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.
Over the years, I've come to believe that there has been a long love affair between France and Japan, culturally and diplomatically speaking. The French seem to have enjoyed manga, anime and cosplay for decades; some of the first anime I saw back in Canada were in French thanks to CBLFT-25. Meanwhile, the Japanese have often gone ga-ga for all of that haute couture and cuisine. I think even the late French president Francois Mitterand once had a dog named Sumo.
Well, the idea was only percolating in my mind over the last several hours but I was thinking for my next Author's Picks, I would bring over some of that kayo kyoku with French titles. But these songs aren't covers of French originals...just tunes whose singers and songwriters thought that a title in French would be c'est si bon. And so, without further ado:
(1981) Circus -- Petit Dejeuner ~ Nichiyoubi no Choushoku（日曜日の朝食）
I haven't covered a Mood Kayo in many weeks on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", so I decided to pluck one out. Usually when I think of an old kayo kyoku covering the drinking beat, my mind unearths Tokyo neighbourhoods such as Akasaka and Ginza, the areas filled with expensive bars and nightclubs.
Harajuku? Not so much. For one thing, this particular area of Tokyo is known for its cutting-edge fashion and fashionistas tending toward the younger Tokyoites...not salaried types in sober suits and dresses looking to wet their whistles with whiskey and gin. And when it comes to Harajuku, the only food I think about is crepes.
That's why I had a few question marks revolving around my head when I saw that famed Mood Kayo group Los Indios & Silvia（ロス･インディオス&シルヴィア）recorded a 1980 song titled "Sorezore no Harajuku"(To Each Their Own Harajuku) as one of their trademark tunes. I certainly couldn't see these guys buying strawberry-and-cream filled crepes and hitting the nearest McDonalds.
However, as written by Yoko Nakahara（中原葉子）and composed by the late Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）, "Sorezore no Harajuku" is indeed a Mood Kayo fortified with even more upscale refinement. It did get me to thinking that Harajuku, especially Takeshita Street, may have begun catering to the teens from the 1980s but there probably were lots of expensive bars in that area, too. Plus Los Indios & Silvia take it even further out from Harajuku, extending through the tony street of Omotesando to the truly ritzy neighbourhood of Aoyama with Aoyama Avenue being the border. The whole area is milling with past and present and future lovers and just like a soup of chemicals, it's interesting to see what catalyzes, socially speaking.
Of course, Los Indios & Silvia would have an even bigger hit the following year with "Uso yo Konya mo"（うそよ今夜も）.
Well, back to the regular Thursday edition of Reminiscings of Youth following last night's tribute to "Star Wars". And tonight, I wanted to focus on one of the first female rock singers that I had ever experienced on television and radio.
Pat Benatar, I was happy to hear, will be inducted into the 2022 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year. I first heard about her right when I was starting to get into music on both sides of the Pacific and at around that time, music video was beginning to rise in the media. This video of her "You Better Run" was my first view of Benatar, and she looked stunning, intimidating and cool-as-all-get-out at the same time. Her cheekbones could be anyone's well-sharpened scythes!
However, it was her 9th single from September 1980, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", that got me with her best shot. Eddie Schwartz was the songwriter behind this typically growling Benatar rocker of defiance and challenge, and not surprisingly, it was the song of choice for a lot of team sports coverage including ice hockey. I mean, it would be a perfect tune for the best of the best goaltenders.
I was amused to find out from the Wikipedia article on "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" that Schwartz had been inspired to create the song from a pillow-punching therapy session in Toronto of all places. Never thought that my hometown was that violent way back when. Regardless, the song hit No. 10 on Canada's RPM singles chart while in the United States, it went up to No. 9 on Billboard, going Gold. Long may Pat Benatar rock!
Allow me then to give Nos. 1, 2 and 4 for September 1980 on Oricon.
Well, it was a pretty banner night on tonight's "Kayo Concert"（歌謡コンサート）. The theme was Mood Kayo in Fall, and although I didn't really detect anything autumnal about the songs selected, it was still the urbane and comfy music of my childhood on display on the NHK stage.
The stage was indeed set when the show opened up with old footage of the bright lights and big city of Tokyo along with scenes of the bartender shaking up a martini and a couple tripping the light fantastic on the dance floor. A number of the classics that have already been covered in this blog were back, but my ears also caught another number that I hadn't heard in a long time and had yet to feature on "Kayo Kyoku Plus".
"Uso yo Konya mo" (More Lies Tonight) is a flirtatious duet number (in Mood Kayo, what other type of duet can there be?) featuring Los Indios & Silvia who had an even more successful hit with "Wakarete mo Suki na Hito"（別れても好きな人）from a couple of years earlier. They were back again in 1981 with "Uso yo Konya mo", written and composed by Shigeaki Mutsumi（六ツ見茂明）, with some magnificent strings and a cute back-and-forth between the woman and the guys as they portrayed a charming cad not giving up on that beautiful lady with the latter not playing too too hard to get.
As soon as I heard the "Sukisa, dai sukisa..."（好きさ、大好きさ...I love you, I really love you）, my memory started firing up in recognition. The only places I could imagine this banter happening in would be Ginza or Akasaka, the perfect Mood Kayo settings. Usually, when I think of the genre, the 50s and 60s would be the decades I get reminded of, but it's nice to know that it was able to go farther into the century.
1981 was also the year that my classmates and I went on that graduation trip to Japan. And on my second night in Tokyo, one of the boys' host family swung by the Tokyo Prince Hotel to take him, myself and one other guy out for dinner. As I recall, we didn't take a taxi or a subway so I figure we must have ended up in nearby Daimon at a tonkatsu restaurant in one of the underground malls. It was a fine dinner but when the three of us offered to pay our share, the host father somehow had the wherewithal to throw all of us strapping young lads out the door. That is what I call being treated to dinner. And for the first time, I felt like I was getting into the swing of things in the evening of this most epic metropolis. Daimon may not be Ginza or Akasaka, but to me, it more than made a great impression....perfect for a Mood Kayo to be a theme song.
Another classic Mood Kayo duet, perfect for that bilateral karaoke session in the bar."Amant" (Lovers) has that exotic tango feeling, the katakana title and lyrics that pretty overtly talk of that overnight hotel tryst of a married couple....just not to each other. As with that other classic duet song, "Tokyo Nightclub", having a few drinks before hitting the mikes is always beneficial. And since it looks like any video with the original singers have been taken down, the above is of a very competent duo and their take on the song.
Written by Norihiko Sugi（杉紀彦）and composed by Koichi Morita（森田公一） (who had made melodies for a number of singers such as Mari Amachi, Agnes Chan and Ikue Sakakibara), the original singers behind "Amant" are the late Silvia (Rieko Matsuda...松田理恵子) and the veteran crooner, Yoichi Sugawara（菅原洋一）. Back in 1979, Silvia hit the top right from her debut with Mood Kayo group, Los Indios, and their song, "Wakaretemo, Suki na Hito"（別れても好きな人）in 1979.
Sugawara is a kayo kyoku veteran who debuted in 1958 and is still making appearances as he approaches 80 years of age this year. Since 1967, he had been a fixture on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen for 22 years, which included his appearance in 1983 with Silvia to perform "Amant". I just saw him a few weeks ago on the weekly "Kayo Concert" on the same channel, still looking debonair in his tuxedo. His speciality is singing the old standards (I recollect him singing "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing" on one Kohaku) and kayo kyoku which have that Latin kick...which would put him squarely in the Mood Kayo genre.
For couples of a certain age who still like to hit the karaoke box circuit, this is still one of the must-do songs to choose on the PADD (the modern karaoke box chains now have the "Star Trek"Geordi LaForge displays....saves time, paper cuts[from flipping those pages in those tome-sized karaoke menus] and calloused thumbs [from pressing the oversized remote controls]).
Los Indios has been around since 1962 playing their izakaya & bar-friendly Mood Kayo and Latin-tinged music. In 1968, they had a huge hit with "Como Esta Akasaka", and then 11 years later, the group had an even bigger hit with "Wakarete mo Suki na Hito" (Even If We Part, I'll Still LoveYou). And for the first time, Los Indios invited a female vocalist to sing with them, Silvia.
Silvia, who was born as Rieko Matsuda（松田理恵子) in 1958, was scouted while singing at an establishment owned by another singer/TV personality, Mitsuo Sagawa（佐川満男). Her first known assignment was with Los Indios, and the pairing was a fortuitous one since "Wakarete mo Suki na Hito" ended up becoming the 8th-ranked song for 1980 after its release in September 1979. Listening to it (along with similar songs of the genre) reminds me of some of those high times Tokyo must have been having back then, and this was even years before the Bubble Economy.
The pairing of Los Indios with Silvia started a tradition that has lasted up to the present day. Besides Silvia, 7 other female singers have worked with the group, and the 9th singer, Nina, a jazz singer, will be joining as of December 15 2012 according to J-Wiki.
As with a number of songs in kayo kyoku (such as Hiromi Iwasaki's "Sumire Iro no Namida"), the successful version has often concealed its previous versions. That has been the case with "Wakarete mo". Originally, singer-songwriter Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉) had created the song for the Group Sounds band, Purple Shadows, as their 5th single in November 1969. That version is above. It wasn't a hit for them, and some years later in 1975, the leader of Los Indios, Shizuo Tanahashi（棚橋静雄), did his own solo version of the song without it becoming a hit.
Its popularity as a duet song hasn't been lost even on the professional singers. I'm sure a lot of them on the various TV shows have gotten together to do their take on the Mood Kayo classic. Here are Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ） and Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）.
And heck, how about a real surprise? Not sure which show or when this came up, but even the boys from B'z and comedienne Kuniko Yamada（山田邦子) did their take. Enjoy!
