Marie Igarashi -- Kibouhou made（喜望峰まで）/Mujin Ressha（無人列車）

 

Just a little over a year ago, I introduced singer and host Marie Igarashi（五十嵐麻利江）who I encountered through a snazzy City Pop number titled "Juu-roku-sai no Aki"（16才の秋）from her 1979 album "Umi wo Kanjiru Toki"（海を感じる時...When I Feel the Sea）. Eventually, Igarashi would direct her musical talents toward opera in the middle of the 1980s.

But before her training in Italy, she had a couple of pop albums to get through. One song from her 1981 album "Daydream" was "Kibouhou made" (Up to the Cape of Good Hope) which comes across as a breezy and optimistic pop number providing a romantic travelogue through South Africa. The tour is definitely at a brisk pace. Igarashi, Masato Kai（甲斐正人）and Takayuki Inoue（井上尭之）were behind the melody while Takashi Nakahata（仲畑貴志）and Kazuko Katagiri（片桐和子）took care of the lyrics. 

Speaking of "Umi wo Kanjiru Toki", I also found this basically short instrumental "Mujin Ressha" (Empty Train) which has some chorus-like vocals. Written and composed by Kei Ogura（小椋佳）, it's dominated by electric guitar and hard-hitting piano as I get some Linda Ronstadt rock vibes in the arrangement. 

Takayuki Inoue -- Kentoushi（遣唐使）

 

Happy Monday to you all. Finally caught "Black Widow" this afternoon. I had read that this particular Marvel movie was somewhat of a bust financially, but I enjoyed it quite a lot for the dysfunctional family comedy angle, and I think Florence Pugh as Yelena and David Harbour as Alexei almost stole the show. I will be catching up on a number of Marvel properties over the next few weeks.

Anyways on to the music. It's been a few years since I reported on the fact that singer, guitarist and songwriter Takayuki Inoue（井上堯之）had passed away at the age of 77. I knew that he was with The Spiders and PYG before he established his own group, Takayuki Inoue Band（井上堯之バンド）. What I hadn't known was that the band was backing up Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）early in 1971 and then the band itself changed its name slightly to Takayuki Inoue Water Band between 1975 and 1976.

There was then a bit of confusion on my part when I encountered this track from an October 1981 album that I had initially read as "Wagon" by the Takayuki Inoue Water Band. Well, that was an error. Forgetting that Inoue also put out officially solo albums, it actually reads "Water Band Wagon" by Takayuki Inoue. Still, looking at the lineup on Discogs, a number of his old bandmates were helping out, so I gather that it was still the Water Band in play.

Seeing a tuxedo-sporting Inoue joyfully jumping in a tunnel on that cover, I gather that the album would contain at least some catchy and whimsical pieces, and I think "Kentoushi", written and composed by Inoue, is a good example. When I looked up the term on Jisho.org, I found out that it means "An Envoy to Tang China"; yeah, that's pretty whimsical. What really puts the point on it is the quirky melody including a loopy guitar that sounds like something that any of the Yellow Magic Orchestra fellows, Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）or Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, or Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）or Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）would do at the time. It's unusual but very approachable for the ears and it makes me wonder what other goodies could be contained within "Water Band Wagon".

Kunie Tanaka -- Sammy Bow（サミー・ボウ）

 

Continuing on from Friday's article in which I noted the passing of actor Kunie Tanaka（田中邦衛）on March 24th this year, I found out that Tanaka had released a couple of singles in 1971 and 1980 (though J-Wiki states the latter single came out in 1981).

The latter one is "Sammy Bow", and that romanization of the title is a pure guess on my part. I really don't know about who the title character is outside of the revelation through Yu Aku's（阿久悠）lyrics that he is the son of the protagonist and he was born in a port town. Perhaps it's a tribute to the scion in the same way that the old chestnut "Danny Boy" is.

I punched in the original katakana for "Sammy Bow" in Yahoo Japan, and I certainly got a hit which led me to the J-Wiki article for Sammy Baugh (March 17, 1914 – December 17, 2008) who played for the Washington Redskins in the National Football League. Not really sure if Tanaka's ballad and Baugh really have a connection.

Perhaps Tanaka's vocals weren't the most polished but their cracking and crackling qualities helped the image of a father's heartfelt feelings toward his son within a country melody composed by Katsuo Ono（大野克夫）and arranged by Takayuki Inoue（井上堯之）. A year after the release of "Sammy Bow", the heartwarming family drama "Kita no Kuni kara"（北の国から）starring Tanaka also came onto the small screen so an emotional connection can be made there.

The above video might have a few of Tanaka's fans getting a little misty-eyed at this time because it shows a 1980 Budokan concert celebrating the 20th anniversary of Yuzo Kayama's（加山雄三）career. Kayama and Tanaka were the rivals in the "Wakadaisho"（若大将）film series in the 1960s, and Kayama had his old co-star come onto the stage to sing "Sammy Bow". Kayama graciously pointed out that without Tanaka, there probably wouldn't have been any Kayama in show business.

Kenji Sawada -- Koi wa Jamamono（恋は邪魔もの）

Knowing about singer and bon vivant Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）ever since I really got into Japanese popular music in the early 1980s, I have to admit that in all likelihood I've only scratched the surface of one of the most flamboyant kayo singers.

Luckily, commenter bon dropped by to give me some suggestions on the last article for Julie. One of his favourite by Sawada from the 1970s is "Koi wa Jamamono" (Love is a Pain). Released in March 1974 as his 9th single, this is a bouncy but perhaps-not-completely-happy number according to Kazumi Yasui's（安井かずみ）lyrics in which an arrogant young cad feels that his latest young conquest is a bit too clingy, and yet he just can't seem to get rid of her in his mind and perhaps his soul. Maybe a reckoning is coming for him finally.

The pop/rock melody is provided by Kunihiko Kase（加瀬邦彦）and performing the music behind Sawada is the Takayuki Inoue Band（井上堯之バンド）, the same group behind one of the most famous television themes in Japanese history, the theme for the cop show "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）. Katsuo Ono（大野克夫）, one of the members of that band, handled the arrangement. "Koi wa Jamamono" went all the way up to No. 4 on Oricon, and it became the 44th-ranked single for 1974.

While I was working on this article, I found out at one point that I couldn't import the videos for some reason. I was a bit worried that the YouTube masters weren't happy at me for some reason, but then when I checked Twitter, it looks everyone was finding out that the video service had gone down. Folks were kinda freaking out there. Thankfully, it was only out for about 15 minutes. Whew!😓

Takayuki Inoue/George Yanagi & Rainy Wood/Dave Hirao -- Hitori ~ I Stand Alone（一人）

Was logging into Mixi this morning when I read the headline that singer, guitarist and songwriter Takayuki Inoue（井上堯之）had passed away a few days ago on May 2nd at the age of 77. He was a member of the famous Group Sounds band The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース）and the New Rock band PYG before striking out on his own and creating his own group Takayuki Inoue Band（井上堯之バンド）. 

For the general public, he will probably be known best as the person behind the creation of one of the most famous police drama show themes on Japanese TV, if not one of the most famous Japanese TV themes, period, the title song for "Taiyo ni Hoero!"（太陽にほえろ！）from the early 1970s.

My tribute for him will be through the first track of his debut solo album "Water Mind" from 1976, "Hitori ~ I Stand Alone" (One Person). It's a lilting rock ballad composed by Inoue and written by Osami Kishibe（岸部修三）who would later be known as the veteran character actor Ittoku Kishibe（岸部一徳）. "I Stand Alone" sounds like the perfect 1970s theme tune for all of those lone wolves out there as Inoue sings about being left all to himself while he continues to sing his song. My image of the tune has him and his guitar in the loneliest but most beautiful environment, perhaps by the sea as the sun is going down, while singing to no one in particular.

I also have to give props to the creator of the video above. It was actually uploaded in January 2017 by Ryoichi Matsuura but it looks like it was created in notice of Inoue's passing, and the final images of the smiling young Inoue fading into the content appearance of the much older singer make it the perfect goodbye.

(7:01)

In 1978, George Yanagi & Rainy Wood（柳ジョージ＆レイニーウッド）performed a less intimate cover of "I Stand Alone" for their debut album "Time In Changes". The song still has plenty of that bluesy flavour.

However, there was an even earlier recording of the song by Yokohama musician-actor Dave Hirao（デイヴ平尾）as the B-side for his 1972 single "Boku-tachi no Yoake"（僕達の夜明け...Our Dawn）.

Kenji Sawada -- Miserareta Yoru （魅せられた夜）

Any knowledge that I have about singer Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）has really been just on two periods of his career: his time as a member of The Tigers during the Group Sounds era of the late 1960s and then his exciting period from the late 1970s into the 1980s as a glam rocker/New Wave artist (or artiste). To be honest, I'm still a bit hazy about that in-between time in the early 1970s when he started out as a member of the rock group PYG and then went solo afterwards.

My first-ever article on Sawada was his 6th single, "Kiken na Futari"（危険なふたり）, his first No. 1 hit from April 1973, which whenever I listen to it still has quintessentially 1970s energetic kayo sound with the strings and electric guitar. The melody wouldn't be anything that I would have heard in Canada or the United States at the time. However, today I encountered on YouTube his 8th single that was released later that year in November, "Miserareta Yoru" (A Captivating Night), and like that title, I was immediately captivated by the keyboard work right from note one. It was definitely a type of song that I had never heard from Julie before to the extent that I have classified it as New Music.

And well, there's a reason for that. "Misearareta Yoru" is actually a cover of a French song sung by the late Israeli pop singer Mike Brant, "Mais dans la lumière", in 1971. Jean Renard was responsible for the original words and music that had the song sound much more epic. That heavy horn intro also reminded me of a lot of passages in much later hip hop songs. Overall, the song seemed to represent a fellow coming out of an exceedingly dark time in his life before joyfully shedding that huge burden from the top of the Eiffel Tower. It's rather sad, though, that Brant, who had been suffering from depression, finally took his own life in 1975.

Julie's cover comes off as being quite a bit more lighthearted and wistful with Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）writing the Japanese lyrics for him, although the line of quickly repeated "Je t'aime" was retained. The dark time had already been sloughed off some time back and it was already well into that jaunty walk. However, it's still the music that has hooked me onto this one....something that sounds strangely mod. Apparently, according to J-Wiki, it was the Takayuki Inoue Band（井上堯之バンド）who backed him up on "Miserareta Yoru" which peaked at No. 3 on Oricon. It ended up becoming the 24th-ranked single of the following year.

Always like coming across something old that is new to me.

Masahiko Kondo -- Orokamono （愚か者）

The other day, I saw a far more weathered Masahiko "Matchy" Kondo（近藤真彦）show up on the NHK morning wide show, "Asaichi" to talk about his career and life after which he performed one of his famous songs, "Orokamono" (Fool). I haven't written a whole lot about Matchy but what I have talked about has been on his early tunes in the early 80s when he was playing the role of the hyper teenage rebel.

"Orokamono" was released on New Year's Day 1987 as Kondo's 23rd single, and although he was still nowhere near middle age at that point, his role in the song seemed to be that of a more worldly, or perhaps more world-weary, fellow giving some tough-guy reassurance to a woman who might be his kid sister or a former flame after going off the rails. In his performances of the song, there was none of that high-energy grinning and dancing that represented his music from the early days. It was just him, the mike and the hard attitude.

I remembering seeing Matchy singing "Orokamono" a number of times on the video rentals of "The Best 10" and the other music shows, and in fact, I managed to purchase a compilation album of Japanese pop music in Chinatown which had the song as well. Written by Ayumi Date ( 伊達歩...which is actually a pen name for author/lyricist Shizuka Ijuin) and composed by Takayuki Inoue（井上堯之）, the song went all the way up to No. 2 on the Oricon charts and became the 35th-ranked song for 1987. As well, it was responsible for him getting onto that year's Kohaku Utagassen for the 7th of 9 times.

Now that Matchy is indeed in middle age, I think the song fits him even more like a glove now.

The song has been covered a number of times by other artists but here is composer Takayuki Inoue himself giving his own version with help from rock singer-composer Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）. Speaking of Inoue, the man also happens to be the one behind one of the most famous TV theme songs in Japan.

Takayuki Inoue Band -- Kizu Darake no Tenshi （傷だらけの天使）

For years, I used to hear this instrumental jingle for a car commercial that sounded as if it came from a Benny Hill episode. I mean, the saxophone in it just sounded so goofy and footloose and fancy-free. Little did I know that it was once the theme song for a popular 1974 detective show, "Kizu Darake no Tenshi" (Battered Angels) on NTV. And I was surprised that it was by the same guys, the Takayuki Inoue Band（井上堯之バンド）, who came up with the iconic theme for the cop show, "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）, but then again, there was that sax in that theme, too. Perhaps I should have known. And to cap it all off, I actually had the song amongst the short stack of novelty mini-CDs that I got from my former student as a going-away present.

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

Since its use as the theme for "Kizu Darake no Tenshi", it's been recycled over the decades as a jingle for a number of ads, including the one for that aforementioned car. Another ad is for the above, a drink that mixes espresso coffee and soda water....blecch!

Takayuki Inoue Band -- Theme from "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）

One of the mainstays on Japanese TV in the 60s-80s was the cop show. And probably the most famous one of all was "Taiyo ni Hoero"(Bark at the Sun) starring Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎） as the shibui leader of an elite police squad in Tokyo. The show ran from 1972 to 1986, and its cast of almost entirely men ran.....and ran.....and ran.....and ran. Plus, they probably fired off more bullets in one show than the real Tokyo police did in 20 years (remember, Tokyo is a city in which if a cop's bullet is fired at all [it doesn't even have to hit the perp], it becomes the top story on the news). The show reminds me a lot of the original "Hawaii Five-O" with Jack Lord which preceded "Taiyo" by only a few years and also had a very long run.

I wish I could have found the original opening credits scene....but I'll settle with the title card...and the theme, of course, which is probably one of the most famous in Japanese television history. It's been used in a lot of other TV shows for effect; in fact, the first time I heard it was on a parody skit done on the Drifters' comedy-variety hour, "Hachi-ji Da Yo! Zen'in Shuugo!"（８時だよ！全員集合！...It's 8 O'Clock! Everybody Get Together!)where the comedians were doing their own version of the cop show....without pants. But I can say that I have also actually seen a few episodes of the series itself.

On English Wikipedia, the theme song was described as being "mariachi-like..." Not quite sure if I agree with that description; I think the song is more a funk-rock ode to life in the big city. You just get that urge to smoke a cigarette when you hear it. In any case, the song was composed by Katsuo Ono（大野克夫）, a former member of the Group Sounds band, The Spiders (whose work is already profiled), and it was performed by the Takayuki Inoue Band（井上堯之バンド）, composed of members from The Spiders and early 70s supergroup PYG, in itself composed of the remaining members from the other Group Sounds bands, including The Spiders and The Tigers.

The above is a commercial parody of the original series for BOSS Iced Coffee, but if you look carefully, you may recognize a fellow who's just been nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar. I think he should get the Oscar right now for just performing in a Japanese commercial.