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.
I don't ever recall being in Shinjuku (pictured above) at around midnight although I've been in Shibuya at around that time. Most likely, I was desperately running for the last train on the Tozai Line to head back home to Ichikawa. However, I can see Shinjuku still being quite that active even at the witching hour.
A little less than a month ago, I profiled Mai Yamane's（山根麻衣）song "You Don't Have To Say", a jazzy City Pop ballad of the skies that also happened to be the B-side for the singer-songwriter's March 1979 debut single"Gozen Reiji"（12 Midnight）. Well, I've got the A-side now and it's got a little more urban oomph as if, despite the lateness of the hour, folks are still scuttling back and forth in the great big city. I gather that you can still check those YouTube live cameras to see if Shinjuku and Shibuya are still lively at midnight Tokyo time. This time around, "Gozen Reiji" was actually written and composed by singer-songwriter Yoko Shibata（柴田容子）.
Up to now, I've contributed two articles to singer-songwriter and radio personality Yoko Shibata（柴田容子）, one for her languid "Mr. Lonesome" and then the peppy "Umaku Ikanakutemo" (うまくいかなくても), the latter being written up back in 2016.
So, we're talking about almost six years later, and happily I was able to find this new and different song by Shibata titled "Heartbreak House". A nice bluesy shuffle that gives off a pleasant metropolitan vibe, this was a track on her lone February 1978 album"Tomarigi" (とまり木...Perch) which was also the name of her third and final single to date. It was written and composed by the singer, and for some reason, it does give me that image of what life was probably like in the concrete jungle of Tokyo back in those late 1970s.
In the previous two articles, I've mentioned Junko Yagami（八神純子）alongside Shibata. Well, it turns out that both singers hail from Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture. Some more biographical information includes the fact that Shibata graduated from Nanzan University in her hometown with a degree in foreign languages. She also passed the 1973 Yamaha Vocal Auditions along with Mayo Shouno（庄野真代）and Masako Kanou（叶正子）, one-quarter of the vocal group Circus（サーカス）.
This is a follow-up of sorts to that Junko Yagami（八神純子）BESTarticle I just wrote a few minutes ago. I enjoyed Yagami's rendition of "Umaku Ikanakutemo" (Even If It Doesn't Go Well) on her "Junko The Best" but couldn't find it anywhere online. However, it would have been a pity if it couldn't be heard so I was able to track down the version performed by the woman who had created it, singer-songwriter Yoko Shibata（柴田容子）.
I mentioned in my first article for Shibata that her voice sounded similar to that of Yagami, but for her version of "Umaku Ikanakutemo", it's slightly more toned down. The B-side to her 3rd single, "Tomarigi" (とまり木...Perch) from January 1978 as well as a track on her 1st album with the same title from February of the same year, "Umaku Ikanakutemo" is delivered as if Shibata wanted to surreptitiously give that advice of not giving into obstacles and not giving up on the road to success. Heck, her lyrics even give a shoutout to The Beatles' "Long and Winding Road". It's the voice of a good friend keeping that air of optimism.
Listening to "Umaku Ikanakutemo", I keep getting reminded of the crazily optimistic Hikari Kohinata in the current anime "Amanchu!"
I actually bought a couple of later BEST compilations by singer-songwriter Junko Yagami（八神純子）many years ago but my last acquisition of her best work was her very first BEST album, "Junko The Best" from October 1980. Until recently, I hadn't realized how special this release was but I'm certainly appreciating it now since unlike other BEST compilations, it's fairly short at 10 tracks...the size of a regular album, and sometimes it's nice to not have to exhaust myself listening to a huge chunk of a singer's discography.
Furthermore, the original LP's Side A consists entirely of songs that had never been put on any of Yagami's 3 previous albums although they may have been placed as B-sides on her singles up to and including 1980. Those will be the first four songs in the lineup as follows:
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any evidence of Yagami's "Umaku Ikanakutemo" (Even If It Doesn't Go Well) online although there is a self-cover up on YouTube by the songwriter responsible for it, Yoko Shibata（柴田容子）, which I will cover shortly. (May 28 2017: Actually I finally did find the original above.)
So, let's start off with the lovely and smooth "Ai Iro no Kisetsu"(Season of Love Colours) which was created for Yagami back in 1975. Written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, Yagami delivers it with the panache that only she can provide in a ballad. The music flows along as if she were singing this in an intimate club setting before things get slightly funky near the end.
"Be My Best Friend" was written and composed by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）in 1980, and despite the happy and light bossa nova, another Yagami touch in her earlier works, the song is somewhat lyrically bittersweet as a woman starts to engage life following a 4-year relationship without the fellow. It's all about the recovery.
The fourth track on "Junko The Best", "Watashi no Uta no Kokoro no Sekai"(The World of My Song's Heart) is another quintessentially beautiful Yagami ballad plus I did find the singer-songwriter who created it, Makiko Takada（高田真樹子）, doing her version online. Another one to tackle later on, but you can still hear a bit of it via the Amazon link.
"Amai Seikatsu" (A Naive Life) was Yagami's 8th single from February 1980. Composer Yagami certainly starts it off with a good dollop of drama with Yoshiko Miura's（三浦徳子）telling of a woman kissing off a lover rather bitterly. I can imagine a good deal of rain falling over that particular scene.
Yagami wrote and composed "Toki no Nagare ni" (In The Flow of Time) in 1978 for her first album"Omoide wa Utsukushi Sugite" as a mildly disco tune about the vagaries of love. A nice City Pop song with that Yagami vocal range getting put to good use.
I have to finish this BEST off with one of my very favourite Yagami songs, "Purpletown". Hopefully, the above video stays for a while but here is a performance with Yagami and Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）of that big hit (Fraid not, but hey, here is the original!).
Happy to say, "Junko The Best" may have been released rather late in 1980 but not only did it hit No. 1 on the charts but it also quickly became the 35th-ranked album of the year. And apparently since it did so well, there are 19 moreBEST albums by her that have come out over the decades according to J-Wiki, the most recent being released in 2012.
I found this one purely by accident as I was going through YouTube. "Mr. Lonesome" just sounded like a very pleasant tune by the full-bodied voice of Yoko Shibata（柴田容子）. In a way, she reminds me of Junko Yagami (although she took on a more Latin vibe) who started appearing at around the same time. In fact, according to J-Wiki, both Shibata and Yagami（八神純子）appeared together in 1974 at the Yamaha-sponsored "Sekai Kayo Sai"(世界歌謡蔡...World Popular Song Festival). Shibata entered the festival with what would become her debut single, "San-gatsu Mikka no Kanashimi"（３月３日の悲しみ...March 3rd Sadness）. The following year, she would enter the festival again with Yagami and Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）. This time, Shibata picked up a couple of awards.
Strangely enough, though, during this early phase in her career, she would only record three singles, with "Mr. Lonesome" being the middle single released in January 1976. As for "Mr. Lonesome", I can also add that the song has that laid back West Coast feeling....something that Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや） would have sung. I'd probably like listening to this while looking at a sunset, although I admit I must sound pretty corny saying something like that. But it's always been fascinating for me and admirable of singers like Shibata, Yagami and Yuming（ユーミン） to tackle a third way that was neither enka nor aidoru.
Her lone album, "Tomari Ki"（とまり木....The Perch）, was released in February 1978. Afterwards, she went into songwriting for other singers, including Yagami and Mai Yamane（山根麻衣）, and also went into a career as a radio personality.
In the mid-80s, she picked up the microphone again. But this time, she went under the name Rie Ueda（上田梨詠） to become a jazz singer. The above is her rendition of the classic "Summertime". Then in 1999, she started giving live performances again under her original name and a couple of years later, she created a group called Sang Teng Sho（三天翔） which involved musical collaborations with artists from other countries such as China. It culminated into a 2004 album titled "Furusato wa Asia"（ふるさとはアジア....Asia Our Home）.
