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.
It is once again Hump Day this week so perhaps the stress levels and blue feelings are at their peak. Well, I can't prescribe anything professionally, but at least, I can provide some soothing music. This time, I'm plucking something from the Group Sounds era of the late 1960s in Japan...specifically, this B-side from a March 1969 single by The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）titled "Kaze wa Shiranai"(The Wind Doesn't Know). Written by Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）and composed by Kunihiko Murai（村井邦彦）, it was the flip side of The Tigers' 9th single"Utsukushiki Ai no Okite"（美しき愛の掟...A Decree of Love）.
There are some lovely harmonies between Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）and his colleagues and some peaceful arrangements as a lot of natural images come through Iwatani's lyrics such as wind, rainbows and the great big sky. I guess that would be par for the course for a pop song from the late 1960s. However, the impression that I got from the song was that one shouldn't rely on those symbols of nature for wisdom; ultimately, one has to rely on his/her own soul for guidance.
Some months later in December 1969,the folk duo Toi et Moi（トワ・エ・モワ）recorded a cover of "Kaze wa Shiranai" for their first album of cover songs,"Anata to Watashi to Toi et Moi"（あなたと私とトワ・エ・モワ）. The English translation of "You and Me and You and Me" sounds obviously redundant which may explain the official English title of "A Wonderful World of Toi et Moi". Anyways, their cover version is also lovely and it sounds a little more upbeat.
There are a number of reasons that I actually gained weight while living in Japan instead of the opposite and probably healthier direction. One is that the average convenience store held some scrumptious snacks including various forms of chocolate. The famous company Meiji（明治製菓）was also complicit by providing some of that cacao goodness including those chocolate-covered almonds. If the product being stated on this blog sounds familiar, then you must have read yesterday's article on Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Synchronicity ~ Suteki na Guuzen"（シンクロニシティ (素敵な偶然)）since the song was used for that particular Meiji confection.
From Amazon.jp
Yeah, that's right. YOU! Damn you, Meiji Almond Chocolates and your sultry chocolatey vixen ways! That might as well be a mug shot...a mug of hot chocolate!
I have no idea how many tens of millions of Meiji chocolate products get sold annually but I know that the marketing department for the company must have cleaning up the yen all these decades including the various commercial campaigns on television. And that includes the whimsical theme song for the chocolate which was one line repeated over and over like a hypnotic mantra:
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate wa Meiji（チョコレート チョコレート チョコレイトはメイジ～ ...Chocolate is Meiji）
The first time I heard it was when the popular aidoru duo of the late 1980s going into the 1990s, Wink, sang it coquettishly for the company. My assumption had been that the jingle was made just for them.
Well, how wrong I was! The "Meiji Chocolate Theme", which is also known as "Chocolate wa Meiji"（チョコレートは明治） and "Meiji Chocolate no Uta"（明治チョコレートの歌...The Meiji Chocolate Song）, was first created by famed songwriter Taku Izumi（いずみたく）, who was also responsible for the theme song for the long-running interview show "Tetsuko no Heya"（徹子の部屋） starring Tetsuko Kuroyanagi（黒柳徹子）, in 1966. The above ads were supposedly from 1967 and it's interesting to see that the commercials feature a father and his daughter enjoying the chocolate; apparently, Mom would have stopped that habit dead in its tracks. The very first version as noted above was sung by the vocal trio The Three Graces（スリー・グレイセス）who also sang the theme song for beloved anime "Mahotsukai Sally"（魔法使いサリー）in the same year of the Meiji theme's debut.
Reading through the J-Wiki article for Meiji, the theme song has been covered over the past half-century by many singers in their individual way, and one such band who did so was none other than the Group Sounds bunch known as The Tigers（ザ・タイガーズ）with Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）at the fore.
80s aidoru Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）gave her own contributions to the "Meiji Chocolate Theme" and other songs connected with the company.
Jun Matsumoto（松本潤）of Arashi（嵐）wasn't the one singing here but the theme gets a circus-like arrangement while the lad himself and his surroundings are very reminiscent of Willy Wonka.
I failed to mention this yesterday but April 29th is part of the Golden Week holiday season in Japan and it's currently known as Showa Day. It had been celebrated as Emperor Hirohito's(the Showa era emperor) birthday until his death in early 1989 and then it was known as Greenery Day until 2007, when it was given its current name (Greenery Day is now May 4th).
Since there has been some nostalgic attraction for the culture of the Showa era (1926-1989), that's how I've usually seen Showa Day...not so much for the veneration of the late emperor but for what the times and trappings were like for ordinary people in Japan. Apparently, there is a Showa era museum in Aichi Prefecture as you can see above via MEGULOG's video. My particular examples of Showa era culture that regularly pop up in my memories are the old public phones of different sizes and colours, and the old-style kissaten as you can view in Mikki Café & Life below. Personally, my Showa era café will always be Café Renoir, the long-running franchise.
But of course, this being a kayo kyoku blog, I wanted to give my own contribution to Showa Day in terms of culture by providing some of the old songs. I'd wondered if I could find some sort of Top 5 list regarding memorable kayo kyoku but really couldn't find anything, so I've decided to come up with my own list of six songs representing each decade from the 1930s to the 1980s (sorry, couldn't remember anything from the 1920s). There wasn't any great research or all-night brain wracking for these songs...they just popped into my head and together they can perhaps show how music changed during the Showa era. So, without further ado...
I usually just provide three articles on a Thursday: one Reminiscings of Youth article and then a couple of kayo. However, I did realize that today is February 22nd, so of course, I'm thinking 2/22. I never thought about going as far as waiting until 2:22 pm today to put up an article but in the interests of whimsy and the fact that Japan is celebrating a national holiday in the form of the current Emperor's birthday on the 23rd, I'm putting up another ROY which will make it the third this week.
And yup, I'm going to be very cute here and post up the opening theme song for the American sitcom "Room 222". Sitcom?! All these years, I'd assumed that the show was a heartfelt coming-of-age drama about high schoolers and their teachers. But indeed, it was made for laughs. Its run lasted between September 11th 1969 and January 11th 1974.
I don't recall ever seeing an episode but then I couldn't imagine someone like myself at my age of just under 4 years sagely watching "Room 222" for the insightful parables and gentle humour. Still, the opening credits of the students and teachers coming to school and the theme song have stuck with me all these decades, and isn't that what they're supposed to do to attract viewers? As for that theme, it was composed by none other than Jerry Goldsmith, a man who came up with a lot of famous theme songs including the one for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation". I'll probably be covering at least a couple more of Goldsmith's creations as ROY material.
Goldsmith's "Room 222" invaded my ears and brain right from the get-go in 1969. I guess it is because it has that cool contemporary pop rhythm overlaying periodic urgent drum rolls hinting at the academic lessons to come. What has it staying in my head is that the theme and the opening credits show off that certain innocence of life back then, even in the blackboard jungle.
Anyways, what was at the top of the Japanese song rankings back on September 8th 1969? I have Nos. 1, 5 and 6.
When I first saw the trio listed for the GS Gosanke or The Big Three for Group Sounds bands, I was a little surprised at the trio. No offense meant against Ox fans, but I thought that The Spiders with Jun Inoue（井上順）and Masaaki Sakai（堺正章）would be in there instead, but actually the trio is indeed Ox, The Tempters and The Tigers. Ox was actually the latest of the three bands to debut in 1968 while the other two first appeared in 1967.
Not sure when the media decided to come up with the tag for the three groups but there isn't a lot referencing this term of the GS Gosanke so perhaps this was more a name coined by fans over the decades. Regardless here they are.
I've been referring to The Beatles on various articles within KKP basically since I started this whole thing in 2012, but it wasn't actually until late in 2020 that I finally featured a song by The Fab Four here via Reminiscings of Youth. That was for "Strawberry Fields Forever", an alternately sweet and dark concoction by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
However, my second Beatles ROY article is on "All You Need Is Love", a single by the band that was released in July 1967 and I can safely say that it is probably the very first Beatles song that I remember hearing as a toddler. There is something about that refrain "...all you need is love..." that caught onto the synapses in my tiny brain (trivia tip: it hasn't changed much in size since then) and has held on for the past 50+ years.
I probably did hear it all over the radio but I can say with certainty that I saw it performed on that psychedelic animated film starring John, Paul, George and Ringo, "Yellow Submarine". It's too bad that I can't find that scene on YouTube. As I said that refrain has stuck with me for decades, but over the years, I've also learned to appreciate how it wasn't just The Beatles but also the backing of an orchestra behind this British pop/rock band that helped make "All You Need Is Love" work and all of the shoutouts to various other songs including the French national anthem, "In The Mood" and even the earlier Beatles' hit "She Loves You". And then, I read which people were providing the backup vocals. And wouldn't one say that this is the ultimate singalong song?
Considering all of the No. 1's around the world's music charts that "All You Need Is Love" would garner, I guess that it was good luck that a kid who wasn't even two years old got to know this song so early.
In any case, what was getting released in July 1967? Although I picked them out of Showa Pops for that month, a couple of them have differing release months according to J-Wiki although you can check those out in their individual articles.
Unfortunately, I have to let readers know about another death in the Japanese music world today as composer Koichi Sugiyama（椙山浩一）passed away on September 30th due to sepsis at the age of 90. Commenter Kyle Andrew informed me earlier this morning and I had actually caught the news of his passing even earlier during the NHK News. I actually told Kyle that I would come up with an appropriate tribute sometime over the weekend but it seems as if my project manager today told me that there was nothing coming down the pipe for assignments, so now I have my opportunity to do a Creator article for Sugiyama.
His name has already been well represented within the pages of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for years since he composed some very famous kayo hits including The Peanuts'（ザ・ピーナッツ）"Koi no Fuuga"(恋のフーガ）, The Tigers'（ザ・タイガース）"Mona Lisa no Hohoemi"（モナリザの微笑）and a couple of folk band GARO's tunes "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten" (学生街の喫茶店）and "Kimi no Tanjoubi"（君の誕生日）in the 1960s and 1970s.
But in the NHK tribute to Sugiyama and for that matter, the Fuji-TV profile on him in the video at the top of this article, it wasn't just his Group Sounds contributions that were noted. He was also lauded within the reports as the man behind the soundtrack for the iconic "Dragon Quest" game that started its long run from 1986, something that I hadn't realized although even I, a non-gamer, could recognize that heroic theme. There were already some messages of condolences within the comments under the above video. Sugiyama himself noted in a past interview during the NHK report that he had wanted to base the game soundtrack on classical music rather than pop music.
In the J-Wiki article for him, his specialization in music was directed towards the genres ofkayo, anison and game music; his lists for the last two types in that article are quite long indeed. The Wikipedia profile on him mentioned that one day in the 1980s, Sugiyama, who was already very famous, had sent the Enix Corporation, which was behind "Dragon Quest", a fan letter for the music on a shogi game which sent the staffers there into a major swoon. They were also very impressed with his knowledge of games. I gather that this would be the equivalent of Alan Silvestri or John Williams sending a 👍 to an American game developer on letterhead. This would eventually lead to a collaboration between composer and company, and the rest is "Dragon Quest" history.
Sugiyama was born in what is now Taito Ward in Tokyo on April 11th 1931. Music was all around him during his upbringing which would explain his life's career, but J-Wiki also noted that he and both of his parents were also great lovers of games, decades before video games appeared, so that probably also explains the composer's interest in those.
He attended the University of Tokyo half-heartedly pursuing a science degree after getting disappointed on finding out that he couldn't get into a music college since he couldn't play the piano. On graduating, Sugiyama had a part-time job at a parts factory before getting a position at a radio station and Fuji-TV as a director in 1958. He left the network in 1965 and by 1968, he was fully focused on composing and orchestration.
However, even before then, he was already coming up with the melodies. In fact in October 1966, one of his earliest contributions to kayo kyoku came in the form of a single by The Peanuts, "Roma no Ame"（ローマの雨...The Rain in Rome）. The 20th single by the duo, Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）was the lyricist with Katsuhisa Hattori（服部克久）as the arranger for this relaxed hip-swiveler of a song characterized by the staccato blast of the horns in the intro and their smooth Bacharach-like feeling in the song itself. I also enjoy the haunting but enticing vocals by Emi and Yumi.
As has been stated, Sugiyama was also providing songs during the Group Sounds period of the late 1960s. In December 1966, he and Hashimoto once more created a song...this time for the GS band Jackey Yoshikawa and his Blue Comets（ジャッキー吉川とブルー・コメッツ）as a B-side for their 7th single, "Izuko e"（何処へ...Where To?）. The brief "Sentimental City"（センチメンタル・シティ）is a pretty interesting song which seems to have a couple of rhythms spliced together: a laconic introspective melody with that electric organ and then a really skippy one as if there were two different settings for whoever the protagonist is. Above everything is a boozy saxophone.
Several months later, Hashimoto and Sugiyama would team up again to provide yet another one of the big Group Sounds bands, The Tigers（ザ・タイガーズ）, with one of the biggest hits in their career, "Kimi Dake ni Ai wo"（君だけに愛を...Love Only For You）. This was their 4th single from January 1968, and this time Sugiyama would also create the melody and arrange it for Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）and the guys. I think that there's even a bit more psychedelic rock in the proceedings. In comparison to The Peanuts' "Roma no Ame" with some of that twisting in any reflective dancing, maybe The Jerk might be the move here. Just guessing. Selling more than a million records, "Kimi Dake ni Ai wo" reached No. 2 on the new Oricon Singles chart.
If someone can identify the dance move in the video above while The Tigers are playing, that would be greatly appreciated. It's probably not The Jerk. Anyways, I wanted to put up this video since all of us can see how Sawada performed his moves. According to J-Wiki, at concerts when he beseeched his fans with "Kimi dake ni..." and flung out the "Golden Index Finger", a lot of them simply fainted away. You must learn the ways of the Force, Kenji.
The Group Sounds era faded away very early in the 1970s but Sugiyama continued to provide his music to the top stars of the day. Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）was one of them, and for him, the composer created a couple of tracks for Saijo's June 1976 album"Ai to Jounetsu no Seishun"（愛と情熱の青春...Youth Filled With Love and Passion）. One of them was "Itsumo Futari de"（いつも二人で...Always the Two of Us） which had Sugiyama pairing up with another prolific lyricist, Yu Aku（阿久悠）. A prowling cat of a tune with a flutter of rock over a jazzy rhythm, the lanky aidoru was more than game for the arrangement. One would think that he may have been doing an old-fashioned soft-shoe in the recording booth.
Just one more example of Sugiyama's music that I will put up here also hit the public's ears in the same year as the Saijo album. This time, though, it came out in the form of aidoru trio Candies'（キャンディーズ）11th single,"Heart Dorobo"（ハート泥棒...Heart Thief）. Released in September 1976, it's an especially dynamic tune for Ran, Sue and Miki as they sing about a young teenage girl, who may be a bit of a tsundere, quietly falling hard for a guy who has suddenly raised himself to the lass' demanding expectations, according to Haruo Hayashi's（林春生）lyrics. The song rose to No. 17 on Oricon and sold about 190,000 records.
For those who had only known Sugiyama for "Dragon Quest" and the other games that he provided music for, I thought this Creator article could give some more information on how he also contributed to kayo kyoku in general. But in finishing this off, let's get back to the beginning and realize that the "Dragon Quest" overture made it into this year's Olympic Opening Ceremonies. I'm hoping that Sugiyama did hear and appreciate its appearance. Certainly, many fans did from what I've read in the comments. All my condolences to him and his family and friends.
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.
It was announced just today but tarento/actor and former guitarist of the Group Sounds band, The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）,Shiro Kishibe（岸部四郎）had passed away at the age of 71 on August 28th this year.
However I had first known about Kishibe as the host of the morning variety show "Look Look Konnichiwa"（ルックルックこんにちは）on NTV during my time in Japan. I hadn't known anything about his music past at the time and recognized him just as the calm and collected and tall (1.87 m) TV personality each and every morning.
Kishibe and his brother Ittoku "Sally" Kishibe（岸部一徳）, who also went the acting route, were both in one of the premier GS bands along with vocalist Kenji "Julie" Sawada（沢田研二）during the late 1960s and a little into the 1970s. So for today, I wanted to bring out The Tigers' 3rd single, "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" (Mona Lisa's Smile) released in August 1967 (although Shiro didn't officially join the band until 1969). Written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）, that harmonica sets the tone for "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" as sad and wistful and reassuring as the smile on the titular legend herself.
(2:05)
I'm sure at the time that The Tigers got their fair share of accolades but I gotta admit that I hadn't been expecting the Beatles fans' level of screaming and shouting when they came out during that skit above which looks like the producer decided to combine a samurai drama with "The Wild Wild West". To be honest, The Tigers did look rather Beatles-y there. Now, Oricon hadn't quite come onto the scene just yet, but according to the November 1967 music rankings in the magazine "Young Music"（ヤング・ミュージック）, "Mona Lisa no Hohoemi" reached No. 1.
Commenter Yuie-chan was generous enough to leave a comment for Kenji Sawada's（沢田研二）energetic "TOKIO" in which she gave me a tip about a song that was recorded during Sawada's time with his old Group Sounds band, The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）. And I was to discover that this particular number came with quite a history.
Now, cross-pollination between Japanese and American music artists has been in existence for decades with one of the more prominent examples being the legendary surf rock band The Ventures coming up with hit songs for folks like Feifei Ouyang（欧陽菲菲）and Yuko Nagisa（渚ゆう子）. I heard that they even recorded an American TV theme song that picked up some notice.
Well, although they didn't churn out kayo here like The Ventures, The Bee Gees...or specifically Barry and Maurice Gibb...did contribute a song for Julie and company. According to the J-Wiki article for the song, The Tigers and The Bee Gees somehow were on opposite sides of an international telephone call and the two parties hit it off very well, culminating in the latter giving the unreleased "Smile For Me" by the Gibbs to the former as a present of sorts.
Yuie-chan mentioned how good Sawada's English was in this one. I was even more impressed on hearing the gentle "Smile For Me" that the producer Biddu actually had to guide the singer and the band through the lyrics phonetically. Sawada does sound good here. The single was released in July 1969 and peaked at No. 3 on Oricon.
The Wikipedia article for "Smile For Me" also provided the tip that the very rough 1968 demo version of the song actually got onto YouTube several years back. It features one of the Gibb brothers singing on guitar (unfortunately it's been taken down).
If the title "Smile For Me" sounds familiar to you for other reasons, I think you might want to check this link.
I've been hearing about all of the hot and humid weather that has been barraging itself onto the Japanese archipelago over the past few days (and will most likely continue well into September). Well, those over there wringing their hands and their handkerchiefs will probably be swooning in envy since here in Toronto today, it's damp and the temperature may barely peak above 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit). It was quite cool going out for that walk earlier this morning, especially wearing track shorts. But then remembering the sauna that was my experience of a Japanese summer, I was quite comfy.
"Uta Kon"（うたコン）had its summer song theme a couple of days ago and the first song up that night was an old 1967 tune by the Group Sounds band, The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）, Kenji Sawada's（沢田研二）former unit. "Seaside Bound" was their 2nd single released in March of that year, and it was the tune that apparently cemented their status as hit makers. The cover performance on "Uta Kon" had me interested in the song and sure enough, listening to the original convinced me that there was nothing like the original to illustrate what the GS sound was all about.
"Seaside Bound" was written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）, and as performed frenetically by The Tigers, it was that Go-Go music which makes for an interesting comparison with the band's most famous single, the melancholy "Hana no Kubi Kazari"（花の首飾り）a year later. I gather that Oricon was still about a year away from charting the hits but there was no doubt about the success of the song since it sold 400,000 records and scored a No. 2 ranking through the "Young Music" magazine.
The above video is of The Tigers coming back for a concert in 1982. Sawada was already well into his glam rock days but it was nice of him to peel off the makeup and put on the cute suit again to do the ol' Group Sounds again.
I'll be honest...I was never a huge fan of the Group Sounds period of kayo kyoku. Still, I recognize a few of the songs and I thought that I should give them some representation, too.
As Elvis left his enormous imprint on the world in the 50s,The Beatles did the same for music in the 60s as well. In Japan, the Fab Four planted seeds in a lot of young folks' heads. And pretty soon, before you can say Herman's Hermits three times fast, the Group Sounds era was born. According to Mark Schilling in his book, "The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture", one of the pioneering bands was The Spiders, a former rockabilly group, which released "Furi, Furi"(Shake, Shake) in 1965...perhaps a tribute to The Beatles' "Twist and Shout".
Pretty soon, you had other bands with names like The Carnabies, The Blue Comets, The Tempters and The Jaguars. Then, there were The Tigers which may have been the most popular GS group of them all. The collective GS band members emulated that early Beatles' look of moptops and turtleneck sweaters and tight suits.
The Tigers debuted in 1967 with "Boku no Mari"(僕のマリー...My Mary). This song, "Hana no Kubi Kazari"(A Flower Necklace) came out in March 1968 and resided at the top of the charts for 7 weeks from April 15 to May 27. The lead vocal here was Katsumi 'Topo' Kahashi （加橋かつみ）; he was given the nickname since he resembled the cute Italian mouse character, Topo Gigio. The other vocalist was Kenji 'Julie' Sawada （沢田研二）whose nickname was from singer/actress Julie Andrews. His career seemed to predestine the plot for "This is Spinal Tap" since he went from cute Group Sounds vocalist in the 60s to a David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust rocker by the early 80s. He's the one you see in the video frame before you press 'Play' in the video below.
The heyday of the Group Sounds apparently lasted from 1967 to 1969 with The Tigers disbanding in 1971. After that, the trend of New Rock came into being with bands like Happy End.
