Lalo Schifrin -- Theme from "T.H.E. Cat"

Regions via Wikimedia Commons

I only came across the above video yesterday during my usual YouTube browsings. It's the annual Turner Movie Classics "TCM Remembers" which pays musical tribute to the entertainers around the world that have passed on during the calendar year. We did lose quite a few famous folks from film such as Gene Hackman, Robert Redford and Tatsuya Nakadai（仲代達矢）.

However, during the tribute, I was surprised to find out that Argentine musician and composer Lalo Schifrin had passed away months ago in June at the age of 93. I didn't know a lot of his work but what I do remember has stuck with me as two of the most iconic theme songs in American TV history. There was the cool jazz theme for private eye "Mannix" and then the far more famous one for "Mission: Impossible" which got its most recent unveiling when the final movie in the Tom Cruise version of the franchise (I'm confident that there will be at least a try to revive it with a new lead) hit the theatres some months ago.

"T.H.E. Cat" was a short-lived series on NBC that lasted only a season, premiering in September 1966, the same month when "Mission: Impossible" launched on CBS. It starred a leopard-lithe and quick Robert Loggia (I had to really look up my sources to make sure that this was the same burly Robert Loggia from "Big" and "Mancuso") as a former acrobat and master thief-turned-security guy named Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat who helped clients who were in over their heads.

Although "T.H.E. Cat" started its brief run when I was not even a year old, this would still apply as a Reminiscings of Youth article for me because I only found out about the series when it ran on a local gonzo late-night show during my teenage years, appropriately titled "The All-Night Show" (which I will feature as a ROY probably sometime next week) that often unearthed long lost shows from the heap of TV history.

Schifrin came up with the theme for "T.H.E. Cat". It's not nearly as famous as his themes for "Mannix" and "Mission: Impossible", but it does have that sinewy downtown coolness which describes Mr. Cat to a tee. And the jazz orchestra reminds me of some of the stuff that Henry Mancini had created for projects such as "Peter Gunn".

Tomorrow on Christmas Day will have the usual and holiday-themed ROY but I wanted to provide this special Xmas Eve ROY in tribute to the great Schifrin. There were two Japanese singles that were released when "T.H.E. Cat" made its debut in September 1966.

Linda Yamamoto -- Kommachauna （こまっちゃうナ）

The Spiders -- Yuuhi ga Naiteiru (夕陽が泣いている）

The Beach Boys -- Good Vibrations

Wikimedia Commons
J-Ham2000

 

The news came here just within the last hour, but unfortunately, Brian Wilson, one of the co-founders of the legendary band The Beach Boys, passed away today at the age of 82, just nine days shy of his next birthday.

As a kid, I knew The Beach Boys as this summer-loving group with this distinct sound due to their harmonies. They were popping up on talk shows and their records and songs regularly appeared in TV commercials. I hadn't realized how influential they and their sound were becoming at the time but my growing impression was that Wilson, Mike Love and the rest of the band were seen as mercurial musical gods, suffused with incredible talent. Their Wikipedia page mentions how much they inspired future artists and genres, and within the Japanese sphere of things, The Beach Boys influenced Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and indirectly Junk Fujiyama（ジャンク藤山）, Bread & Butter（ブレッド＆バッター）and to a certain extent, Kazuhito Murata（村田和人）, among other singers and bands. Perhaps they also had a hand in the whole Group Sounds genre which was popular in the late 1960s.

For me, The Beach Boys' most representative song is "Good Vibrations" which came out in October 1966, a few days shy of my first birthday. The way it's set out in its own Wikipedia page, it seems as if it's been described as a truly hallowed piece of art, and therefore, I can't really add any further insights to it aside from providing a passage from that page:

One of the most influential pop recordings in history, "Good Vibrations" advanced the role of the studio as an instrument and effectively launched the progressive pop genre, heralding a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock. The track incorporated a novel mix of instruments, including cello and Electro-Theremin; although the latter is not a true theremin, the song's use of the instrument spurred renewed interest in theremins and synthesizers. The flower power-inspired lyrics reinforced the Beach Boys' association with the 1960s counterculture, while the phrase "good vibes", originally a niche slang term, entered mainstream usage.

I didn't even know about the Electro-Theremin. All this time, I'd assumed it was one of the band members' vocal abilities which was responsible. These guys were truly progressive and revolutionary. I can't really write on the complexity of its structure. "Good Vibrations", true to its title, just struck me over the years as this good-time tune on the beach with all of the happy and shining young folks frolicking as if there were no tomorrow.

Not surprisingly, all of the most recent comments under the two YouTube videos for "Good Vibrations" have been in mourning for the loss of Brian Wilson. All of my condolences to the Beach Boys, their families, their friends and their fans.

What were some of the big hits coming out in 1966?

Jackey Yoshikawa & His Blue Comets -- Aoi Hitomi（青い瞳）

The Spiders -- Yuuhi ga Naiteiru (夕陽が泣いている）

Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos -- Love You, Tokyo (ラブユー東京）

Shouchi Tanabe & The Spiders -- Monkey Dance（モンキー・ダンス）

 

First off, let me say that the above video is by the YouTuber kirara and in it is a group of people doing the old 1960s dance, The Monkey. Now I was never the greatest dancer when my friends and I were hitting the discos in the 1980s. Probably, people would have described me as a wayward exoplanet on the dance floor but I do remember one of the moves I had was identical to that of The Monkey, but I can't be sure how that could fit into a 80s dance remix. 

Tonight on "Uta Con"（うたコン）, the show paid tribute to the late lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）who had passed away in 2007. Japanese tradition has it that a person's death is to be commemorated on the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 12th, 16th, 32nd and 49th anniversaries of their passing, and so last year was Aku's 16th anniversary. The list of his works for many singers such as Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）, Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）and Pink Lady（ピンクレディー）is so famous and long that even a full hour of tribute to him wouldn't have been enough.

However, I was intrigued by one song of his. In fact, it's been officially noted as Aku's first work as a lyricist: "Monkey Dance" by the Group Sounds band The Spiders...well, to be exact, the cover single states that it is Shouchi Tanabe & The Spiders（田辺昭知とザ・スパイダース）; Tanabe was the leader and the drummer. "Monkey Dance" was the B-side to the band's first single "Furi Furi"（フリフリ...Shake Shake） which was released in May 1965. Koji Wakino（脇野光司）was responsible for the suitably Monkey Dance-friendly tune and even Masaaki Sakai（堺正章）and Jun Inoue（井上順）are getting in on the act on the cover. 

The Spiders -- Nantonaku Nantonaku（なんとなくなんとなく）

 

It's been about six years since I've added something by the Group Sounds band The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース）, outside of references via ROY articles. The last time was June 2017 when I put up their "Summer Girl"（サマー・ガール）.

Written and composed by band member Hiroshi "Monsieur" Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）as their Christmas Day 1966 single, "Nantonaku Nantonaku" (Somehow Somehow) has an adorably cornball "Aw, shucks" sort of vibe as Jun Inoue（井上順）sings about how hard he has fallen in love with that girl. It has much more of a cordial country lilt than the usual rock n' roll, maybe even a bit of Hawaiian thanks to Katsuo Ohno's（大野克夫）steel guitar. Despite the Yuletide release, there is something about the song that feels much more summery, and rather than a Christmas tree proposal, I think that the setting here would be a beach for the one-knee ask.

Lalo Schifrin -- Theme from "Mannix"

 

First off, allow me to wish everyone in the United States, including friends there such as Larry Chan, JTM, Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and Scott of "Holly Jolly X'masu" a Happy Thanksgiving today. Hopefully, you're enjoying some of that scrumptious food and good company in some of the weather that we in Toronto have been having: not too brisk but with a good amount of sun.

For this week's Reminiscings of Youth (but once again, I should actually say Reminiscings of Toddlerhood), I'm going to go with the legendary Argentinian-American composer Lalo Schifrin. I call him thusly because I don't know of too many composers who can whip up themes that even a kid in diapers could get into and enjoy for decades upon decades. Schifrin will always be known for coming up with the theme for "Mission: Impossible" which is cool, jazzy, urgent, sneaky and suspenseful.

However, Schifrin also came up with a theme song that is probably only known to a far smaller demographic which was around in the middle of the 20th century in North America. The theme was for a long-running detective series on CBS called "Mannix", and not only did it share the same TV network and theme composer as "Mission: Impossible", but "Mannix" was also created by the mastermind behind the spy show, Bruce Geller. As much as I remember the opening credits for "Mission: Impossible" with the lit fuse and then the flashes of upcoming scenes for the episode, I also fondly recall the opening sequence for "Mannix" in which all these different frames of tough guy private eye Joe Mannix (portrayed by Mike Connors) pop up on the screen showing different aspects of him (he can duke it out with the bad guys, romance the women, and burn his fingers on toast!). My only question was what was he running from on that highway bridge? Doesn't matter...it looked cool.

One thing that I wouldn't realize until I was well into my university years (the show had already ended some ten years before) was that the premise of "Mannix" was slightly different in Season 1 when it premiered in September 1967. Joe was the old-school detective who was working for a company whose staff boasted resolved cases via computer, and he had to work under supposedly stodgy Lew Wickersham played by veteran character actor Joseph Campanella. Mannix was the one piece of grit in the oyster that was the Intertect Detective Agency, relying more on street smarts and fists rather than spinning spools of data. When I was a kid, I always knew Mannix as a solo private eye in Los Angeles with his assistant Peggy, played by Gail Fisher; he would also occasionally have a line of police lieutenants drop by for expositional purposes.

It would take even longer for me to find out that it was Schifrin who was also behind the marvelous theme song for "Mannix". In comparison with the "Mission: Impossible" theme, the "Mannix" theme was also cool and jazzy, but it was much more open and swinging. There was nothing secret about this song which fit Joe's character. The brassy blasts and the percussion showed off the fisticuffs and car chases that the detective would end up in, while the soaring and sweeping main melody led by the saxophones was Joe in his off hours enjoying the drive or that dinner with his latest romantic date. At the time, I didn't know that Schifrin had formed the theme into a jazz waltz; I couldn't conceive of jazz having a waltz since I thought of the waltz purely being in the classical music vein.

The "Mannix" theme was released as a single in 1969, but I'm going to go with the original first airing of the show in September 1967 to see what was coming out in Japan or thereabouts. 

The Peanuts -- Koi no Fuuga (恋のフーガ） (August 1967)

The Spiders -- Bang Bang Bang （バン　バン　バン） (October 1967)

Masayoshi Tsuruoka & Tokyo Romantica -- Otaru no Hito yo （小樽のひとよ） (September 1967)

Vince Guaraldi -- Great Pumpkin Waltz/Graveyard Theme (from "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown")

 

In the last few years of my stay in Japan, I was collecting those big volumes of the old "Peanuts" newspaper strips which began in 1950. Although those tomes went all the way to Charles M. Schulz's final productions in 2000, I basically stopped collecting them after I reached the 1980 edition since I think the heyday of Charlie Brown and Snoopy was within those first thirty years. The above two photos display the October 26, 1959 strip showing Linus' first mention of the Great Pumpkin as Lucy must be thinking about committing her little brother to a hospital somewhere.

Interestingly enough, it was 56 years ago today that the television adaptation of those Halloween hijinks of Charlie and the gang made its debut on CBS. "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" made its premiere less than a year after "A Charlie Brown Christmas" as the second holiday-themed Peanuts special, and I've also enjoyed this Halloween-themed one over the decades. The introduction of the show with Linus and Lucy getting out into the pumpkin patch, accompanied by a reprise of the iconic "Linus and Lucy" by jazz pianist and composer Vince Guaraldi, was able to remind viewers of the Van Pelt siblings' different personalities without a word said in the first minute and a half.

Linus' raving and ranting about the Great Pumpkin aside, I think the one other scene that has stuck in fans' memories is Charlie Brown's perennial "treat".

Now, as I promised when I wrote on the theme song for "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" a few weeks ago, I will be giving my Halloween-themed Reminiscings of Youth article (KKP's 9,100st!) in the form of the song that has remained in my head from "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". "Great Pumpkin Waltz" by Guaraldi and five other musicians was a song whose title I hadn't even known; it was just a number that I knew as a theme for the special. It wasn't until I had purchased George Winston's tribute to Guaraldi, "Linus and Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi" in 1996 and listened to Winston's slower, longer and even more soulful rendition the piece that not only did I finally find out the title but also that it was a particularly beautiful waltz. It's up there with one other waltz created for pop ears, "Lover", by Rodgers and Hart which was also a ROY article early last year. The original by Guaraldi hits harder in the special especially in the scene when Sally Brown decides to sit in the pumpkin patch with her sweet Baboo.

When I was prepping this ROY article, I discovered that the music which accompanies the title reveal and the Peanuts kids getting spooked was also pretty good, so I've included it here. According to Wikipedia, it was originally titled by Guaraldi as "D Minor-Major Groove" when he did a recording session with bassist John Mosher and drummer Johnny Markham back in 1958, but he brought it back for the special under the new title of "Graveyard Theme". There is some playfully sinister feeling in the brief musical cue, although I think that for a graveyard song, it's still pretty happy.

Anyways, I will be coming up with a J-Halloween song for next Monday. There were a few singles coming out in Japan around October 1966 of course, although Halloween wouldn't become a thing for a few more decades there.

Linda Yamamoto -- Kommachauna （こまっちゃうナ） (September 1966)

The Wild Ones -- Omoide no Nagisa（想い出の渚） (November 1966)

The Spiders -- Yuuhi ga Naiteiru (夕陽が泣いている） (September 1966)

Mason Williams -- Classical Gas

 

On this week's Reminiscings of Youth, I'd like to take you back to my early childhood late 1960s. Though my memories of that time are getting hazier the farther I age away from them, I still remember those days going into the 1970s as the era of the prime-time variety show in America. One of those programs was "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" on CBS which had a shorter run than I had thought at only two years (1967-1969). Tom and Dick Smothers have been folk singers and comedians who had their duo act with Tom being the goofy sibling while Dick was the straight man.

I have always been grateful to YouTube for being able to show all of these old television shows from my childhood since they no longer show up on regular television anymore. I don't think that I'd seen any rerun from "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" since when I did see them in their first run, and frankly the only reason that I had been able to remember Tom and Dick and their show was because of one song.

"Classical Gas" was one weird title for a song but it was one big hit for classical guitar player Mason Williams. Released in April 1968, it was this rather epic instrumental piece that seemed perfect for the times with some tender playing by Williams before things erupted into this whole orchestral adventure. For years, I just considered it to be pop orchestra along the lines of whatever The Boston Pops Orchestra was doing but now I know it to be one of the first examples of Baroque Pop that I ever heard. But I always wondered why whenever I remember The Smothers Brothers, I always hear "Classical Gas".

Of course, I figured that Williams probably played the song on the show. Well, I found out from Wikipedia that he played it several times over the course of the show's time on television. In fact, I also discovered that Williams wasn't only a performer there but also one of the comedy writers on "The Smothers Brothers" and he was even the fellow who came up with the theme song for the show! He would also become a writer for "Saturday Night Live" many years later.

Getting back to "Classical Gas", I remembered that it was a source for a rather ribald joke said by probably Tom (and maybe written by Williams) comparing the title to some sort of physical consequence after consuming lots of beans. Can't take the music all that seriously after all. I was wondering how the title came to be...was it a typically hippie expression of an existential miasma infused into all enlightened beings? Well, Wikipedia has come to the rescue again...the origins were far more mundane. It had originally been known as "Classical Gasoline" as in a source of fuel for classical guitar music in general, until it was accidentally shortened by a music copyist. I've also learned that Mike Post, the composer of so many famous TV theme songs including that of "The A-Team", was behind its arrangement. "Classical Gas" hit No. 2 on both the American and Canadian singles charts.

Unlike "Classical Gas", I never remembered Williams' theme song for "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" but here it is.

In any case, what was being released in April 1968 in Japan? Well, according to my usual source, considering the age, it's not surprising to note that it was all about Group Sounds. I've found three although according to what I've written about them, they actually came out in February and March of that year.

The Village Singers -- Amairo no Kami no Otome （亜麻色の髪の少女）

The Tempters -- Kamisama Onegai （神様お願い）

The Spiders -- Ano Toki Kimi wa Wakakatta（あの時君は若かった）

Alexander Courage -- Where No Man Has Gone Before

 

Just had to. As much as I am into Japanese popular music now, a few decades back, I had just as much ardor for "Star Trek". I remember coming back home from Japanese language school to catch the second halves of episodes of everyone's favourite starship on what is now CTV Toronto (the earliest that we could reach home after the bell rang at the Orde Street school was noon which was when the reruns began). Even earlier than that, I barely remember hiding under a cushion or a pillow when NBC did the first run of the episodes; the second-season ending credits always ended with the still of the ghostly image of Balok terrifying the heck out of me. Since then, it was all about collecting the various paraphernalia including starship blueprints, technical manuals and insignia, and then of course, catching the movies and new shows such as "Star Trek: The Next Generation".

Now, why am I waxing nostalgically here? Well, on this day 55 years ago, the very first regular-season episode of "Star Trek" aired on NBC, "The Man Trap". It wasn't one of the more cerebral episodes like the original 1965 pilot "The Cage"; I believe that the suits at the network wanted a typical sci-fi monster episode to start things off, and they got one in the form of the Salt Vampire up against Captain Kirk, Mister Spock and Dr. McCoy.

Of course, almost every episode and movie that featured the USS Enterprise had Alexander Courage's original fanfare. With the original series theme song which I have discovered was actually titled "Where No Man Has Gone Before" according to Wikipedia, there was the famous monologue ("Space, the final frontier...") first intoned by William Shatner that still manages to get contemporary "Star Trek" fans all shivery.

I know that the original Courage theme had undergone its own iterations over the years, and what I say next may be sacrilege to all those fans, but I've always preferred the first-season version of "Where No Man Has Gone Before". It's the one which doesn't have the soprano singing but just the orchestra playing away with the Enterprise whooshing by.

The Courage theme has been performed on TV since the original run of "Star Trek", and I even included Maynard Ferguson's disco version of it earlier this year to commemorate William Shatner's 90th birthday. I even heard it once being performed on an episode of "Lawrence Welk" (you just had to be there). Then, of course, there was its inclusion in the ending credits for J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" (2009) which probably had folks cheering. 

My interest in "Star Trek" has waned quite a lot in the last several years due to my lukewarm response to the movie sequels by Abrams and the latest TV series such as "Discovery" and "Picard". However, on hearing that today was the 55th anniversary of "The Man Trap", I still had to devote something to my old sci-fi fascination.

So, what debuted in September 1966? Just have two here for this special ROY article.

Linda Yamamoto -- Kommachauna （こまっちゃうナ）

The Spiders -- Yuuhi ga Naiteiru (夕陽が泣いている）

P.S. on Tokyo House Party: Group Sounds

 

I almost forgot that I had another topic within the "P.S. on Tokyo House Party" series that I had to get off my chest. A week ago, I did the rather shibui tribute to Mood Kayo which had its huge heyday in the 1950s and 1960s although the genre would continue forward well into the 1980s at least. 

Well, another genre that actually had a much shorter life span consisting of the latter half of the 1960s, but still left quite an impression is Group Sounds, so dubbed since the bands that resided within this type of music emulated some of the rock n' roll groups in the West such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beau Brummels and Herman's Hermits. So we had a fair share of Japanese rock n' roll bands which likened themselves to members of the animal kingdom including The Tigers, The Spiders and Ox, although there were other bands with names such as The Blue Comets and The Golden Cups.

The GS bands also left a number of songs that still have nostalgic appeal today, and some of the members also found success years later after the boom died out in the early 1970s. Those would include singers such as Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）, Akira Terao（寺尾聰）and Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）. So without further ado, here are just a few of those bands.

The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース） -- Yuuhi ga Naiteiru (夕陽が泣いている）and Bang Bang Bang （バン　バン　バン）

The Tigers -- Hana no Kubi Kazari (花の首飾り）and Seaside Bound （シーサイド・バウンド）

Amazon.jp

Ox -- Girl Friend（ガール・フレンド）

Amazon.jp

The Golden Cups -- Nagai Kami no Shojo （長い髪の少女）

The Spiders/C-C-B -- Summer Girl （サマー・ガール）

On TV Japan just following the weekly "Uta Kon"（うたコン）on Tuesday nights, there has been that 10-minute vignette from NHK called "Ano Hito ni Aitai"（あの人に会いたい...I Want To Meet That Person）which focuses on a certain notable person who has left this mortal coil. Last night's focus was on Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）, the singer and guitarist from Group Sounds band The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース）who had only passed away a few months ago in March.

Of course, a number of his songs during his time with The Spiders and on his own played in the background while we heard some of his comments over the decades. Most of the songs have already been covered in the pages of this blog, but I did hear something new, and that would be "Summer Girl" which came out in July 1966 as the band's 6th single. Written by Hiroto Sasaki（佐々木ひろと）and composed by Kamayatsu, the beach ballad has that bittersweet mood of love with a bit of appealing early Beatles rawness.

But I have to admit that the version by 80s pop band C-C-B is one of the few instances in which the cover actually sounds even better than the original. The arrangement by the band and Yasuo Sako（佐孝康夫）injects a lot of Beach Boys into C-C-B's take on summer love, and I have to say that the vocal delivery is a lot more solid, and it was a nice touch to have a Duane Eddy-like guitar instrumental in there, too. "Summer Girl" was included on C-C-B's 1985 album "Tanoshii Natsu Yasumi"（楽しい夏休み...Fun Summer Holiday）.

The Spiders -- No No Boy （ノー・ノー・ボーイ）

Tonight I was watching the latest zany episode of "Vs. Arashi" with the famous Johnny's Entertainment band competing against the usual group of tarento and actors through various feats of derring-do. One of the guests was veteran TV personality and actor Jun Inoue（井上順）. I had known about him on Japanese TV even before I did my two tours of duty in Japan: he was one of the founding members of the Group Sounds band The Spiders and he was a longtime host of Fuji-TV's "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）. And apparently, he was the one to first bring back the custom of doing the Peace sign when Japanese pose for pictures. Really? I checked his article on J-Wiki and there was indeed a mention of this point including the year that he brought the meme over...1971. It's hard to believe that one former vocalist of a GS band could introduce something that has grown far from its fad roots to become a Pavlovian response whenever a camera lens is pointed at a person. But hey, even I got into the habit while I was there. And I can thank Mr. Inoue for that...perhaps.

Anyways, it is just for that reason that I decided to write this article on a tune by The Spiders. I first looked at the debut single by the band, "Furi Furi"（フリフリ...Twist）but that sounded way too raucous for me on a quiet night, so I went with their 3rd single "No No Boy" from February 1966 which is much more laid back. Written by Spiders drummer Shochi Tanabe（田邊昭知）and composed by guitarist Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）, it was described as having a novel and refined sound that hadn't existed in Japanese music up to that point (translating from the J-Wiki article for the song). The article also mentioned that it adopted a British beat but I couldn't help hearing that it may have come from the UK via Hawaii thanks to that steel pedal guitar.

The Spiders/Mi-Ke -- Ano Toki Kimi wa Wakakatta（あの時君は若かった）

"Ano Toki Kimi wa Wakakatta" (You Were So Young Back In Those Days) is a kayo kyoku that resembles that particular sepia-tinged photo of a young couple being nostalgically viewed some decades later. If there was something that the old Japanese pop songs loved to do, it was to wax wistfully. I've heard the song off-and-on over the years, but didn't know it belonged to Group Sounds band, The Spiders, since as I've mentioned in one other article for The Tigers, I wasn't ever a huge, huge fan of Group Sounds per se.

It may have been released in March 1968, but "Ano Toki Kimi wa Wakakatta" sounds like a summer song, complete with beach-&-ocean background. Written by Fumie Sugawara （菅原芙美恵）and composed by Spiders' guitarist Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）, the song basically comes off as a serenade by the suitor asking that the target of his love be with him always. I wouldn't be surprised if the band's 14th single was often used at wedding receptions. As for the song's own success, it peaked at No. 6 on Oricon, and in the years and decades hence, it has become a popular tune to bring back on various shows and specials.

The video at the top just has a partial take on the song along with another one of their other hits, "Yuuhi ga Naiteiru"（夕陽が泣いている）, so the video above will provide you with the whole song. I felt like yelling the title right at the band when I saw it, since I was accustomed to seeing Masaaki Sakai and Jun Inoue (堺正章・井上順...who share the vocals here) considerably older as veteran TV personalities.

In 1991, the retro-aidoru group, Mi-Ke, did their own Eurobeat-y take on the classic via their debut album, "Omoide no Kujukuri Hama"（想い出の九十九里浜...Kujukuri Beach of Our Memories）. I also enjoy this cover since the vocals by the ladies seem particularly bright and summery here. I'm not sure but that may be Monsieur Kamayatsu himself helping out as well in this version.

The Spiders -- Bang Bang Bang （バン バン バン）

 

It's a song that I've heard often over the years on those music retrospectives or other variety show specials. "Bang, Bang, Bang" is arguably the most generally well-known of the The Spiders repertoire for this reason, and probably the one that got folks off their duffs to do The Swim or any of those 60s dances. Composed by band guitarist Hiroshi "Monsieur"Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）and written by Hiroto Sasaki（佐々木ひろと）, Kamayatsu created "Bang, Bang, Bang" from a riff from The Mindbenders' "Love Is Good"in 1965. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an original version so here is a live cover.

However, the song was actually the B-side to the far more sedate ballad by the band titled "Itsumademo, Dokomademo"(いつまでも、どこまでも.... Whenever, Wherever) sung by Jun Inoue (井上順）. The same duo who took care of "Bang, Bang, Bang" were also behind this A-side. The record, which was released in October 1967, went as high as No. 4 on Oricon.

And here is The Mindbenders' "Love Is Good" from their album, "A Groovy Kind of Love" so you can listen to the riff that Monsieur Kamayatsu based his creation on.

The Spiders -- Yuuhi ga Naiteiru (夕陽が泣いている）

The Spiders were formed all the way back in 1961 by leader Shouchi Tanabe（田邊召知） as a band playing lounge music and providing backup for other singers until with some membership changes and the rise of Beatlemania around the world in the mid-60s, they became a popular Group Sounds band for the remaining half of their time. The Spiders were also known for having a bit of a comical touch  due to the core members of Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）, Masaaki Sakai（堺正章）and Jun Inoue（井上順）. All three are still very much seen on Japanese TV today as tarento (TV personalities) or actors. In fact, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the younger generations are barely aware of these familiar faces ever having been in the music business.

The band's biggest hit was "Yuuhi ga Naiteiru"(Sad Sunset) which sold 1.2 million records after its release in September 1966. It was written and composed by Kuranosuke Hamaguchi（浜口庫之助）. The video from their 60s performance is interesting to see....these guys in dapper suits playing  something approaching moody psychedelic music. The lead singer is Sakai. For an old Japanese TV watcher like me, it was a revelation seeing him sing seriously considering that I used to watch him late night on Saturdays hosting a cooking show on TBS in his typically comically Chaplinesque style.