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.
Showing posts with label The 24th Street Band. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The 24th Street Band. Show all posts
Perfect for tonight, I bring you another track from one of Hiromi Go's（郷ひろみ）City Pop releases, "Super Drive" from December 1979. Up to now, nikala and I have introduced "Irie Nite" (入江にて), "My Lady"（マイレディー）and "Feel Like Goin' Home" from this album, and this time around, it's "Lonely Night".
The final track on "Super Drive", it's a quiet pull-out-all-the-stops sort of song to finish the record as the young Go basically sounds like one big sultry come-on via a slow urban strut that feels as if it had been created by the duo Airplay (David Foster & Jay Graydon). But it was actually lyricist Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composer/arranger Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）who were responsible with The 24th Street Band interpreting the score . I wouldn't doubt it if Go's crooning performance had a lot of fans hot and bothered here while those disco strings were going absolutely loopy near the end.
I really have got to get my own copy of "Super Drive" someday.
Earlier in the year, I'd been helping out Rocket Brown translate some liner notes for a number of City Pop albums, and in turn, I was getting some valuable insight into the singers and bands in terms of their philosophies and origins. One of those bands was The 24th Street Band. I've actually included them onto the blog already since they backed up heartthrob singer Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）on his December 1979 album"Super Drive".
The 24th Street Band consisted of guitarist Hiram Bullock, keyboardist Clifford Carter, bassist Will Lee and drummer Steve Jordan, some of whom would go on to play for the house band on the long-running NBC comedy-variety show "Saturday Night Live", and I believe as well, the band for "The David Letterman Show". Since I was once an avid viewer of both shows, I probably did already hear these guys in action when I was a teenager. But what I found out from the liner notes for The 24th Street Band's debut self-titled album from 1979 was that the guys first got together because of legendary saxophonist David Sanborn when he needed an opening act lickety-split back in 1977, and Bullock took charge and got this initially ragtag group together to become a successful act.
Another thing that I discovered from my translation work was that, true to that Big in Japan phenomenon, The 24th Street Band, though they may have been born in New York City, was more than happily adopted by the Japanese. In fact, the author for the liner notes in "The 24th Street Band" cheekily declared that they should have been called Ni-juu-yon-chome Band（24丁目バンド...and indeed that's how they are titled on J-Wiki） instead due to their rampant popularity in the nation, and it was the time when City Pop and West Coast AOR were beginning to get their dues on either side of the Pacific Ocean.
In any case, here is one of the tracks from the album "Shoppin' Round Again" by the Osaka-born Bullock, and I'm assuming that it is indeed Bullock singing the song. This is alternately propulsive and floating fusion-funk going on here, and I couldn't help but think of some of that TOTO music when listening to "Shoppin' Round Again", but at the same time, I can hear Gino Vannelli in Bullock's vocals and the arrangement.
Along with that debut album, The 24th Street Band would release two more albums in 1980 and 1981 before calling it a day. Of course, the individual members weren't lacking for work after that.
Living in Ichikawa all those years, I was always torn between my apartment over there and home over here in Toronto. During Xmas holiday time when I often but not always headed back to Canada, there was that certain feeling in the days leading up to departure for my home country but also when the day approached to return to Ichikawa for my Japan life and work. It was the feeling of going home so it wasn't so much the regret of leaving but the anticipation of getting back to my comfy base. Mind you, now that I've been back in my hometown for more than a decade, home is most definitely home now although I sometimes miss my old third-floor walkup south of Minami-Gyotoku Station.
And thus, I come to this particular ditty by heartthrob singer Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）, "Feel Like Goin' Home" from his December 1979 album"Super Drive". Contributor nikala has already provided one other track on this LP of City Pop/J-AOR treats that predates Go's Shin-Gosanke brother Hideki Saijo's（西城秀樹）dive into the urban contemporary by several years. The mellow and groovalicious "Irie Nite"（入江にて）was a definite revelation of Go and City Pop when nikala first introduced it back in 2015, a few years before even "Plastic Love" exploded through cyberspace.
"Feel Like Goin' Home" was taken care of by the same trio behind "Irie Nite", namely lyricist Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）, composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）and arranger Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）. The finished product definitely sounds like how I used to feel whenever it was time to head back to either Canada or Japan. There was that already mentioned feeling of anticipation and also some wistfulness; mind you, with Hiromi Go and Ryu's lyrics, it's actually all about getting back to not so much a place but that person you love. And like that titular super drive, the journey home is fun and filled with expectation. Certainly Go sounds like it in his vocals.
I'd actually translated some liner notes for this group's record for Rocket Brown recently, but The 24th Street Band with Hiram Bullock, Clifford Carter, Will Lee and Steve Jordan backed up Go on "Super Drive".
Posting this in the morning with twilight on my mind. What a nice song to unwind to after a long day. When I was sampling Hiromi Go's (郷ひろみ) output during his Casanova days while going through some compilation albums a while back, I always had this sense that he'd be compatible with the urban contemporary side of music. Just a hunch. He certainly has had the right looks and outfits for it. So I looked up his name next to "City Pop", and voila, this Music Avenue page popped up. The song is "Irie Nite" (入江にて...By the Bay), which appears on his 1979 studio album "Super Drive", Written by Machiko Ryu (竜真知子), composed by the Tetsuji Hayashi (林哲司), and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita (萩田光雄), it has that lovely atmosphere of a rendezvous stroll by the sea just when the buildings behind the couple are lighting up for the night. I have learned a bit about Hayashi from J-Canuck's posts (check out this comprehensive Creator entry) and noticed that he has a knack for these atmospheric urban tunes. I can feel his magic in "Irie Nite" as well. And Go, well, he isn't exactly a soothing crooner, but his delivery is nicely enthusiastic to make the song work.
(karaoke version)
I ended up purchasing "Super Drive" a couple of years ago based on this tune and a couple of others and it turned out a pleasant listen. Although it was recorded in Japan, many of the songs have a New York City vibe thanks to the contribution of the 24th Street Band (24丁目バンド), a jazz fusion band based in the city. They've had some success in Japan releasing studio albums as a group, while individual members have operated as session musicians on the other side of the Pacific. You can skim through their contributions on English Wiki: Hiram Bullock, Will Lee, Steve Jordan, and Clifford Carter.
I was earnestly getting into the kayo kyoku game just when the 2nd big aidoru boom was soaring with Seiko Matsuda, Naoko Kawai and Matchy. However, Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）was well into his career as this young and dashing Casanova (represented by the first song that I heard, "Oyome Samba"in 1981), and as my education started into Japanese pop music, I was hearing more of his discography back then and since then.
"My Lady" is an example of what had come before. Released in September 1979, Go was in that transition from cheekily cute teen to that man-about-town when he tackled his 32nd single, and looking at that video above, I thought he looked like a disco-age Peter Pan. And yep, the song has that disco kayovibe (the recording orchestra string section probably needed some heavy doses of liniment for the muscle pain after that session). But there is also some of that Latin Lover beat which presaged some of his future hits into the 80s. It is one of his trademark songs, so I was surprised that I hadn't covered it earlier.
The composer and lyricist for "My Lady" is given as Harunosuke Karasawa（唐沢晴之介）but that was actually the name of the character that Go had played in the 1979 TBS drama, "Ieji - Mama Don't Cry"（家路〜ママ・ドント・クライ...The Road Home） which also included the song. In fact, it was created by songwriter Kazuya Amikura（網倉一也）who made songs for various singers including the far calmer "Glass no Yesterday" for Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）a couple of years later.
"My Lady" peaked at No. 8 on Oricon and ended up as the 79th-ranked single for 1979, and hung around even longer to finish 1980 as the 84th-ranked single. One of the things that has defined a hit for me is being able to remember at least some of the lyrics and Amikura certainly provided that with "My lady under the sunshine" and "My lady only you". I'm sure the female fans responded to that at his concerts as Go serenaded the audience about how much he craved that special woman. Not sure if there had been any major fainting spells among the ladies on the level of The Beatles or Elvis, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them floated home that night.
