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.
Last night, my student reminded me that Monday is a national holiday in Japan known as Culture Day. Every November 3rd, there are festivals, parades and art exhibits to promote culture of all kinds including music throughout the nation. And I believe that museums and art galleries tend to open up their buildings for free access or half-price access on that day.
When I was on vacation in Tokyo back in November 2017, my former colleague was kind enough to invite me to a culture festival held at Waseda University where she was working at the time, and as you can see above, it was packed to the gills with students and other visitors as the various campus clubs held performances and campaigns to attract new members.
As such, I decided why not put up a few songs regarding Culture Day. Admittedly, I'm gonna be rather loosey-goosey about how I'm going to go about it. The first three entries are associated with some of the things that I talked about in the first paragraph whereas the final two songs were actually popular ones played at some of the festivals themselves.
Y'know, the other day, I saw this adorable little teaser from Sony Music Japan's YouTube channel.
Cartoon cutouts of the members of the legendary New Music band Sugar Babe（シュガー・ベイブ）appear and do some minimalistic moving around while their "Downtown" track is playing. Then the announcement comes out that their one and only "SONGS" album from April 25th 1975 is getting its special 50th anniversary release today.
Well, there was no way that I could let this one slide by KKP, especially on Urban Contemporary Friday. I did get my own special version of "SONGS" years ago at the old Shibuya RecoFan...I think it was the 30th anniversary edition and I wrote about the album way back in 2013, so that's all said and done. Plus, I had even written about the arguably most famous track "Downtown" more than a year previously in the first few weeks of the blog's existence.
However, as I said above, I'm not about to ignore the significance of this opportunity. Therefore, I've opted to provide as many of the cover versions of "Downtown" as created by composer Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and lyricist Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）that I've known and written about here including one that I discovered only last night.
As for why "Downtown" has been popular among listeners and musicians alike, I mentioned in the original article for the song that my favourite version among the covers has been EPO's 1980 City Pop take since it was not only the first version that I had ever heard, but also because it was just a bright and happy and welcoming song about enjoying a Saturday night in the big city, aka Tokyo. And I think despite all of the different arrangements that "Downtown" has undergone depending on the band or singer, that feeling of optimism and fun hasn't been diminished. Starting with Sugar Babe, the song dares listeners to come to the metropolis. Imagine what it must have been like back in 1975 or 1980 with the Sugar Babe original and then the EPO cover respectively when Tokyo and Japan were further going up in the world and the economy.
Sugar Babe (1975)
I have to admit that the original by this band took a while to grow on me since I was so attached to the EPO cover version. However, I can say that Tatsuro's take is also some rollicking rock n' roll fun which sounds like the gang busking about in Shibuya or Shinjuku.
EPO (1980)
EPO's EPO-tastic version is something that I will always put up alongside Mariya's "Plastic Love" and Miki's "Mayonaka no Door" as a City Pop anthem. Whenever I listen to it, I get those images of West Shinjuku and its skyscrapers at sunset and how they eventually got me to come over to Japan finally.
Another City Pop Queen, Haruko Kuwana's（桑名晴子）cover of "Downtown" is available on her 1982 album"Moonlight Island". Compared to Sugar Babe's rollicking original and EPO's groovy cover, Kuwana's take goes into a funkier and just-as-fun direction but it is no less City Pop.
YMCK and DE DE MOUSE (2008)
Apologies to DE DE MOUSE that I couldn't include him in Labels but I got the warning from Blogger that I reached my 20-label limit; I'll compensate on the original article since until today, I hadn't known that the chip tune band YMCK had collaborated with DE DE MOUSE on this cute-as-all-heck techno cover.
Maaya Sakamoto's（坂本真綾）"Downtown" was a pretty cool take because it incorporated a couple of genres into one cover: ska and jazz. Plus, the fact that it was being used as the opening song of an anime brought me lots of joy since it would mean a new generation of folks were getting their share of this song.
Heck, even the contemporary aidoru group Juice=Juice was having their fun with "Downtown". Sounding like a spacy version of EPO's "Downtown", I wouldn't mind visiting Odaiba in Tokyo Bay while listening to this one as accompaniment. Nice oomphy percussion!
the band apart (2024)
And we come full circle with the latest version that I've gotten to know. the band apart has actually been around since 1998 and in July 2024, they came up with their "Downtown ep". Their take is more along the lines of Sugar Babe's original, and the bright and glossy music video above signifies what I've always imagined about the song vis a vis Tokyo. I'll see if I can find another song to cover by the band soon.
Strangely enough, April 25th is also an anniversary for another City Popclassic.
Beginning with EPO, many singers have covered this City Pop classic "Downtown", and in the purest sense of the word, this is a true collaboration between Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）with his lyrics for the hook and Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）with his additions. In terms of the sound, the synchronization of the clavinet and Stratocaster gave birth to the comfortable rhythm, and the fact that all the elements were random and yet organically overlapped is also worthy of a masterpiece.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).
"Itsumo Douri" is a vibrant Ohnuki（大貫妙子）classic of her Sugar Babe days to go alongside with her "Shinkirou no Machi"（蜃気楼の街）. Many of her songs between that era and her early solo period encompassed the city (namely Tokyo) as a theme but they also always projected feelings of adolescent uncertainty and alienation. Her clear vocals expressing such images of despair are timeless and display an eternal brilliance.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).
The perfection of "Ame wa Te no Hira ni Ippai"(The Rain Has Filled The Palms of My Hands) makes this the quintessential Barry Mann song done in the Tatsuro style in the masterpiece "SONGS". I am really into this Southern Pop done in the tempo of the Classics IV and B.J. Thomas as it is wrapped within the Phil Spector sound to make an ideal arrangement that can also be considered to be a Niagara tune. Yamashita's later song, "2000t of Rain" can be said to have developed from it.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).
I can't remember what the first disco song I heard was. Was it either KC and the Sunshine Band's"That's the Way (I Like It)" or Van McCoy's"The Hustle"? It may as well have been a dead heat between the two because the latter was released in April 1975 whereas the former was first sold a month later in May.
Either way, I can give thanks to old K-Tel LP compilation commercials on television for bringing disco into my home, and that's where I first heard "That's the Way (I Like It)" (ah-hah, ah-hah), and then it was the radio which made Harry Casey and his band a household name. Strangely enough, I didn't see the band perform all that much on the television itself since at the time, I didn't know what "Soul Train" was and most likely it was too late beyond my bedtime to see when the Sunshine Band could come on.
No matter...those who could stay up appreciated those disco sounds and "That's The Way (I Like It)" hit No. 1 on both the US Billboard and Canada RPM charts. Listening to the song again so many years later, I do enjoy the catchy melody and the horns. My only surprise is that it is a very short song at a shade over 3 minutes.
Well, what were the kayosingles coming out in May 1975 or thereabouts?
Well, I'm keeping part of my promise to cover individually some of those songs that influenced one of City Pop's greatest figures when he was a kid via the first part of the two-article series of "Who Influenced Toshiki Kadomatsu?"
The first one is "Kyou wa Nandaka"(Today, Somehow) by New Music band Sugar Babe（シュガーベイブ）which had members who would become stars on their own: Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）and Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次） among others. One of the tracks on their lone 1975 album"SONGS", "Kyou wa Nandaka" is as joyful to hear as it is to read. The lyrics by Yamashita and Ito read off a very happy man's realization that love is about to come around; it's only a matter of time.
May I also add that Tats' music is sublime with that clarion call piano in the intro and the end along with the free jazz at the end as well? "Kyou wa Nandaka" is the melodic equivalent of a fun and rollicking car ride with the top down anywhere in the big city, and there is that riffing guitar that pops up a few times in the song that reminds me of a motor revving up. Plus, there are those sweet and warm horns accompanying Yamashita's vocals. The music seems to be enjoying life as much as the protagonist is and may even be illustrating the vibrancy of the metropolis itself.
Enjoy aiko's own sunny cover of "Kyou wa Nandaka".
So, when I think of singer/musician/songwriter/producer Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）, the following phrases and images come to mind:
Summery music. Moony-eyed romantic. Urban funkadelia. What can I tell ya? 80s workout studio-friendliness. Soulful balladeer of yesteryear.
I think that we can all agree that there are probably a few more descriptors that we can add here, but let's stick with this bunch. As for that first phrase of "Summery music", I can distinguish Kadomatsu from Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）in that (fully realizing that both Tosh and Tats have provided a wealth of both uptempo songs and slow love songs) whereas the latter is someone that I can see entertain a small group of good buddies inside the beach house, Kadomatsu is that fellow that I've imagined having fun with the masses at some large venue outside by the shore while he's manning some DJ's turntables. He lives life large, my friend.
Whether it's on his own albums such as "After 5 Clash" including "Step Into The Light" or whether he's providing music for other singers such as the eternally summery Anri（杏里）in "Timely!!", Kadomatsu has come up with that certain sound that brings to my ears and heart anything from Motown to LA of a certain decade to any sort of Resort Pop reminiscent of either Shonan or Venice Beach. He loves his tight horns, crashing synthesizers, boppy bass and angelic chorus.
So, then, what makes Toshiki Kadomatsu tick? More specifically, how did his sound evolve into the grand discovery for all those City Pop fans in the last few years? Well, Rocket Brown of Come Along Radio and I had a conversation the other day, and we found out that the both of us came across a section that exists only in Kadomatsu's J-Wiki article that dealt with how he had been influenced by certain songs and artists before and after his debut in 1981.
The Kadomatsu J-Wiki article has its share of footnotes, but this section on pre-debut and post-debut influences doesn't have them, and when I tried to look up Kadomatsu influences on the rest of the Net, I couldn't find any particular outside article that the section could have been sourced to. Therefore, anyone close to him or even the master himself could have plunked this interesting information down onto J-Wiki. Anyways, what I'm going to do is first provide the pre-debut influences here (with the post-debut influences next day) and a best-possible translated paraphrasing of what I found (although let me know if I did something wrong). Feel free to pour yourself a highball glass of Perrier to get into the mood.
(February 11 2023: That whole section on Kadomatsu's pre-debut and post-debut influences has been excised from the J-Wiki article, possibly since it was never sourced. Still, I don't think the person who put up all of these songs was simply picking names or titles out of a hat so at the very least, these choices can still provide a topic of discussion.)
B.J. Thomas -- Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head (1969)
Kadomatsu's first encounter with Western music was in kindergarten in the 1960s, but the first Western song that he fell in love with was "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head". Burt Bacharach and Hal David were behind this Oscar-winning song recorded by B.J. Thomas for the movie "Doc Hudson and SHIELD Official Pierce"...sorry, I should say "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" back in 1969. According to the J-Wiki entry for this particular influence on Kadomatsu, he wanted to create original music with a foundation in R&B along with jazz, and also take into consideration chord development and modulation with an inclusion of a Bacharach approach. Maybe that explains his love of some of the mellow horns and those ballads.
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" was also a song that I remember hearing a lot on AM radio for years and years, but didn't know about the connection with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" until I was almost in junior high school. The horns and the strings get me into a very sentimental mood.
The Beatles -- Hey Jude (1968)
One of the most famous tunes by The Fab Four was released in 1968, but Kadomatsu first heard this when he was in Grade 4 so perhaps just a little after he'd discovered "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head". Strangely enough, though, it wasn't the original version that he first heard but an orchestral version that was used as the theme song for a TV drama, and getting really interested in "Hey Jude", his older brother told him about The Beatles and he managed to buy the single. The following year, Kadomatsu took up the guitar and really got into playing their tunes. So, taking up the instrument and playing in front of an audience was all thanks to John, Paul, George and Ringo.
I mentioned about my observation that Kadomatsu was someone who loved to play to a crowd and made his songs to fit that want to whip up the masses. Wouldn't "Hey Jude" be the ideal template?
The J-Wiki article here says that Kadomatsu played Sugar Babe's（シュガーベイブ）lone 1975 album"SONGS" so often that he probably wore out the record. Although this particular track by Tats and band isn't directly referenced in the explanation, I assume that it is this song for which Kadomatsu had a dickens of a time trying to match the chord tensions that Sugar Babe came up with, although by his high school years, he had mastered three-chord progressions for rock music. But he got there eventually and it was often "Kyou wa Nandaka"（今日はなんだか...Today, Somehow）that he played.
Reading the paragraph in the original article, it looks like Kadomatsu had also listened to a fair bit of Happy End（はっぴいえんど）, the legendary band with Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）. So, once the band broke up and Suzuki went solo with his debut album"Band Wagon" in 1975, Kadomatsu decided to give that LP a spin, and was fairly floored by how different the album, including this first track "Suna no Onna"（砂の女...The Woman in the Dunes）, sounded compared to the Happy End tunes. In fact, high school kid Kadomatsu, despite his initial good impressions toward "Band Wagon", seemed to have been mystified enough about how good it was that he asked his buddies who loved playing Deep Purple and Yonin Bayashi（四人囃子）at the time whether it was indeed cool. They reassured him that it was.
A track from Minami's（南佳孝）3rd album"South of the Border", Kadomatsu as that teenager had assumed that the world depicted in the lyrics of "Poolside" was some exotic Valhalla for the grownups that he himself could never access. But he also stated that the world view of the lyrics and music helped him grow up to become an adult a whole lot more quickly. Perhaps it kickstarted Kadomatsu into that wonderful summery haven of City Pop/AOR that had been reflected by the overseas cities of New York and Los Angeles. Those earlier songs above may have assisted in the nitty-gritty of making music, but it seems as if "South of the Border" provided the ideal arena in which to create that music.
I definitely have to say that those three last songs in the pre-debut list are all worthy of getting their own articles soon enough on "Kayo Kyoku Plus".
OK, first off, I got a message from my friend Jerry, aka Rocket Brown, at Come Along Radio. His one-hour City Pop Xmas special is up on Soundcloud so why don't you give that a listen while wrapping up those presents and writing those cards?
Also, you may be wondering why I put up a video of a pivotal scene from "The Blues Brothers" as the thumbnail. It has to do with Jake, Elwood and the band performing some of their stuff at a bar whose customers initially don't take too well to their brand of music with only their repeated renditions of "Rawhide" coming in to save the day.
The reason I mention this is that Rocket also sent me a video of an interview with Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, on what I recognize as an NHK afternoon talk show, in which she said with an utterly stony face that her old band from the 1970s, Sugar Babe（シュガー・ベイブ）with Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）, etc., had gone through the same thing apparently. Yup, bottles and other solid detritus were thrown at them since their brand of music didn't exactly sit well with the audience at the time. I guess that would be called paying one's dues. In any case, the interviewers looked somewhat uncomfortable. Fortunately for everyone involved, happier days were to come. Well, Ohnuki still had another bump on the road in her career with "Mignonne", but then after that, things were probably better.
Rocket also later told me another thing about Sugar Babe. Apparently, there is a mystery tune that was never released as either a single or as a track on the band's lone album "Songs" from 1975. Certainly, I don't recall ever hearing this one on my copy of "Songs", but Tats wrote and composed this tune called "Yuming" after his famous contemporary, Yumi Arai（荒井由美）later to become Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）.
I don't know why it was never officially released although we can hear it on YouTube, and apparently the author for this Japanese article on the song, Tamotsu Thomas Ueda, isn't sure either. However, he also mentions that even the lyrics that he got from one recording of "Yuming" may be different from what is heard since apparently Sugar Babe often modified them each time they performed.
"Yuming" may not go down as an absolute Yamashita/Sugar Babe classic but it's still a fun and carefree tune in that Sugar Babe way in tribute to one of the most famous and vivacious singer-songwriters in Japanese pop music. I can imagine that Tats may have whipped this one up as a sorta birthday gift for Yuming at a party.
A special article to finish the day here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" since I did want to mention that Daryl Dragon, aka The Captain from the 70s duo Captain & Tennille passed away yesterday at the age of 76. All throughout the history of this blog, I have been mentioning that my interest in music really came around in the middle of high school at the turn of the decade into the 1980s, but that didn't mean that I had failed to remember some of the big pop hits in the 1970s.
One of those songs was "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain & Tennille, released in April 1975. Written and composed by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, the song was a long-time resident on AM radio here in Toronto and hit No. 1 on both the year-end charts for American Billboard Top 100 and Canada RPM Top Singles in that year. Plus, I think that thanks to that hit and a few other songs, the duo even got their own short-lived music-variety hour on ABC. It was such a poppy bit of fun for me that when I heard the news yesterday of Dragon's passing, I immediately searched for their biggest hit on YouTube.
As you can see at the top, "Love Will Keep Us Together" was also released in Japan under the title "Ai Aru Kagiri"（愛ある限り）, and on the J-Wiki article for the song, it did get covered by singers such as Hatsumi Shibata（しばたはつみ）and Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）in 1976 though I haven't been able to find their versions on YouTube thus far.
What I hadn't known much to my surprise is that Captain & Tennille's big hit was actually a cover of the original by Sedaka via his 1973 album"The Tra-La Days Are Over" that apparently never got a US release.
Of course, this is a very personal article for me, but being as this is a Japanese music blog, I will retain the content mandate here by supplying a few of the singers that actually debuted in April 1975 when "Love Will Keep Us Together" was released. All three singers and songs have already gotten their own articles so I will just provide the label and video with the link.
I was listening to Disc 1 of Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"OPUS 〜ALL TIME BEST 1975-2012〜" earlier this afternoon. Gotta say that even one disc of his is enough to uplift the spirit...right from his starting days of New Music going into his years of City Pop. I'm also happy to say that there is still a number of songs by him to explore for the blog.
One such song is "Parade". Now I actually introduced the song many months ago back in 2015 through EPO's cover of it in her well-regarded 1982 album"Goodies". I did say there that I would talk about Tats' original "soon" but of course, me being me, promises are often forgotten and I did the same here. Well, as I have always said, better late than never.
"Parade" was originally a track on the album "NIAGARA TRIANGLE Vol.1" from March 1976. The album involved having Yamashita collaborate with fellow singer-songwriters Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）and Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）to get some songs together on the same LP. They were also helped out by Tats' buddy from his old band Sugar Babe, Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）, Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）and two-thirds of the future Yellow Magic Orchestra, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）and Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）among some other big lights in New Music.
As for "Parade", whereas the track on that 2012 BEST compilation cuts to the chase, apparently the original version is book-ended by a rolling piano intro and some sort of background music at the end. Perhaps Yamashita wanted "Parade" to feel as if the song suddenly burst in like a real impromptu parade down the main street, capturing everyone's attention for those few minutes. I can also say it's like a melodic sunny day with that nice dollop of 70s soul put in there to support his joyous vocals (I always envision colourful balloons floating into the sky as I hear him).
Considering that I've often featured Yamashita's late 70s/early 80s City Pop work, "Parade" is an interesting example of some happy-go-lucky New Music without too much of that feeling of being in the big city. However, it is darn summery which has been another characteristic of his discography.
(Sorry the Ponkikies video has been taken down.
This is the original by Tats.)
As someone who used to catch the Fuji-TV morning kids' program "Ponkikies"（ポンキッキーズ）after waking up, the above video is natsukashii. It was the custom of the program to provide a happy musical ending to each episode and I did remember this thing about a group of talented girls bopping about with brolleys while a song was playing. I just didn't know at the time that it was Tats and "Parade".
For some reason, "Parade" was even released as a single (his 26th) in January 1994, perhaps in favourable response to the "Ponkikies" ending. It did modestly well by peaking at No. 29. As for "NIAGARA TRIANGLE Vol.1", it also reached as high as No. 29 as an LP.
A couple of years back, I did this big article on Sugar Babe's"SONGS", the lone album by the band which was released in April 1975. I don't make it a policy to cover every song on an album due to laziness on my part and also because I like to write about some of the tracks separately.
One of the tracks that I didn't cover on the album and that has popped up in my head from time to time is "Sugar". It's the final track and it sounds like Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）wanted to have a little funny jam session to finish the recording and perhaps even place a marker to signify a happy end to the days of the band. Although, naturally, the final product was done in the recording studio, I could have seen the folks of Sugar Babe sitting at various places on a back porch of a cottage somewhere in the wilds of Nagano Prefecture and improvising away.
While Yamashita is singing something in the background there, my memories of "Sugar" lie in the droll vocal gymnastics that the band does. Tats, Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）, Kunio Muramatsu（村松邦男）and the rest all blast out their "Sugar", and there is the "Shu-shu-shu..." Speaking of that latter part, I read on J-Wiki that it was inspired by a similar thing that Nancy Sinatra sang in her 1967 song "Sugar Town".
I had the above tiramisu last night for dessert when my friends and I hit an Italian restaurant by the name of Balsamico at Yonge & Eglinton. In all likelihood, I ingested my total sugar intake for the week after three bites of the above. Darn tasty treat, though!
Well, we're into November now. As I mentioned on my Facebook account, I knew (and was resigned to the fact) that once we get into the eleventh month, the Halloween decorations in all of the department stores change miraculously into Christmas ones. It looks like the weather decided to follow suit as well. We were given fair warning by the weather specialists earlier in the week but it was still a bit of a surprise to see snow falling down this morning in the Greater Toronto Area. None of it stayed, but still.... In any case, it's looking distinctly November-ish out there with the grayness and a light cold rain falling.
Therefore, it's the perfect day to introduce Ginji Ito's（伊藤銀次）"Konuka Ame"(A Light Rain). Konuka ame can also be translated as "drizzle" but I think the song is way too nice to earn that title. It was a song that I came across last night while going through YouTube, and remembering nikala's articles on the singer-songwriter, I gave it a nice listen. And indeed, it was a nice listen. Written and composed by Ito (along with Tatsuro Yamashita advising on the lyrics) some years previously, and recorded for his 1st studio album, "Deadly Drive" in May 1977, "Konuka Ame" lyrically and musically describe that rainy day not as something to frown about but as a poem to be contemplated.
The lyrics describe a city eternally wrapped in fog and an ashen sky threatening to cry over it while another asphalt sky down below wraps around and between the buildings. There are some wonderful strings and horns arranged by Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）which give "Konuka Ame" an urban soulful feeling, and the Professor himself provides the piano solo (along with that pensive intro) near the end. The ballad seems to be apt for a slow stroll under the umbrella. It's not surprising that it has been considered to be a classic in the 70s City Pop arena.
I'm not sure whether "Konuka Ame" had ever been performed during the heyday of Sugar Babe in the mid-1970s, but Yamashita gave a pretty spirited version of it during his 1994 concert tour, "Tatsuro Yamashita Sings Sugar Babe". (Take the preceding with a grain of salt since that video has been taken down, and for that matter, "Konuka Ame" was indeed performed by Sugar Babe!)
Apparently, the song has become a favourite for cover versions over the years. In fact, it even got its own article in "Japanese City Pop" on that point. One of those versions was done by City Pop Princess EPO in 1984 for her album, "Hi-Touch, Hi-Tech" which has that 80s City Pop arrangement. It's interesting to compare hers with the original by Ito.
The most recent version that I know of comes from an album, "Japanese Songbook"(2012) by Rika Tanaka（たなかりか）. Tanaka is a jazz singer from Hiroshima who started learning her craft in university and then started doing the hotel/live house circuit before releasing her first album "On Green Dolphin Street" in 2004.
Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while may have noticed that I've got a number of articles on the veterans Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎） and Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. I see them as these far-flowing rivers: in the early 80s, Ohnuki gently wound herself into France while Yamashita veered into California. However, the two seemingly disparate waterways of Japanese musical talent had a joint origin of sorts in a 70s mountain spring. That spring....or band....was known as Sugar Babe.
Over the years, bits and pieces of information flew in and out of my head about this legendary band that lasted only 3 years (1973-1976) and released only one studio album, "SONGS", near the end of their time together. J-Wiki has a very dense blow-by-blow account about how Sugar Babe got started, but suffice it to say, I will just provide a very quick Reader's Digest for Dummies account and say that the various members got together through the usual encounters of people in Tokyo via their music. By the time the band was ready for the recording of the album, the lineup was Yamashita, Ohnuki and Kunio Muramatsu（村松邦男） on vocals (and many instruments), Kikuo Wanikawa（鰐川己久男） on bass, and Akihiko Noguchi（野口明彦）on drums, although there were changes in the final year of Sugar Babe's existence, which included the inclusion of Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）on guitar. nikala has written a fine profile for one of Ito's later solo albums on the blog right here.
"SONGS" was released in April 1975, and although it did not do all that well initially, its fame has grown to the point that the book "Japanese City Pop"had proclaimed it as an all-round classic. Sugar Babe's leader, Yamashita, had a grand love for American Pop sensibilities, and seeing that no other band in Japan was embracing Western pop styles, he decided to go for the gusto and make a magnum opus for a Japanese group following the American musical idiom. J-Wiki mentioned that Sugar Babe was perhaps the first Japanese band to use the Major 7th Chord. For a non-musicologist like me, I can't tell the difference between a Major 7th and a major headache, but all I know is that this is a very different album when compared to the kayo kyoku aidorus and enka singers that were far more highlighted during the 70s.
"SHOW" is the first track, and Yamashita takes the lead here. Written and composed by Yamashita in 1973 when he was doing his one-man concerts, he used the bright song to launch things off as in "The show is about to begin!" To me, it sounds as bracing as that first swig of OJ in the morning and as effervescent as sparkling soda. The first several bars of the song and Yamashita's wail have been used in the opening credits of a number of radio and TV programs, and why not? It has that clarion call impact. Of the two vocals of Yamashita and Ohnuki, I think the former stayed closer to his roots, but even so, it's interesting to hear a "rawer" version of Tats singing a style that's further inland from the beach.
For the record (no pun intended), the A-side consists of:
1. SHOW 2. DOWNTOWN 3. Shinkirou no Machi （蜃気楼の街） 4. Kaze no Sekai （風の世界） 5. Tameiki Bakari （ためいきばかり）
The third track, "Shinkirou no Machi"(The Town of a Mirage) is where Ohnuki makes her debut. Another analogy coming up, but when I first heard the original version on "SONGS", it automatically set in my head that while Yamashita was the hip and happy-go-lucky older brother, Ohnuki was the somewhat shyer younger sister. But again, when comparing Ohnuki to her later technopop/French work in the early 80s, although there was more of a quaver in her voice back then, there was also more of a forcefulness in her delivery as well that would almost disappear when she made a change in musical style a few years later. Going back to the track, though, there is a lot in that song that reminds me of Carole King and Joni Mitchell.
(cover version)
"Ame wa Te no Hira ni Ippai"(The Rain Has Filled The Palms of My Hands) is the 3rd-last track on Side B. According to J-Wiki's account of the song, Yamashita had originally planned to give it a Southern Pop arrangement, but the album producer Eiichi Ohtaki (of Happy End) suggested giving it a more Phil Spector Wall of Sound. I'm not sure what the two of them thought when the song was done but when I hear it, I think there was a nice compromise in the melody. Yamashita is on the piano while Ohnuki pulls electric piano duty here.
6. Itsumo Doori （いつも通り） 7. Suteki na Melody （すてきなメロディー） 8. Kyou wa Nan daka （今日はなんだか） 9. Ame wa Te no Hira ni Ippai （雨は手のひらにいっぱい） 10. Sugi Sarishi Hibi "60's Dream"（過ぎ去りし日々"60's Dream") 11. SUGAR
"Itsumo Doori"(As Usual) was probably the first song that I heard that was connected with this album. And it was just by going through YouTube during my initial infatuation with Ohnuki's material that I came across a 1984 self-cover. That version had that somewhat technopoppy feel but the original version on "SONGS" had a certain funkiness combined with another recurrence of Spector. Ohnuki had written this during a time when Sugar Babe was on a roll getting plenty of work at the live houses. She may have been referring to this actual groove-settling although the lyrics seem to cheerfully hint at getting into a rut. Although it's difficult to pick an absolute favourite on this album, I would put "Itsumo Doori" and Yamashita's "Downtown" up there. Both songs did get placed on opposite sides of a 45". The other interesting point about the song was that it apparently was influenced by the late singer Syreeta Wright, according to J-Wiki.
Track No. 7, "Suteki na Melody"(A Wonderful Melody), is the duet tune that was thought to have been needed to complete the album. The shortest track on "SONGS", this was also a collaborative effort between Yamashita and Ohnuki in the writing and composing department along with Ginji Ito. It's very much a short-but-sweet song which has the two singing together throughout the 2 minutes and 36 seconds without any solo turns, and it's the equivalent of a short hop down the block to buy that beloved ice cream. It also has its appealingly silly side as well with some good-natured shrieking (including what sounds like a cameo from a goat) and a bit of ragtime piano. I can almost picture that old tie-dyed Volkswagen van.
I could write down information on the other tracks, too, but I'll hold onto those for separate articles since by this point, the skin on your index finger may be peeling off scrolling down with the mouse. As for Kunio Muramatsu, I will also come to him soon enough. "Downtown" already has its own entry.
In my last several months in Japan, I mentally thought about what my last CD purchases should be. "SONGS" wasn't at the top of my list but it was in there. I was able to find it at a used CD shop called RecoFAN in Shibuya. In fact, I found two versions. One was an original version with those 11 tracks which cost close to 8,000 yen while the one that I eventually got was a reissue with an extra 9 tracks of demo and live versions and a price tag of 2,000 yen. Let's say I like my past in music cheap and fattening....like a buffet.
Obviously, I'm not sure whether Yamashita treated the whole "SONGS" experience as the Great Experiment in New Music. He did want to push the envelope, though, and bring something novel into Japanese popular music. I mean, when I think about my memories of 70s kayo kyoku, they are usually filled with images of Candies, Pink Lady, Hiromi Go, Harumi Miyako and The Cool Five. But Sugar Babe's "SONGS" now pierces through those images like a bolt of lightning. It truly stands out as something unique (and is up there with any of Yumi Arai's early albums), despite its initial status as something for the niche rock crowd. And although both Yamashita and Ohnuki had already been well into their careers, I think their lone joint album was the catalyst (oh, good heavens...a chemical analogy now) for what would become their amazing solo careers.
PS There is also a writeup about the band at Nippop.
If Yuming is the reigning Queen of New Music, then EPO is one of the Princesses of City Pop, starting with her very first release (single and EPOnymously titled album coming out on the same day) back in March 1980 when she was still a university student. "Downtown" has been covered so much by different artists in so many different ways that it is a kayo kyoku and J-Popstandard (the chip tune band YMCK did its own version in 2008). But for me, EPO is the one who owns "Downtown". The arrangements for this version and EPO's bright vocals are such that it just feels like a City Pop anthem. The lyrics talk about just having a great time in the big city on a Saturday night...and you can imagine the singer and her pals hitting the bright lights of Shinjuku while the song is playing.
While the single may not have tracked onto the Oricon charts, it did get exposure by becoming the ending theme for one of the early 80s most popular comedy-variety programs, "Oretachi Hyokinzoku"(オレたちひょうきん族....We Are The Wild and Crazy Guys) featuring none other than Beat Takeshi, years before he gained international auteurship, and a number of comedians who would become TV mainstays on the order of a David Letterman or Johnny Carson in America. According to J-Wiki, EPO had also apparently appeared within the show but found the experience "psychologically painful"(direct translation). Then again, from what I've seen of Beat Takeshi putting his young charges through "Battle Royale"-like hell, I can't be all that surprised.
However, EPO's version is itself a cover of the Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎） original done in 1975 for the "SONGS"LP when he was leading Sugar Babe. Although I did say that EPO's is the definitive version, Yamashita also gives a rousing pop/rock performance with his jangling guitars in comparison with the synths on EPO's "Downtown". Yamashita took care of the melody while Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）provided the lyrics.
Incidentally, EPO joined the RCA label, and with Taeko Ohnuki(大貫妙子） (of Sugar Babe) and Mariya Takeuchi （竹内まりや）(Mrs. Tatsuro Yamashita), the three of them became known as The Three Daughters of RCA (RCA 三人娘....RCA Sannin Musume). Not surprisingly, the three of them often helped each other on backup chores in their individual albums.
Below is the YMCK and DÉ DÉ MOUSE version of "Downtown".
In the last couple of years, I've become a huge fan of this lady's work. Strangely enough, I'd bought her BEST double-CD set close to a decade ago but I guess I hadn't been too impressed on my first listen since I let it sit in my CD case for a few more years before I finally heard the light. That double-CD set mostly focused on her 80s technopop/European songs which were more than enough to start scouring for the original albums. However, once I got those under my belt and on my shelves, I wanted to search for some of her older work, before her fateful collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto(坂本龍一): namely, her first two solo albums, and then even earlier with her time as co-vocal in New Music band, Sugar Babe(シュガー・ベイブ）.
Taeko Ohnuki(大貫妙子) was born in Suginami Ward, Tokyo, in 1953. Twenty years later, she, along with four others including singer Tatsuro Yamashita(山下達郎) (who I wrote about a couple of entries ago for "Ride On Time"), created Sugar Babe. Now, I mentioned that this was a New Music band...and this is where things get confusing even for me. According to the definition on J-Wiki,New Music was an urban contemporary form mixed in with Japanese popular music, ergo kayo kyoku (mixologically speaking, rum and sake?). OK, so then where does City Pop come in? Well, just for the sake of this blog and these brain cells (or cell) in my head, I'm gonna consider New Music to be more of the Western-style Japanese pop songs in the early/mid 70s, while City Pop starts up in the late 70s and into the 80s. In any case, the J-Wiki write-up on Sugar Babe itself talks of how the band used different Western chords which would further set it apart from other popular forms of the time such as enka and aidoru.
Back to our regularly scheduled entry. "Itsumo Douri"(As Usual) is a short mid-tempo upbeat tune about someone just getting on with life in the big city. There is a fusion of 70s pop, big city sax and strings which helps in relating that feeling of a young woman's life in Tokyo. And after listening to Ohnuki's breathy, almost whispery voice in the 80s, it's a revelation to hear this song which is very different from her work with "Professor"Sakamoto. The song itself was released as the B-side for the single "Downtown", sung by Yamashita and now a Japanese pop standard. The album, "Songs" was released at about the same time in April 1975.
I'll be going further into Ohnuki-san's career over the next number of months since she, in my estimation anyways, did some remarkable work through the late 70s and early 80s.
