes behind Koyanagi's high-toned vocals. I almost absentmindedly asked myself what the table charge at the nearest Roppongi dance hall was. Written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composed by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）,"Lady Lonely" (and yeah, despite the fact that Koyanagi sings "lonely lady" throughout the song, the title is accurate), was a track on her May 1979 album"Spain no Ame"（スペインの雨...The Rain In Spain）.
Come to think of it, there is something in the funky arrangement for "Lady Lonely" that hits me as if this could have been a good theme song for an action show starring Koyanagi herself as a female tough-as-nails detective in the hard city. For some reason, I'm thinking of either the Japanese equivalent of "Policewoman" or "Get Christie Love". Indeed, I'm showing my age here.
When I first heard this song, I had initially thought that this would be a City Pop tune but then on repeated listenings, I now feel that this is something else although there is something quite urban and urbane about it.
Singer and actress Rumiko Koyanagi（小柳ルミ子）has delved into a number of styles whether it be her early aidoru tunes of the early 1970s such as "Watashi no Joukamachi" (わたしの城下町）, her sexier stuff starting with her 1984 kayo hit "Ohisashiburi ne" (お久しぶりね）and a bit of Mood Kayo thanks to her "Midare Gami"（みだれ髪）. Therefore, there was initial excitement from me when I first heard "Sayonara Shibai" (The Goodbye Game) since I'd thought "Oooh, even Koyanagi was getting on board the City Pop bandwagon!".
However on second and third thoughts, I have to change my mind. Now I believe that her "Sayonara Shibai" is maybe more appropriate to that chaise lounge-friendly and more European-sounding Fashion Music from around the turn of the decade from the 1970s into the 1980s. A few years ago, I actually wrote up an article talking about that very sub-genre with sample singers so have a gander at that, if you so desire.
For me, "Sayonara Shibai", which was created by lyricist Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）and composer Kimio Mizutani（水谷公生）, begins with that languid rhythm that feels quite French and fairly jaunty for something that I have described as Fashion Music but I did envisage that representative chaise lounge with its inhabitant asking for those grapes, one at a time. Then again, I could also imagine Koyanagi acting as that veteran hostess tying each of her paramours around her well-manicured pinkie at the same time.
Interestingly enough, that combination of synthesizers and bass reminds me of another singer with the same initials as Rumiko Koyanagi: Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）. And Kurahashi is another member of the Fashion Music sorority.
It took quite the effort to track down when "Sayonara Shibai" made its premiere but I finally found out that it was a track on Koyanagi's April 1980 album"Limelight"（来夢来人）.
In this "Reminiscings of Youth" article for this Thursday, I will first take you to the local Hudson's Bay department store. One day as a teenager of the early 1980s, I was walking about on the main floor when I heard this song piping through the store speakers and it wasn't any sort of Pablum-y Muzak. It had class, groove and heft, and as a kid, I was just getting into all sorts of music from both sides of the Pacific Ocean, so I needed to know where this song was at. At the time, record sections were still the common area in any department store so I made the beeline there.
From Rolling Stone
When I got to the Bay record shop, I saw this album being profiled with the album standing right behind the store record player on which the LP was spinning. That was, and still is, one truly spiffy cover for Joe Jackson's 5th studio album, "Night and Day", released in June 1982. Didn't know about the title's connection with Cole Porter at the time, but according to Wikipedia, the "album pays tribute to the wit and style of Cole Porter (and indirectly to New York)".
I'd already known about Jackson and my image of him was that of the angry young man bouncing around for some return of jive and New Wave. He even looked like a younger version of my junior high school science teacher who frankly wasn't the most stable of people. But looking at the cover of "Night and Day", it appeared that Jackson was aiming for a sleeker form of jazz.
That song of class, groove and heft? It was "Steppin' Out" which was also Jackson's August 1982 single in the United States (October in the UK). Over the decades, the song would weave in and out of my memories and during that time, I would always think of it being a jazz/pop or sophisti-pop tune, so it was surprising reading the Wikipedia article and seeing it classified as an electropop song! But then, I went to YouTube to watch the video and hear the song again as a tuxedo-clad Jackson held court at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, and I realized that the instruments were indeed synthesizers.
Still, the elegant jazziness in the overall sound is undeniable, and the music video of that maid fantasizing about a dreamy and high-class night out in New York simply shouts out to the good ol' days and nights. The fascinating thing is that Jackson doesn't go off on melodic tangents with "Steppin' Out"; it covers the same basic melody and rhythms through the four verses and the refrain and yet it never tires me out. It's like a mantra of Manhattan marvel.
Aside from what was depicted in the music video, "Steppin' Out" was supposedly all about enjoying that night drive in the beautiful city, so of course, I've imagined one of J Utah's driving videos. Luckily, he recently put up a night drive in the Big Apple itself. The song itself was inspired by Jackson's time in New York.
"Steppin' Out" became his most successful hit in America by hitting No. 6 on Billboard and even got Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.
The other wonderful track from "Night and Day" is "Breaking Us in Two" which was also released as a single in August 1982. I don't quite remember where I first heard this song but it could have been the radio or watching the poignant video about a woman on the brink of leaving her boyfriend/husband behind only for some folks in the neighbourhood to lend a hand. And maybe even Jackson as perhaps Heaven's most dour-looking angel helps out from the train.
Wikipedia has categorized "Breaking Us in Two" as a sophisti-pop song but I just think of it as a truly poignant pop ballad about desperately keeping the couple together. Those final bars that the piano plays out was what first hooked me to the song and then hearing the whole thing eventually landed me. The single did pretty well in America by hitting No. 18.
As for "Night and Day", it peaked at No. 4 on Billboard and sold over a million copies in the US, as it also did in Canada, earning Platinum status here, too. It's interesting comparing the two songs here with ABC's "The Look of Love" (a subject of a past ROY article) which came out just a month earlier in May 1982 for that feeling of New Wave and sophisti-pop as well.
I'll just go with the release date of June 1982 for "Night and Day" for what was going on in Japan but seeing that I've already provided the Top 3 of Oricon in that particular month via The Go-Gos'"Vacation", let's see what three singles were actually released at that time. Well, two of them were supposedly released in May according to what I've written about them, but "Showa Nights" is showing them as June releases.
Well, November 25th...exactly one month before Christmas Day. Therefore, another "Kayo Kyoku Plus" Christmas season has now started which means that from time to time between now and December 25th, there will be some seasonally appropriate tunes coming onto the blog.
To start off, I have to give my thanks to Scott who's an expert on J-Xmas tunes for providing me with this tip about singer Rumiko Koyanagi（小柳ルミ子）contributing her voice to some Western Christmas classics to vinyl. On November 25th 1972 (yup, exactly 48 years ago today), the Takarazuka Troupe alumna released an LP titled "Koyanagi Rumiko no Subete"（小柳ルミ子のすべて...All About Rumiko Koyanagi） on which Side A consisted of a medley of Xmas tunes.
Beginning with her version of "White Christmas" and then going through the Japanese versions of "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" and "Silent Night", Koyanagi gives a fine tribute to the works of Berlin, Coots & Gillespie and Gruber along with some spoken-word tenderness under the medley title of "Rumiko to Christmas wo" (Rumiko and Christmas). With her crystal-clear voice, I think that she would have painter Normal Rockwell and the founder of Hallmark Cards nodding in approval. And if I still had the ability to do so, I would be putting up an Xmas tree right now.
I was in Ueno on a rainy night around a month ago, and stopped by a good record store underneath the train tracks, the name of which is escaping me.
When I visit Japan and go to record shops, one of my favorite things to do is pick a handful of 45s from the ¥100 box that I've never heard of before. One of the singles I found picked that night was Rumiko Koyanagi's (小柳ルミ子) Yukiakari no Machi (雪あかりの町) . When a shop has no turntable available, I most certainly judge records by their cover, and usually get good results. I suppose good music and good aesthetics go hand in hand. I liked the snowy scenery in the photograph, Im a sucker for snow or cold weather in general.
Anyway, when I finally got home and was able to drop the needle on, I was pleasantly surprised that the music exceeded my expectations. To my western ears, the sleigh bells at the beginning of the track cant help but make me think of Christmas music, which isn't a bad thing.
The music here is stylistically pretty standard early 70s kayo/enka stuff but stands out to me among others of the era.
Today's been probably one of the hottest days of the year so far here in Texas,
So as I listen I'm dreaming of colder, less sweaty climes... a nice snowy Onsen town. A 雪あかりの町。
Actually the above pagoda is the one located in the Sensoji Temple area of Asakusa, Tokyo rather than any place in Kyoto since we never went there last time. Plus, fortunately enough, it was nice and clear on that Saturday...no hint of rain.
The most recent episode of "Uta Con" (うたコン) had the theme of Kyoto kayo. And according to J-Wiki, this 1972 song by Rumiko Koyanagi（小柳ルミ子）"Kyo no Niwaka Ame" (Rain Showers of Kyoto) has been seen as one of the most famous examples.
In fact, after Koyanagi'sfirst two big No. 1s of "Watashi no Joukamachi"（わたしの城下町）and "Seto no Hanayome"（瀬戸の花嫁）, "Kyo no Niwaka Ame", her 5th single, was her third chart topper from August 1972.Yukino Ichikawa's（市川由紀乃）rendition of the song on "Uta Kon" seemed a bit more staid than the original version which had that familiar 1970s urban orchestral oomph, thanks to Masaaki Hirao's（平尾昌晃）melody and Kenichiro Morioka's（森岡賢一郎）arrangement. Still there was that musical pluckiness in there which hinted at its tribute to Kyoto.
Rei Nakanishi's（なかにし礼）lyrics had Koyanagi singing about lost love in Japan's former capital. It's sad but considering the surrounding environment, it was a beautiful form of melancholy. My father never got the original 45" but according to J-Wiki, the original record jacket for the single had a picture of the area surrounding the pagoda at Houkan-ji Temple in Kyoto, supposedly where the poor woman of the song had been walking in the rain without an umbrella. I couldn't imagine such a song being created now since cheap umbrellas are so plentiful at the nearby convenience store for a mere 100 yen.
Not only did "Kyo no Niwaka Ame" reach No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies, it became the 7th-ranked single of 1972.
.jpg)
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5547675-1396208363-8832.jpeg.jpg)
