Just for Fun...The J-C AI Gallery -- TINNA, Tetsuji & EPO

 

TINNA -- Monday Morning Rain（マンデー・モーニング・レイン）

Tetsuji Hayashi -- Rainy Saturday & Coffee Break（レイニー・サタディ&コーヒー・ブレイク）

EPO -- Doyou no Yoru wa Paradise (土曜の夜はパラダイス）

Yutaka Kimura Speaks ~ Japanese City Pop Masterpieces 100: TINNA -- Monday Morning Rain（マンデー・モーニング・レイン）

 

Number: 081

Lyricist: Takashi Matsumoto

Composer: Yasunori Soryo

Arranger: Yasunori Soryo

From TINNA's 1979 album: "Monday Morning Rain"

"Monday Morning Rain" is a bright City Pop tune reflecting those late 1970s when that desired hope of a resort life came a bit closer, and as trendily expressed today, it's something that's chock-filled with celebrity vibes. Even so, Yasunori Soryo's（惣領泰則）sound production is of such high quality that its splendid sophistication makes it hard to believe that it was made over 40 years ago.

The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).

TINNA -- Little Bit Bad Thing

 

When I was a little kid, I remember reading the entertainment section of the Toronto Star and there used to be a lot of the movie listings, including the ones for (ahem) more adult viewing. 😙 There was a blurb for one of them stating "When she was good, she was really good, but when she was bad, she was REALLY BAD!".

That catchphrase is what coalesces in my mind when I hear TINNA's "Little Bit Bad Thing". A track from their December 1978 LP "Long Distance", it's got oodles of disco funk in there and the man behind the music was Yasunori Soryo（惣領泰則）who had been married to one-half of the duo, Tomoko Soryo（惣領智子）. According to the JASRAC database, Melanie Strain came up with the English lyrics, and Soryo and her singing partner, Mariko Takahashi（高橋真理子）, and no, I'm not talking about the singer who used to be the vocalist for Pedro & Capricious, really get down and go sultry with the delivery about a woman who feels that the cad in her life is a bad influence but can't help but remain smitten.

All in all, I kinda wonder whether "Little Bit Bad Thing" is a little bit of Stevie Wonder arrangement with a little bit of Donna Summer enunciation.

TINNA -- Newport Bay

Never heard of this Newport Bay so I decided to follow the twin forks of Google and YouTube. The latter kept throwing out videos of this part of Disneyland Paris but the former informed me that Newport Bay was a body of water surrounded by a relaxing beachside community in southern California. The above video by the way is of a nature preserve in the area.

I think the vision of southern California was indeed the image that the duo TINNA had wanted to convey through their "Newport Bay" which was the B-side to their 1979 single "Shining Sky". Just as breezy as the A-side but perhaps with a bit more of the hustle-and-bustle of a touristy Sunday afternoon in the titular community, the jazzy guitar adds some more to the resort atmosphere described by Tomoko Soryo（惣領智子）and Mariko Takahashi（高橋真理子）. The song was written and composed by Soryo. "Newport Bay" was also a track on TINNA's December 1978 album "Long Distance".

Not sure what Newport Bay was like back in the late 1970s but considering how the song sounds like, it must have been quite appealing back then as well. As well, maybe it and "Long Distance" may have fed into the wanderlust that the Japanese had for all places foreign and exotic, just when the economic boom times were really preparing to go into high gear.

TINNA -- Paper Doll（ペイパー・ドール）

Found this actual footage of 70s pop duo TINNA performing a track from their 1979 album "Monday Morning Rain" so I decided to import the video here. I've already written about the title track here.

Not quite as grabbing as "Monday Morning Rain", "Paper Doll" wouldn't fall into the City Pop or AOR genres. I would probably go for New Music myself. It's a pretty stately ballad delivered with heart and harmony from Tomoko Soryo and Mariko Takahashi（惣領智子・高橋真理子）, and I think that I actually prefer the original recorded version because of the guitar and piano coming to the fore. Unfortunately, I couldn't track down who wrote and composed "Paper Doll", and no, it has no relation to the song by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）.

February 8th, 2020: Obviously my last statement had been made before I was told about the JASRAC website, so I was able to find out that it was none other than Yu Aku (阿久悠) behind the lyrics while Yasunori Soryo (惣領泰則) took care of the music. In addition, "Paper Doll" also came out as a single back in February 1979.

(6:43)

TINNA -- Monday Morning Rain（マンデー・モーニング・レイン）

Well, the last day of summer definitely promised us that the season would give us one more blast of heat and humidity before autumn officially arrives tomorrow. And the fall is going to promise its own gift of a high temperature that will be merely half of what it was today...maybe 16 degrees C tops.

Since we're on the topic of weather here, allow me to present some "Monday Morning Rain" by the duo TINNA. I first introduced the teaming up of Tomoko Soryo and Mariko Takahashi（惣領智子・高橋真理子）back in 2015 with their mellow "Shining Sky" from 1976.

From reading up on the small excerpt in "Japanese City Pop", "Monday Morning Rain" was released as a single by TINNA back in 1978 with the titular album coming out the following year. Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）wrote the lyrics while Yasunori Soryo（惣領泰則）composed the melody brimming with 1970s City Pop flavour.

Now, usually Monday morning rain would be the trigger for some major emotional blues for any commuter heading to work. However, TINNA's "Monday Morning Rain" has got quite the happy kick with the bass, strings, guitars and the vocals seemingly there to cheerfully guide any working cog in Japan to the company. Definitely, something nice to listen to on the old radio.

TINNA -- Shining Sky

I discovered the female vocal duo of TINNA within the pages of "Japanese City Pop" a few years ago and had wondered about how they sounded. TINNA consisted of singer-lyricist Tomoko Soryo（惣領智子）and Japanese-American singer Mariko Takahashi（高橋真理子...not to be confused with the vocalist originally from Pedro & Capricious...高橋真梨子）, and although their J-Wiki page has their time together as being 1979-1981, they were apparently together as of 1976 when they came up with this song "Shining Sky". The single version didn't come out, though, until July 1979. The songwriters were lyricist Akira Ito（伊藤アキラ）and Yasunori Soryo（惣領泰則）.

"Shining Sky" was the theme song for the music radio program, "Music Sky Holiday" on Nippon Broadcasting System which lasted from 1976 to 1984 in its first incarnation as hosted by Ryoko Taki（滝良子）. Sponsored by All Nippon Airways, the program, which was broadcast on Sunday nights, seemed to specialize on the mellow music covered by AOR, New Music and City Pop according to what I have heard from the 15-minute excerpt above. And "Shining Sky" has that melodic feeling that would make it the perfect theme for that ubiquitous image for that plane symbolizing City Pop itself. Plus, Soryo and Takahashi had a vocal style which reminded me of vocal groups Hi-Fi Set and Circus.

The purpose of the program seemed to be to transport the listeners off to footloose and fancy-free lands, thanks to the mix of Western/Japanese songs and light and pleasant banter between the co-hosts.

I wasn't quite able to follow all of the talk and conversation with Taki and her colleague, but listening to "Music Sky Holiday", I could imagine what inspired my old favourite radio program of "Sounds of Japan" from decades back. Plus, listening to the program reminded me of my days in the 80s when I was listening to radio everyday as I was studying after dinner or pulling all-nighters. My interest in listening to all sorts of music, not just Japanese, was born in that decade and that fueled my habit of spinning the dial all throughout the AM and FM bands as I tuned in stations like CHUM, CHFI, CFNY and CFTR.

However, my old hobby almost instantly shrunk to nothingness after graduating from U of T in 1989 and then heading over to Japan for my JET stint. Compared to the crowded airwaves in North America, Japanese radio was a relative desert, and what irked me about the format at the time was that there just seemed to be too much talk and truncated songs as if the record companies basically declared "If you want to hear the whole thing, pay us!" Besides, I was just getting too much into Japanese variety TV and enjoying my quickly growing collection of CDs.

By the time I got back to Toronto, I was totally weaned off of radio and then heading back to Japan to start my 2nd stint in Ichikawa, I actually lived in an area which was notoriously bad for picking up radio transmissions. All my radio-listening hobby now needed was a gravestone to cap off its death. So, listening to this old NBS radio program was refreshingly nostalgic. In fact, I wrote this whole article while listening to the two excerpts above.