Koutarou Yamamoto and Weekend -- Misaki Meguri（岬めぐり）

 

This very brief video of the famous Cape Erimo in Hokkaido by Voices in Japan Podcast shows off the epic and beautiful combination of land, ocean and sky in one shot. It's no wonder that in Japan, probably a lot of kayo had been created in tribute to this particular cape and other such natural structures all over the nation over the decades.

I managed to find another song devoted to all of the capes through "Misaki Meguri" (A Tour of the Capes), the debut single of Koutarou Yamamoto and Weekend（山本コウタローとウィークエンド）from June 1974. A refreshing and jaunty folk song written by Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）and composed by Yamamoto（山本厚太郎）himself, the arrangement by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）reminds me a little of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (1971) by the late John Denver. Reaching No. 5 on Oricon and ending up as the 17th-ranked single of the year, "Misaki Meguri" also became the band's biggest hit, selling around 400,000 records.

According to the J-Wiki article for the song, Yamagami had written the lyrics based on an overall image of the various Japanese capes. However, the people living around the Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture adopted the song for its own since they believed it was based on their peninsula, something that Yamagami apparently didn't mind at all. In fact, between 2008 and 2017, "Misaki Meguri" had even been used as the approach song for trains entering the nearby Misakiguchi Station on the Keikyu Kurihama Line.

To finish off, we have another early Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）sighting to match that of his presence and participation in Ryuichi Sakamoto's（坂本龍一）"DAS NEUE JAPANISCHE ELEKTRONISCHE VOLKSLIED" track on The Professor's 1978 "Sen no Knife"（千のナイフ）. Drummer Yutaka Uehara（上原裕）and bassist Jiro Terao（寺尾次郎）who had also taken part in the recording of "Misaki Meguri" were also part of the rhythm section for Sugar Babe（シュガーベイブ）, and evidently, Tats himself helped bring in the drums so he was privy to the recording of "Misaki Meguri". No idea whether one of the masters of City Pop had also been asked to play the castanets but this information came via the J-Wiki article from an October 2012 episode of the radio variety show "Sakizaki Kounosuke to Yoshida Takuro no All Night Nippon Gold"（坂崎幸之助と吉田拓郎のオールナイトニッポンGOLD...Kounosuke Sakizaki and Takuro Yoshida's All Night Nippon Gold） on the Nippon Broadcasting System.

Ah, also have a look at another later creation by the band, "Shiawase no Kane"（幸せの鐘）.

John Sebastian -- Welcome Back

 

First off, I saw the NHK live bulletin regarding the fairly sizable earthquake that jolted the Kanto region earlier today my time. I hope that everyone there is doing OK. From what I've been hearing from friends in the area, though, it looks like aside from the usual products falling from shelves and broken water mains, injuries have been minor so far.

Now, to our weekly Reminiscings of Youth feature for this week. Over the last few days, I've been catching this local commercial from our Toronto Transit Commission.

Then, I heard that the same nostalgic song was used for the Applebee's chain in the United States. In either case, it was a nice warm moment to show some promise of getting back to a near-normal life in the potential post-pandemic era.

It hits me and a lot of my generation even more since we all know that this is "Welcome Back" by John Sebastian, the former member of the band Lovin' Spoonful, and it was the theme song for the 1975-1979 US ABC sitcom, "Welcome Back, Kotter". The single itself wasn't released until March 1976, though.

I remember watching the show here and there in its first run and then in reruns. "Welcome Back, Kotter" struck me as being the comedic version of "To Sir, with Love". But instead of poised Sidney Poitier, the star was wisecracking actor/comedian Gabe Kaplan as Gabe Kotter, a former member of a group of high school malcontents known as the Sweathogs who comes back years later to teach at his alma mater, James Buchanan High School, and a new generation of Sweathogs.

Not sure if he was ever the official leader of the 1970s Sweathogs but Vinnie Barbarino certainly felt like the Grand Poobah of the guys which included Boom-Boom, Epstein and Arnold Horshack. Vinnie was played by a young John Travolta who had both cool charisma and dense goofiness in equal measure. I think that this was his breakthrough role that would later get him movie stardom in "Saturday Night Fever" (I believe that I did a ROY article on that movie's theme) and "Grease". Also in its heyday, there were some notable catchphrases that popped out into the pop culture realm such as "Up your nose with a rubber hose!", "Ooh, ooh, ooh!" and "Hi there!".

Perhaps the whole thing behind Sebastian's oh-so-comfy "Welcome Back" was that with the tension in some of these school-based movies with the teacher going up against the rowdy students, the producers probably wanted a song to let us viewers know that, yup, maybe these kids were Sweathogs but they were really lovable punks at heart who needed more love and nurturing. In any case, "Welcome Back, Kotter" became a quick hit for ABC and Sebastian soon found out that he therefore had a hit with the song, so having only meant to have "Welcome Back" as just that one-minute-and-change theme for the credits, he had to quickly add on some more music and lyrics to make it into a proper single. Indeed, the song hit the top spot on the Adult Contemporary charts in both the United States and Canada, and also did very well on the regular singles charts.

So, what did come out in March 1976 as singles, according to Showa Pops?

Candies -- Haru Ichiban (春一番）

Weekend -- Shiawase no Kane（幸せの鐘）

Akira Inaba -- Wakatte Kudasai（わかって下さい）[according to J-Wiki, it came out in Feb.]

Weekend -- Shiawase no Kane（幸せの鐘）

 

To be honest, I don't really follow current pop music in North America and haven't for a number of years now. It's just been the oldies for me, thus this blog. Well, I can make a very happy exception for "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. However, Toronto media has made it a mission to crow far and wide about the local talent doing famously across borders such as Justin Bieber, Drake, and The Weeknd. And power to them!

A few years ago, I wrote up an article regarding the folk band Salty Sugar（ソルティー・シュガー）and their biggest hit, "Hashire Koutarou"（走れコウタロー...Run, Koutarou）, the comically happy song poking fun at actual member Koutarou Yamamoto（山本厚太郎）since he was always literally running late for practice. Salty Sugar had their time between 1969 and 1971.

Some years later in 1974, guitarist Yamamoto joined up with Kazumi Mori（森一美）from the duo Kurosaki to Kazumi（黒崎とかずみ...Kurosaki and Kazumi） and Hideo Itagaki（板垣秀雄）formerly of the folk band Pipi & Kotto（ピピ&コット）to form the new folk trio Yamamoto Koutarou to Weekend（山本コウタローとウィークエンド...Koutarou Yamamoto and Weekend）. It had a hit out of the gates with "Misaki Meguri"（岬めぐり...A Tour of the Capes） when it was released in June of that year.

Three more singles and a couple of albums were released until the band decided to shorten its name to just Weekend (ah, that's why I mentioned The Weeknd) in 1976 after which five more singles and three more albums came out up to 1978. The first of those singles under the short name was "Shiawase no Kane" (Happy Bells) hit the record shop shelves in March 1976, and it's far different from the supremely happy "Hashire Koutarou". In fact, suffice it to say, it's a downright depressing folk tune.

Written and composed by Yamamoto with arrangement by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）, "Shiawase no Kane" starts out happy enough as it describes a wedding scene from four years earlier only to have the love utterly dissipate within that time and the decision is made to divorce. The song is beautifully done by Seo, I have to say, though, and my compliments to who among Weekend is singing. As it is, this could only get onto one of those heartbreak song compilations that show up at places like Tower Records now and then.