Yasushi Sasamoto -- Ai wa Tasogare no Naka ni（愛は黄昏の中に） ~ I can't stop lovin' you

 

I'd assumed that this would be the first entry for bassist and singer-songwriter Yasushi Sasamoto（笹本安詞）, but I was wrong there. I had written about him before albeit he was under the name DeVoice for a duet with Masami Yoshimoto（吉村まさみ）for the song "Delight of my love" which was released in 2002.

However, we're going further back in time by about a decade. According to one bio on him, Sasamoto had helped form a rap unit in the mid 1990s known as Shitamachi Kyoudai（下町兄弟...The Downtown Brothers）, but earlier on, he had also been doing his solo work with a self-produced album "Never Give Up" coming out in 1992 as his debut. In 1993, he released a full album "Wish" and from this, I offer the ballad "Ai wa Tasogare no Naka ni ~ I can't stop lovin' you" with the direct translation being "Love is in the Sunset". With lyrics by Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）and melody by Sasamoto, the strings add further poignancy to this soulful love song and of course, we just gotta have that mellow flugelhorn in there as well. 

Masami Yoshimoto feat. De Voice -- Delight of my love

 

With all of the stuff that's been going on in the world locally and internationally, it's hard to believe but Valentine's Day almost escaped my mind today. And yet here it is. I'm hoping that at least a couple of people I know will be taking their significant others for a special dinner tonight. Weather-wise, one couldn't have asked for a better February 14th since we're getting a record-breaking temperature of 8 degrees Celsius as a high (the usual temperature would have had a negative sign beside the number). Of course, in Japan, the whole Valentine's thing is a two-parter with February 14th being the day that men give their chocolates to women while March 14th (White Day) is the day of romantic (or not) reciprocation.

I did find something in the backlog that could fit today's theme of the heart. "Delight of my love" is an August 2002 single released by Masami Yoshimoto（吉村まさみ）featuring De Voice, aka singer/songwriter Yasushi Sasamoto（笹本安詞）. The song was used as a theme for the Fuji-TV drama "Shin Ai no Arashi"（新・愛の嵐...The New Love Storm） that had its run between July and September 2002 and was a remake of the original series in 1986.

There's very little information on either Yoshimoto or De Voice although I found that the latter has provided songs and arrangements for other artists. As far as I could check, Yoshimoto only released two singles and an album which is too bad since I think that both her and De Voice made a great duet performance here. "Delight of my love", despite its release date, sounds like a romantic pop ballad from the 1980s. I would almost think that David Foster had been lurking around the studio with a full pen. The songwriters here were lyricist Hiro Kawamura（川村ヒロ）and composer Hiroo Yamaguchi（山口寛雄）.