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.
Well, it's been even longer between SHAMBARA postings. The last article that I wrote about this City Pop supergroup with Tetsuo Sakurai/櫻井哲夫 (bass) and Akira Jimbo/神保彰 (drums & percussion) from Casiopea and vocalists Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）and Kaoru Akimoto（秋元薫）was for their "Aquarium no Tokai"（Aquarium の都会）back in the spring of 2021.
No worries here though since I've got them back with another banger of a track from their "Shambara" album from 1989. "Take Me Higher" is another pleasurable strut down Chuo-dori in Tokyo. Written by Akimoto and composed by Jimbo, it not only takes me back to the dance music of the 1980s but also makes me wonder about those Bubble Era years. The crazy thing is that "Take Me Higher" reminds me of Robbie Nevil's"C'est La Vie" from 1986, another supremely catchy hit.
For my final song tonight, I realize that I haven't put up a SHAMBARA song recently. For those unfamiliar with these folks, it is a fusion group in personnel and genre, with Tetsuo Sakurai/櫻井哲夫 (bass) and Akira Jimbo/神保彰 (drums & percussion) from Casiopea, two vocalists Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）and Kaoru Akimoto（秋元薫）plus musicians Nozomi Furukawa（古川望）and Kunihiko Ryo（梁邦彦）to round out the band.
I've already written about a couple of tracks from their 1989 album"Shambara", the funky "Solid Dance" and the much mellower "Lovin' You". Well, this one is somewhere in between the two in terms of overall tempo, and "Aquarium no Tokai" (Aquarium City) takes things into another direction. There's more of a light tropical rum punch vibe and a feeling of taking that well-needed vacation down into the Caribbean, and at this time, I'm sure that a lot of people would love that cruise right now (apparently, Royal Caribbean will be setting sail again in a few months).
Not sure if I will ever be able to acquire "Shambara" but this one sounds very worthy just from the variety of songs that I've heard so far from this City Pop/AOR supergroup.
Well, it's been a while but maybe for Hump Day Wednesday, we can bring on some SHAMBARA.
Around 3 1/2 years ago, I introduced this City Pop/AOR supergroup consisting of members from fusion band Casiopea (カシオペア) and vocalists Kaoru Akimoto（秋元薫）and Yurie Kokubu （国分友里恵）along with instrumentalists Nozomi Furukawa（古川望）and Kunihiko Ryo（梁邦彦）. The band lasted for perhaps a year or so but it was quite a ride on their lone album "Shambara" from 1989.
I remember putting up the catchy-as-all-heck"Solid Dance"and just marveling that Akimoto and Kokubu were singing together with a part of Casiopea backing them up. Well, the track following "Solid Dance" cools things down significantly to a slow dance. "Lovin' You" is interesting in that it begins with a piano solo that feels like it's going into a certain ballad style but then suddenly the synths come in to take things into a different love song direction.
No matter though. "Lovin' You" is gentle and soulful and it sounds so 1980s. It would have been quite the thing to have heard this at my university prom since I graduated right in that year of 1989. Listening to it would have been so easy...finding the date was the hard part. However, the song is something that can be appreciated at any time of the day.
There was a spoken intro on some ancient TV show about there being a million stories out there in the city. Well, in my beloved hobby, I've come across quite a few stories myself as we have worked on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" as we approach our 5th anniversary.
But first some prelude. During my short walk through YouTube last night, I encountered another one of those Future Funk creations by Macross 82-99 with Conscious Thoughts titled "Idol Talk Pt. II". Sometimes I give these videos a shot since I have heard some pretty good Japanese City Pop through all the remixing, and that was certainly the case back in the summer when I discovered Cindy's "Watashi Tachi wo Shinjiteite"（私達を信じていて）through an Artzie Music video.
Lightning struck again! I found the song being kneaded and molded in the Macross remix to be quite cool so I started searching. And it didn't take too long before I found out that the original was "Solid Dance" by the group SHAMBARA.
Perhaps I should say supergroup here since the band consisted of folks from the realm of J-Fusion and City Pop. There were two members from the legendary fusion group Casiopea (カシオペア), Tetsuo Sakurai/櫻井哲夫 (bass)and Akira Jimbo/神保彰 (drums & percussion), joined by two lovely vocalists, Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）and Kaoru Akimoto（秋元薫）who have given their contributions to the Japanese form of urban contemporary during the 1980s, and the latter lady has even had one of her own songs made into a popular Macross 82-99piece. Nozomi Furukawa（古川望）and Kunihiko Ryo（梁邦彦）rounded out SHAMBARA on guitar and keyboards respectively. Although I have only heard the one song by the band so far, it seems like Sakurai and Jimbo wanted to go for a more active and funky sound.
I don't know about the dance in "Solid Dance" but the song is solid. You've got these funky musicians and songbirds putting out this tune that rather screamed out Bubble Era Tokyo just before the bubble did inevitably burst. There is the fat bass, the champagne synths and the wonderful shared vocals by Kokubu and Akimoto for a musical trip through the nighttime megalopolis.
The track which may have been whipped by the two fellows from Casiopea (couldn't track down the information on words & music) was put onto SHAMBARA's first and, I assume, only self-titled album from 1989.
As for the story part, I got this from the J-Wiki article on the band which dealt virtually with just some of the sturm und drang that accompanied the birth of SHAMBARA. Supposedly, Sakurai and Jimbo had been having some differences in opinion in terms of the direction of the band with the rest of the Casiopea members for some time so when they decided to start up this SHAMBARA project in 1988, there was resistance from those members. At the time, Casiopea had just decided to take a break from performing but its leader and guitarist Issei Noro（野呂一生）along with keyboardist Minoru Mukaiya（向谷実）believed that the continuation of SHAMBARA would lead to some problems in getting Casiopea back up and running so they demanded that Sakurai and Jimbo cease and desist. But the conclusion was that the two decided to leave the band permanently (although according to the Casiopea J-Wiki article, it looks like Jimbo at least mended fences as a current support drummer). Usually I'm not too crazy about airing dirty laundry on these pages but it was interesting on how the band got started. Still, if any of the members do read this article and disagree with what I've translated above, please let me know.
However for all that, the life of SHAMBARA didn't last that much longer. In 1990, Sakurai and Jimbo decided to bring things back to fusion but instead of heading back to Casiopea, the duo created another unit called Jimsaku (ジンサク) which lasted for 8 years. From what I've read, the album "SHAMBARA" is about as rare as one can get since any production has been discontinued.
