The Platters -- Ai no Paradise（愛のパラダイス）

 

Earlier today, Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and I had a nice little interview about my experiences with City Pop which will be broadcast through his podcast next week through Discord and/or Mixcloud, I believe, so for you who do tune in, you can get to hear how squeaky like poutine curds my voice is.😫

During our talk today, Rocket Brown (who's attending the return of a City Pop dance party as I write this...looking forward to the report) tipped me off on some rather surprising information: the legendary American vocal group known as The Platters actually recorded a Japanese City Pop song! Yup, I said it. The Platters. The ones behind the classic "Only You" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". These were tunes that I used to hear on George Lucas' "American Graffiti" and episodes of "Happy Days" and even those K-Tel LP commercials.

However, the proof is in the pudding...or to be more literal, in the "TOKYO 1980s Victor Edition (The Compilation) Boogie, Funk & Modern Soul from Japan" compiled by DJ Notoya a few years ago. Plus, The Platters also recorded "Ai no Paradise" (I Know Paradise) mostly in Japanese. From what I could glean online, this was the B-side to a single that was released just in Japan in 1982, "Chotto Matte Kudasai"（ちょっと待って下さい...NEVER SAY GOODBYE）.

I've got no idea what the circumstances were that brought City Pop and The Platters together but here they are, grooving to a very obvious City Pop melody by composer/synthesizer player Kan Ogasawara（小笠原寛）, who actually goes by his nom de guerre Utollo Teshikai（手使海ユトロ）according to his J-Wiki entry, with lyrics by Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）. Perhaps either this song or the A-side may have been used for a commercial. Either way, my day was made with this news.

Hiro Tsunoda/Kiyohiko Ozaki -- Mary Jane （メリー・ジェーン）

Slow dance, guys! Lights are down low and that disco ball is sending beams of light onto couples swirling so close together that parents would be breaking into a sweat.

Yep, that's how I think of Hiro Tsunoda's（つのだ☆ひろ）"Mary Jane". It's like that one slow song to relax the guys and gals down after a series of fast tunes. My first exposure to it was on an anniversary special of The Tunnels' Thursday-night variety show, "Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Desu"（とんねるずのみなさんのおかげです）, and for some reason, regular member Marina Watanabe had to slow dance with Checkers' Fumiya Fujii in a rather awkward moment while the song was playing.

Since then, I've heard the song off-and-on over the years. And the golden vocals behind "Mary Jane", Hiro Tsunoda (full name: Hirotami Tsunoda...角田博民) has been an occasional presence on TV, almost reaching tarento status. He is a singer, composer, lyricist and drummer...the complete package who originally hails from Fukushima Prefecture. Making his debut as a professional drummer while in high school, he started in the late 1960s as a member of jazz unit The Mitsuhiko Sato Trio, after which he jointly appeared with bands such as Akai Tori（赤い鳥）, Sadistic Mika Band（サディスティック・ミカ・バンド）, Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）and Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）along with others. He also wrote and composed another 70s kayo classic, "Shitsuren Resutoran"（失恋レストラン）for actor/singer Kentaro Shimizu（清水健太郎）. Another notable thing about Tsunoda is that he was also the deep sultry voice in the intro for Akemi Ishii's（石井明美）first big hit, "Cha-Cha-Cha" in the mid-80s (never mentioned that piece of trivia in the original article).

But Tsunoda will always be known for "Mary Jane". While the song was composed by Tsunoda, Fujio Hasumi（蓮見不二男）wrote the lyrics pining for the title character under his pseudonym of Christopher Lyn. Originally appearing on the album "Oshima ga Chikyuu ni Yatte Kita Hi"（大島が地球にやってきた日...The Day The Big Island Came To Earth）by Tsunoda's old band Strawberry Pass in June 1971, it had a longer title, "Mary Jane On My Mind" before it got slightly more truncated. Although it has that 50s ballad feeling, I think it also possesses a certain timeless quality since whenever I've heard it on TV, it never came across as dated. And Tsunoda himself has got that certain larger-than-life quality as that one shibui/cool dude.

That term "timeless" often signifies a lot of covers of the song. And folks like the late Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）and Yoko Oginome（荻野目洋子）have given "Mary Jane" their tribute. One of the big surprises, though, was finding out that the American vocal group The Platters performed one of the early cover versions of the song back in 1976. Yes...The Platters of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" fame.