B.J. Thomas -- Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head

 

A special Reminiscings of Youth article on a Sunday night since this morning I heard of the news of the passing of singer B.J. Thomas at the age of 78 on May 29th. What was especially surprising was that I first heard the news on an NHK 10-minute news flash. Of course, Thomas' most famous hit "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" was featured. Just listening to the song again, I marvel at how it starts sounding like a buddy around a campfire playing a little ditty on his guitar before it gradually takes on that familiar epic Bacharach/David sheen, especially with the horns.

Over here, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" was the Burt Bacharach and Hal David song of reassurance that was played all the time on AM radio, the Best Original Song Oscar winner for its use in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and a smash hit in many countries including Canada following its release in October 1969. However, from this morning's report of Thomas' death, I was curious to know how popular it was in Japan.

Well, it was given its own release in Japan under the title of "Ame ni Nuretemo"（雨にぬれても）. Before I forget, I also mentioned in "Who Influenced Toshiki Kadomatsu? (Pre-Debut)" that this was one of the songs that influenced little Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）when he was in kindergarten.

It has been covered by a number of singers such as Akira Fuse（布施明）for his 1971 album "When Akira Fuse Meets Burt Bacharach".

Plus, it was also used as a commercial song for Keio Railways.

As I also mentioned in that Kadomatsu article, it would be many years before I realized that "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" had that direct connection with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". My early childhood was spent watching a lot of those ol' Westerns through movies and television shows such as "Gunsmoke", so my impression of the soundtracks for this genre was all Elmer Bernstein and his proud orchestra. Never did I think that a mellow Bacharach song would have anything to do with a Western but then again, I think "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was a most unusual Western.

So, what were a couple of releases in October 1969? 

Woody-Woo -- Ima wa Mou Dare mo （今はもう誰も）

Osamu Minagawa -- Kuroneko no Tango （黒猫のタンゴ）

To finish, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" has been warmly welcomed in other later movies and TV shows, and the one movie that usually comes to my mind is "Spiderman 2".

Alice/Woody-Woo -- Ima wa Mou Dare mo （今はもう誰も）

The first of folk group Alice's （アリス）big hits was "Ima wa Mou Dare mo" (Nobody Now) which came out in September 1975 as the group's 7th single. In any retrospective on Alice, this would be a must-show, and personally, this is my favourite song by Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）, Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄） and Toru Yazawa（矢沢透）. I used to hear it whenever a music show did a piece on the folk music that was popular during the 1970s, and the song had that appealing galloping beat.

(I'm sorry but the music163 link is inaccessible.)

The above music 163 link is for the group's recorded version which peaked at No. 11. All this time until recently, I'd thought that "Ima wa Mou Dare mo" had been another Tanimura/Horiuchi collaboration, but in fact, Alice's rendition of the folk song was a cover of the original version by another earlier folk group by the name of Woody-Woo（ウッディ・ウー）. Led by vocalist Toshiro Satake（佐竹俊郎）, Woody-Woo only released 3 singles of which "Ima wa Mou Dare mo" was their debut, released in July 1969. It only got as high as No. 66 on the still-new Oricon rankings, but with the success of Alice's version several years later, the Woody-Woo version which was written and composed by Satake was given a second lease on life through a re-release. The original version can be found at the YouTube link below. Now as for the unusual name of this band, apparently the members derived it into a compound from the name of American folk singer of the 30s, Woody Guthrie and the "woo woo" sound that supposedly a lot of young people like to yell out.