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.
Yes, once again, we have Kayo Grace Kyoku tripping the light fantastic at the good ol' disco somewhere probably in Tokyo.
Speaking of disco, Rocket Brown let me know about this tune by vocal group The Gospellers（ゴスペラーズ）several weeks ago. "Fly Me to the Disco Ball" is the group's 49th single from February 2017. Despite the title, it doesn't have a single disco bone in its arrangement, and in fact, I think it's a rather elegant and inspiring soul tune. Written and composed by Gospellers singer Yuuji Sakai（酒井雄二）with a co-composing credit given to Shoichiro Hirata（平田祥一郎）, the J-Wiki writeup on the song noted Sakai's comments that "Fly Me to the Disco Ball" is reflecting the human desire to fly in spite of being bound by gravity.
The music video certainly has folks in the late evening trying to slip their earthly bounds and reach for the stars...or the disco ball. Or maybe that's simply the booze talking. Regardless, "Fly Me to the Disco Ball" made it to No. 14 on Oricon and can also be found on The Gospellers' No. 5-ranking"Soul Renaissance", their 15th album which was released a month following the single.
The song was also used as the theme for the amusement park Yomiuri Land's"Jewellumination"（ジュエルミネーション） display.
In addition to Sachiko Kobayashi（小林幸子）appearing on "Uta Con"（うたコン）last night, we also had the mighty Gospellers vocal group making another welcome visit.
Just in time before summer goes out in a few weeks, Gospellers released an EP called "Here & Now" in late August which contains a track called "Summer Breeze", which they performed last night. It's a nice slice of light soul and pop concocted by the two vocalists from the City Soul band Penthouse, Shintaro Namioka（浪岡真太郎）and Maho Oshima（大島真帆）. Both Gospellers and Penthouse have collaborated in the past by working on a cover of Daichi Miura's（三浦大知）"Keep It Goin' On" last year.
Not sure where they filmed the music video but it could be Okinawa. Nice accommodations, though. As for us here in Toronto, we're supposedly in the final day of a heat wave although tomorrow should still be quite warm. We'll finally get the September temperatures on Friday.
I've often used the Orange Mimosa as a slight gag especially within any of the Resort Pop articles in the blog over the years since I had first heard it as a punchline in "The Incredibles" back in the early 2000s. Unfortunately though I've never had the pleasure of drinking one and it does appear rather engaging according to the above video by Food Lovin' Family.
Well, half of that cocktail name popped up on "Uta Con"（うたコン）on Tuesday night when vocal group The Gospellers（ゴスペラーズ）made their appearance. "Mimosa" was their October 2004 single to commemorate their 10th anniversary. The soul ballad had been created by members Kaoru Kurosawa and Yutaka Yasuoka（黒沢薫・安岡優）with singer-songwriter Mari Sasaki（佐々木真里）helping out on the lyrics and though the name can also refer to the flower, all involved had that tall glass of a Mimosa in mind as an analogy for a love song intended for the ideal woman. Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）was the arranger here.
Reaching as high as No. 3 on Oricon, "Mimosa" went Gold and it was The Gospellers' golden ticket for their fourth appearance on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 2004. The ballad was also used in a Toyota Isis commercial.
Although there are probably plenty of celebrities in Japan who can sing and dance, I believe that entertainer Daichi Miura（三浦大知）is the contemporary version of the song-and-dance man that I often associated with the Golden Age of Hollywood in the early half of the 20th century. I'm kinda surprised, actually, that I hadn't included him up to now since I've been seeing him appear on consecutive Kohaku Utagassen for the past few years. For those who grew up in the 1990s or just had a chance to watch Japanese television regularly, he was part of the song-and-dance kids' group Folder originating via the Okinawa Actors' School.
I've already featured one other member of Folder on the blog, and she is actress/TV personality Hikari Mitsushima（満島ひかり）, so I figure that if she's up here, then I've gotta cover Miura.
His debut single in March 2005 was "Keep It Goin' On" which was written by Hiroshi "Jam" Yamada（山田ひろし）, and co-composed by Kaoru Kurosawa（黒沢薫）, a member of the vocal group The Gospellers（ゴスペラーズ）. His fellow composer was Hidefumi Usami（宇佐美秀文）, someone who has been so closely associated with the famed group that the members and fans consider him the 6th member of the normally five-member Gospellers. But getting back to the matter at hand, "Keep It Goin' On" is a pretty cool old-school R&B tune with an all grown-up Miura showing his fine moves and vocals. The video is a heartwarming one, too, as a young boy with his own dancing talents who was scoffed at by one dance team is fully accepted by Miura's crew. The song managed to reach No. 14 on Oricon and was also a track on his debut album"D-ROCK WITH YOU" from January 2006 which peaked at No. 18.
Now, the main reason that I chose "Keep It Goin' On" is that The Gospellers themselves performed their cover of it a few weeks ago on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, and I was interested enough that I decided to take a deeper look (on the same show, they performed the touching "Hoshikuzu no Machi"（星屑の街）). In fact, The Gospellers collaborated with the City Soul sextet Penthouse to release the cover in June this year. The tempo is slightly faster so the song actually clocks in at less than three minutes, but it definitely makes good use of its two minutes and change with more of a modern Latin jazz arrangement.
I've checked into a couple of songs by Penthouse and will have to write about them soon enough.
Happy Saturday! I guess that folks in Japan are probably even happier and more relieved since they are coming to another long weekend with Marine Day on Monday. I can only hope that their tourism is getting a slightly bigger bump.
In the bigger picture then, we all have to plow ahead in this hopefully post-pandemic era. And this song might be one of the sample reflections of this. The Gospellers（ゴスペラーズ）performed "Hoshikuzu no Machi" (Stardust City) on a recent "Uta Con"（うたコン）, and it was another one of their tenderhearted ballads released as their 21st single in November 2002. Written and composed by two of the acapella group: Yoichi Kitayama（北山陽一）and Yosuke Yasuoka（安岡優）, the song leads the way to a brighter future represented by the titular Stardust City wherever that may be.
The ballad went Gold and went up the charts to No. 3, ending up as the 54th-ranked single for 2003. The Gospellers had a good run on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen (2001-2006) with "Hoshikuzu no Machi" being their second song to sing on the New Year's Eve special. The song was also used as the theme for the Fuji-TV dramatization of the Kazumi Yamashita（山下和美）manga "Tensai Yanagisawa Kyōju no Seikatsu"（天才柳沢教授の生活...The Life of Genius Professor Yanagizawa） which lasted for a couple of months in 2002. I have no idea what the manga is about and the Wikipedia entry for it is about as sparse as a desert, but from looking at the cover, it might be something along the lines of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" as it involves a supposedly stern professor who's actually more of a softie on the inside (according to the much fuller J-Wiki entry).
Not sure if it's because I've been seeing groups such as The Gospellers（ゴスペラーズ）and Little Glee Monster a fair bit on television over the past few years but I've been getting the distinct feeling that acapella has become pretty popular in Japan. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of high schools had their own acapella clubs grooming some future hit pop groups.
Incidentally, I saw The Gospellers on the most recent edition of "Uta Con"（うたコン）and they were up there with The King of Love Songs himself, Masayuki "Martin" Suzuki"（鈴木雅之）, to do one of the old hits by The Chanels, "Hurricane". All I can say is that if none of the members of that group decide to appear again on stage and/or on camera, then The Gospellers can make for an excellent backup for the former lead vocalist of the group, having now been known as Rats and Star since the mid-1980s.
As I've already pointed out, The Gospellers have been showing up on television, especially through "Uta Con", on a semi-regular basis, and in an earlier broadcast this year, they appeared to perform "I Want You", their 5th digital download single from October 2020 and a track on their most recent album "Acapella 2"（アカペラ2）which was released in March 2021. Written by leader Tetsuya Murakami（村上てつや）and composed/arranged by Torus（とおるす）, it's another smooth and seamless take that could probably see itself on the practice list of any high school glee club soon enough. Although I don't listen to acapella all that often, whenever I do, I get some of that ASMR soothing from time to time.
Not long after the release of the single, Torus through his own YouTube channel gathered together an acapella group of women to perform "I Want You" as well. I don't know how well the single did, but "Acapella 2" peaked at No. 5 on Oricon.
Was a tad disappointed to read that Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）appearance on NHK's annual Kohaku Utagassen later this Thursday night will have him sing just "Yume de Aetara"（夢で逢えたら）. Not that "Yume de Aetara" is a bad song by any stretch of the imagination; it is a great ballad created by the late Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）, originally sung by Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）and also hit out of the ballpark by either Martin or his old group Rats And Star (formerly Chanels).
It's just that I had been hoping that he would sing those two amazing theme tunes that adorned as many seasons of the hit anime "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai"（かぐや様をこくらせたい）including "DADDY! DADDY! DO!" or even a medley of his hits since he has been celebrating his 40th anniversary in the music business. But perhaps the logistics have proven to be a little difficult. Not sure, but I'm still hoping that the announcement is more of a duck blind for something more substantial and funkier.
Anyways, speaking of the 40th anniversary, I did write about his "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" album which had come out earlier this year to celebrate the auspicious occasion, and there was one song there that I didn't cover since I'd wanted to take care of it on its own. I promised that it would be talked about in October, but well...it's now here in late December instead.
"Tamashii no Brother" (Soul Brother) on "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" is an updated version with special guests Kaoru Kurosawa（黒沢薫）from the vocal group Gospellers and Kaname Kawabata（川畑要）, one-half of Chemistry. However, let me first show you the original "Tamashii no Brother", a track on Chanels' December 1981 album "Hey! Brother"（Hey!ブラザー）.
Written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）under his pseudonym Reiji Aso（麻生麗二）and composed by Suzuki with arrangement by Chanels and Kunio Muramatsu（村松邦男）, "Tamashii no Brother" ought to have been the theme song for cool-as-all-get-out TV detective partners of the 1970s. Oh, those bongos, the guitar solo, the bass and the chorus work. For some reason, it sounds as if it should also have adorned the soundtrack of one of the "Ocean's 11" movies. According to the J-Wiki writeup on "Hey! Brother", Chanels' trumpet player and tarento Nobuyoshi Kuwano（桑野信義）is supposed to be the lead vocal, but if that is indeed the case, he sure sounds a whole lot like Martin himself.
Well, now we come to the new version on "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" which is more of a disco-fied take as if the song had been taken from the mean streets to the starry neon-lit avenues. Pretty cool too but y'know, I still have to go with the original...for now. As for "Hey! Brother", it peaked at No. 9 on Oricon.
It's been a while since I've actually done a Gospellers（ゴスペラーズ）tune. In fact, I think it was back in 2015 that I wrote about "Towa ni"（永遠に）, one of their love ballads. However, I have yet to cover their most successful song to date, "Hitori" (Alone).
With leader Tetsuya Murakami（村上てつてつや）and the rest of Gospellers giving their loving all to this particular ballad, I had assumed that this was a celebratory acapella song of romance. However, as it turns out, it's gosh darn sad since it's all about wishing a just-left-the-relationship partner all the best right after the downward spiral of a breakup, and it still hurts like a fractured rib. Moreover, I used to hear this one all the time on television.
Released as their 16th single in March 2001, "Hitori", which was penned by Murakami, hit No. 3 on Oricon and hung around the Top 10 for 11 weeks straight, selling around 600,000 copies. It ended up as the 22nd-ranked single of the year. Also, it became a track on Gospellers' February 2002 album"Frenzy", which peaked at No. 2 and ended that year as the 37th-ranked album. Gospellers also got their first invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 2001 to perform "Hitori".
I've always thought that Keizo Nakanishi（中西圭三）and Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）were kinda like two peas in a pod when it came to their singing styles with the former tending a little more toward pop and doo-wop. Thanks to my friend and my cousin, I was introduced to Nakanishi's music in the early 90s and I was quite happy with it so that I eventually bought two of his albums "Starting Over" and "graffiti".
I also bought a few more original albums by Nakanishi, but the overall impression hasn't been as great. For example, I listened to "Stay Gold", his 7th album from February 1998, when it first came out but didn't open it again for another 17 years when I pulled it off the shelf today, although I've been quite faithful to my two favourite albums by him. Giving it another try on the player, I just found the majority of the songs to be rather generic.
However, one track "WITH" which features backup by acapella unit Gospellers tugged at my ear, and I gave it another chance by listening to it again. This was another in the long fine line of smooth ballads composed by Nakanishi with J Stack and lyrics by Kanata Asamizu（朝水彼方）who also contributed to a lot of the tracks on "Starting Over". The arrangement and the delivery had me thinking that Sing Like Talking could have also tackled "WITH" with no problem.
Earlier this morning, I found out online that a sci-fi icon and a pop culture hero of mine, Leonard Nimoy aka the original Mr. Spock from "Star Trek" had passed away. He had been ill for the past number of years due to an earlier and unfortunate dalliance for smoking, and earlier this week when one of his representatives would give no comment on Nimoy's transportation to the hospital, I kinda figured that the time was close. Being the Trekkie that I have been for over 4 decades (yep, even longer than my time with kayo kyoku), it was no less sad to hear that he has left this mortal coil and millions of other fans across the globe are mourning tonight.
For that reason, I've chosen The Gospellers' first hit from 2000, "Towa ni" (Eternally) as the tribute song. Released in August of that year, it's the one CD that I purchased of the acapella group because of the mellow R&B melody. Written by Yutaka Yasuoka（安岡優）, one of the members of the group, and composed by Takeshi Senoo（妹尾武）, I'm not particularly crazy about the sappy English at the beginning but once the guys get into it and the song flows along, I was quite happy with the purchase. I hadn't heard it in quite a long time, but a recent "Kayo Concert" episode had The Gospellers on and this was the song that they performed, so I was reminded how nice it was.
"Towa ni" was their 14th single and that's the rank it peaked at on Oricon, No. 14. It wasn't their most successful hit but it was their longest-lasting through the rankings, lasting for 44 weeks on the charts. The single was also a track on The Gospellers' 6th album, "Soul Serenade" which came out in October 2000 and peaked at No. 8 while finishing up 2001 as the 42nd-ranked album.
This article is also the second one featuring The Gospellers but I didn't really give them their due in terms of an introduction in their first entry. The group formed from an acapella circle in Waseda University back in 1991 under the name of Street Corner Symphony by the two current members, leader Tetsuya Murakami（村上てつや）and Kaoru Kurosawa（黒沢薫）. Yasuoka, Yuji Sakai（酒井雄二）and Yoichi Kitayama（北山陽一）would be recruited for the cause. The five of them had their first major release in 1994 with "Promise" which went as high as No. 90. For the next several years, their releases would mostly end up in the bottom 50 of the Top 100 until "Towa ni" came along.
For Mr. Nimoy, I can wish him "Live eternally and prosper".
One of my favourite commercial jingles, "Whiskey ga O-Suki Deshou?"(You Like Whiskey, Don't You?) was this sultry torch song written by Shun Taguchi（田口俊）and composed by singer-songwriter Masamichi Sugi（杉真理）for Suntory Whiskey in 1990.
I'm always delighted when a singer usually firmly esconced in one genre gives a great performance in another. Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり） is famous for giving powerful renditions of enka, but she gives this tenderhearted and flirtatious jazz ballad, styled a la Nelson Riddle with shimmering strings. I can imagine Linda Ronstadt during her "What's New?"phase tackling this one.
The song was brought back again for another series of Suntory Whiskey commercials starting from 2007 onwards.
With the return of the song, two different versions were also added. From 2009, vocal group The Gospellers gave their own appealing acapella version replacing the Ishikawa original for the whiskey ads.
Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや） gave her own version starting from 2010 with the commercial take being below. If that fetching bartender looks familiar, she's actor/model Koyuki（小雪）who appeared in "The Last Samurai" with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe.
For me, though, the Sayuri Ishikawa version wins hands down.
