Ryoko Sano -- Mayonaka no Bouquet（真夜中のブーケ）

 

Welcome to the 1601st aidoru article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and this one has got a style or panache that actually sent up a thrill up my back when I first heard it. And it all comes down to the observation that a lot of the aidoru tunes especially in the late 1980s have had some really lush arrangements.

Actress and singer Ryoko Sano（佐野量子）hasn't been seen as one of the superstar aidoru along the lines of Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）or Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）but having covered a few of her tunes on the blog over the past few years, she's got some gems as well. "Mayonaka no Bouquet" (Midnight Bouquet) is an upbeat and dramatic tune which was included on her April 1987 album "Moderato". Written by Masumi Kawamura（川村真澄）, composed by Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常寛）and arranged by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）, I've simply declared it an aidoru tune but one with some sophistication and class...maybe a bit of City Pop here (especially with that guitar and bass) and a bit of Fashion Music there. Sano does indeed sound like a cute teenybopper singer but she's surrounded by a melody which gives the appearance of a lass out in the big city and marveling at the infrastructure. 

Ryoko Sano -- Aoi Pianissimo（蒼いピアニシモ）

Just a couple of months ago, I wrote about one of Ryoko Sano's（佐野量子）latter-era songs in the early 1990s, "Hoshi ni Negai wo" although I had known her as an 80s aidoru.

Well, I'm letting the pendulum of time swing to the other end. Here is her 2nd single from July 1985, "Aoi Pianissimo" (Blue Pianissimo). Written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Kazuhiko Matsuo（松尾一彦）, I think this particular tune kinda represented a lot of aidoru tunes from the late 1980s. Instead of having that sunny-side summery song sung by the early 1980s aidoru such as Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）, "Aoi Pianissimo" is this lush, string-filled number with a touch of Old Europe...almost fantasy-feeling that seemed to be the song of choice for a number of teenybopper singers in the latter half of the decade, although Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）and Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）were probably the exceptions.

No idea how "Aoi Pianissimo" did exactly on the charts although according to her J-Wiki bio, the song was actually her first to get into the Top 100 on Oricon.

Ryoko Sano -- Hoshi ni Negai wo（星にねがいを）

Ryoko Sano（佐野量子）was a celebrity that I only saw sporadically through various commercials (as shown in the video below) and I only knew later on that she had also been an actress, a tarento and a singer, with that final part of her career lasting between 1985 and 1992.

I found this song by Sano which was included in her final album, "Wind & Window" from January 1992. Titled "Hoshi ni Negai wo" (Wishing Upon A Star), I had initially thought that this was an 80s aidoru tune, and Sano indeed started out as an aidoru, but when I saw that the composer was pop singer Chikaco Sawada（沢田知可子）, my mind started thinking that this may have been a later release. Sano herself provided the lyrics and I think her singing style was an even more whispery version of Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）.

Sano announced her retirement from show business at the end of 1994 and then married famed horse jockey Yutaka Take（武豊）the following year. According to Sano's J-Wiki article, she wouldn't make any more TV appearances for about 20 years but then a 2015 article on "Sponichi Annex" revealed that both Take and Sano finally appeared on a variety show. The brief video above has the Takes on a 2016 program.