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.
Back in August, I covered the B-side of Yuko Asano's（浅野ゆう子）October 1977 single. The song was called "Sunset Seaside"（サンセット・シーサイド）and it was a stately disco kayo.
Well, that A-side is titled "Potsuri Potsuri"(Little by Little). It can also be translated as "Drip, Drip" for those who like their onomatopoeia, and perhaps the story is about something taking its sweet time. Compared to "Sunset Seaside", "Potsuri Potsuri" maybe goes a bit harder into the Donna Summerdisco although Asano's vocals here remind me of those belonging to a young Junko Yagami（八神純子）. As with the B-side, this particular song was also created by lyricist Akira Ito（伊藤アキラ）, composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranger Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）.
Well, I was talking about that "It's Twilight Time!" article that I'd written a few days ago on Tuesday, and here comes yet another song with a title containing that mystery word...well, its synonym anyways.
Aidoru (at the time) Yuko Asano's（浅野ゆう子）"Sunset Seaside" was actually the B-side to her 12th single "Potsuri Potsuri"（ぽつりぽつり...Little by Little） from October 1977. Akira Ito's（伊藤アキラ） lyrics refer to a couple who may be spending their last days together on the beach as the fall beckons closer, and of course, kayo fans know that autumn is the time when love usually comes to die. There isn't much talking between the man and woman with only cigarette smoke as the communication medium.
Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）were the composer and arranger respectively who put together this rather stately disco tune for Asano. In fact, I'd probably say that there is some Donna Summer in that arrangement.
It was just about five years when I posted the article for "BLUE" by the duo Jelly Beans. However, the duo here wasn't any run-of-the-mill singing act; the pair actually consisted of some A-list actresses Yuko Asano and Misako Tanaka（浅野ゆう子・田中美佐子）. Mind you, Asano at least had started her career out as a 1970s aidoru.
"BLUE" was a groovy disco tune which was the coupling song for the first of two singles that Jelly Beans released. That first single, and the subject of this article, was "Uso mo Honki de Pure na Heart de"（With True Lies and Pure Hearts） which came out in February 1997. Just like with "BLUE", there are some groovy 1990s dance beats involved here although without the disco. As well, both songs were created by lyricist Jun Amemiya（雨宮純）and composer Ryo Ogura（小倉良）. Not sure how Asano and Tanaka ever decided to join up for some musical merrymaking but though I have yet to check out that second and final single, "Day to Day", later that year, their collaboration for "Uso mo Honki de Pure na Heart de" was a pretty good one.
Unfortunately, the Japanese music world and the literary world lost a major figure on November 24th. Shizuka Ijuin passed away at the age of 73 from cancer. Born as a 2nd-generation Korean-Japanese in 1950 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, he was known as Cho Chung-rae（조충래）but his Japanese name was Tadaki Nishiyama（西山忠来）. He later became a celebrated fiction author under the pen name of Shizuka Ijuin who won the Naoki Prize and the Yoshikawa Eiji Literary Award.
According to his J-Wiki and Random House files, he wore some other hats such as commercial director, advertising executive and lyricist. For that last occupation, he took on the name Ayumi Date for which he has some representation on the blog. He came up with lyrics for a wide variety of singers in the pop, aidoru, rock and City Pop categories. Here are some of those songs. Of course, I offer my condolences to his family, friends and fans.
I only found out the news a few days ago via a chance Twitter browsing and then it was further reiterated by commenter Jim Laker, but unfortunately another veteran songwriter has left this mortal coil. Composer and arranger Makoto Kawaguchi passed away at the age of 83 on October 20th due to sepsis.
Kawaguchi has had a fairly long list of songs represented on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but I've yet to come across any official media reports of his death on YouTube which is unusual. There have been a few personal YouTube accounts that did cite his passing but for a composer like Kawaguchi who did create a lot of classic kayo including Mieko Hirota's（弘田三枝子）1969"Ningyo no Ie"（人形の家）above, it's a little surprising that NHK hasn't mentioned anything although perhaps some of the commercial networks may have done so.
The composer/arranger was born Masahiro Kawaguchi（川口眞弘）in the city of Kobe on November 5th 1937 but grew up in the city of Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. According to his J-Wiki profile, while studying in the Music Department at Tokyo University of the Arts, he became a part of chanson singer Fubuki Koshiji's（越路吹雪）backing band Claire de Charme as a pianist and then worked part time for composer Taku Izumi's（いずみたく）office. Kawaguchi dropped out of university in his senior year seeing that his job was becoming more of a full-time gig.
Although in 1966, he helped arrange The Ventures' version of "Futari no Ginza"（二人の銀座）, his official debut as a composer was in 1969 with the successful "Ningyo no Ie" with Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼） providing the lyrics. "Ningyo no Ie" was Kawaguchi's third-most successful creation which was followed by Saori Yuki's（由紀さおり）1970 hit"Tegami"（手紙）and Akira Fuse's（布施明）1974 hit"Tsumiki no Heya"（積木の部屋）at No. 1 and No. 2 respectively.
I haven't really delved too deeply into what made Kawaguchi tick in terms of his preferences for songs but my surface impression at this writing is that in the early part of his career at least, he seems to have been drawn into the darker or sadder aspects of romance just judging from the songs including the ones above. Basically, he composed his music in the kayo realm with some stretches into aidoru and tokusatsu and even City Pop.
I'd like to introduce some of the other songs that Kawaguchi created that I had yet to put onto KKP, beginning with the late Kiyohiko Ozaki's（尾崎紀世彦）July 1971"Sayonara wo Mou Ichido"（さよならをもう一度...Farewell, One More Time）, the great singer's follow-up single to the iconic "Mata Au Hi Made"（また逢う日まで）. With lyrics by Yu Aku（阿久悠）, a frequent songwriting partner, I guess that another observation is that Kawaguchi liked to go brassy and proud with his compositions, and that fit hand-in-glove with the booming voices of Ozaki and, for that matter, the aforementioned Fuse.
"Sayonara wo Mou Ichido" is the tough-but-tender song of sweet parting since although the couple may not have Paris, they will always have tomorrow to get back together to talk of old times. The arrangement is indeed brassy and proud, and the song reminds me of folks like Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck. With an Oricon weekly ranking of No. 2 and an end-of-year ranking of No. 14, I'm sure that all involved were very proud of this one.
In the previous year, Aku and Kawaguchi had teamed up to provide Teruhiko Saigo（西郷輝彦）with his August 1970 56th single, "Manatsu no Arashi"（真夏のあらし...Midsummer Maelstrom）, a story of being majorly distracted by the beautiful bodies around during the hot (and bothered) season. I believe that I mentioned Tom Jones above; well, I think that this is the wilder side of Jones singing through Saigo, and if I may be so bold, I think that Saigo's performance is rather similar to what soon-to-arrive Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）would bring to the kayo zeitgeist of the decade. Strangely enough, Kawaguchi would compose songs for Saijo soon enough.
(5:07)
Kawaguchi delved into the aidoru realm alongside lyricist Mieko Arima（有馬三恵子）for 70s teenybopper singer Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）for a couple of songs, her debut single"Tobidase Hatsukoi"（とびだせ初恋）and the follow-up, "Koi wa Dan Dan"（恋はダン・ダン）, both released in 1974. Asano's third and final single for that year was "Hitoribocchi no Kisetsu"（ひとりぽっちの季節...A Season of Loneliness） from December. Once again, tackled by Kawaguchi and Arima, those strings and what I think are an ocarina and an accordion bring forward a lot of spring innocence from a case of puppy love that doesn't seem to be heading to its happy end.
One more song that I'll put up on his tribute here is "Doyoubi no Cinderella"（土曜日のシンデレラ...Saturday Cinderella） sung by Sawako Kitahara（北原佐和子）as her 3rd single in September 1982. It's another aidoru tune and the arrangement is perfectly suited to the time of the early 80s teenyboppers, with the swift strings this time and the jingly synthesizers. This time, Kawaguchi's songwriting partner was lyricist Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）whose words almost make me wish the title was more along the lines of "The Taming of the Cinderella" as a young lady is, comically and physically or figuratively, poking a strong finger into her Prince Charming and demanding where the love and the glass slipper are. Again, I haven't explored the world of Kawaguchi in full but at first blush, it's remarkable how his melodies may have adjusted for the times and demands in music. Still, lyrically speaking, this seems to be along the lines of Kawaguchi's attraction to the not-so-happy themes in love.
Of course, there are the other Kawaguchi creations that you can cruise through under his name in the Labels section, but also if your Japanese ability is up to it, you can also look through his J-Wiki profile for a more complete list of his compositions. I never even touched his arrangements which is a separate list. Regardless, his accomplishments since the 1960s merit a tribute in kayo history.
Pretty much any station in Tokyo will have its fair share of taxis waiting for fares (and I'm hoping that over the past year, the industry has been hanging in there, although it seems that the megalopolis has been quite relaxed in its restrictions compared to here), and above is one of the main stations in the city, JR Shinagawa Station. I can't quite remember whether I ever took a cab from this particular depot but I did go there a number of times and even partook in some McDonalds across the street. In fact, I took the photo here in front of the Golden Arches.
For her December 1976 10th single during her aidoru days, Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）released "Moonlight Taxi", a quick and chipper tune about her enjoying that time in the big city with her chariot being the good ol' cab. Written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by his frequent partner Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, the arrangement by Tsutsumi and Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）has got some of that romantic disco interwoven with that high-pitched teen voice of Asano. The horns are plenty funky and the strings shimmer even more in the instrumental bridge thanks to some sort of filter, it seems.
The strings continue to stand out on the B-side of "Ringo no Kokoro" (Heart of An Apple) since their arrangement reminds me of a similar thing for Pizzicato Five's"Ice Cream Meltin' Mellow" from the group's "Romantique '96" album. Everyone on the songwriting team for the A-side is back here for "Ringo no Kokoro" which starts off with a playful piano and bass/guitar before it all gives way to those soaring strings. I gather that both songs are the quintessential semi-disco aidorutunes of the decade.
For my final article on the final day of August 2019, I was inspired by a weekly TV Asahi program titled "Sekai no Mura de Hakken! Konna Tokoro ni Nihonjin"（世界の村で発見!こんなところに日本人...Discovered in the World's Villages! A Japanese in This Sort of Place）. In each episode, celebs go around the world to "search" for a Japanese national who is currently working in some remote part of a country ranging from Russia to The Seychelles. As with any variety show in Japan, everything is planned to the letter including most likely letting know the target of that search beforehand that he/she will be visited for an interview as to why he/she is there, so any angst (extreme weather, language barrier, etc.) that the celeb feels is probably real but he/she has to follow through on the plan to be able to get a full segment in.
Tonight, we got to see an episode featuring actress Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）. I couldn't find a YouTube video with tonight's episode but she had been assigned to search for someone located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, but somehow she found herself much to my surprise in my hometown of Toronto!..almost 2,000 km short of target. In fact, she was asking folks for some help at Nathan Philips Square which you can see at the very top. I'm just trying to imagine someone as famous as Asano right in front of City Hall! Anyways, she eventually found the person out in the Maritimes.
So, in honour of this visual opportunity, I'm going to show off a song that's been on the back list for a while with the then-16-year-old Asano singing "Kokoro wa Karappo" (My Heart is Empty) from her 4th album released in November 1976, "Yuko In Disco".
Written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed/arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, "Kokoro wa Karappo" certainly has those disco elements with the strings and bass but I'm not sure if it's a fully disco tune. That boogie-woogie piano takes me out into some very jolly 70s pop, and then there is a section which seems to pull me out into the stratosphere for a brief mellow flight before taking me back to Roppongi. There is no melodic meandering though. I do get quite the exciting but not panicky ride; Asano's heart may be empty but my ears are full.
Not even quite sure if I would even categorize "Kokoro wa Karappo" as an aidoru tune per se, but considering her age and the fact that she was probably still known as a teenybopper singer in 1976. I've put it down as such. Since then, Asano has become far more famous as a tarento and actress.
As a postscript which may surprise my family, although we still get "Sekai no Mura de Hakken! Konna Tokoro ni Nihonjin" on TV Japan fairly regularly, I just found out that the show finally finished its run earlier this year.
Actresses Yuko Asano and Misako Tanaka（浅野ゆう子・田中美佐子）have been veterans on the small screen for years and years. Plus, they had their own comedy-drama together titled "Mama Chari Keiji"（ママチャリ刑事...Mommy Bike Detectives） in 1999 with a happy theme song "Takaramono"（宝物）sung by Mayo Okamoto（岡本真夜）.
As much as I came to realize that Asano had started out as an early 1970s aidoruslowly making that transition into City Pop in the late 70s and early 80s, I didn't know that both she and Tanaka got together a couple of years before "Mama Chari Keiji" to form the duo Jelly Beans. The duo would record two singles with the first single titled "Uso mo Honki de Pure na Heart de"（嘘も本気でピュアなハートで...With True Lies and Pure Hearts） from February 1997.
The coupling song to that first single is "BLUE". I only came across it by accident one night and recognizing Asano and Tanaka, decided to give it a spin. I was delightfully surprised that the actresses were pretty good as singers, too. With some nice groove and a very obvious tribute to that disco classic "The Hustle", "BLUE" probably didn't get too close to achieving a Japan Record Award but it is nice to chase away some of those blues away. Jun Amemiya（雨宮純）and Ryo Ogura（小倉良）were the songwriters here.
My very first summer job was in 1983 when I was hired to paint all of the fences in a townhouse development in the northeastern district of Toronto called Agincourt. I realize that you can't see inside my memories but, let me reassure you, this was a huge development. I also had to water lawns in the morning and pick up any garbage in the area. Then the remainder of the day was painting the fences a dark green, something that took over 2 months to complete. It was a surreal "Twilight Zone" experience since the neighbourhood was virtually deserted during the day with folks out at work or school. There was a group of kids, mind you, that took care of landscaping once a week but I never associated with them. It was simply me, a can of paint and a paintbrush outside alone.
However, once in a while, someone would play the radio so that I did get some background music. One song that I distinctly remember was the 1983 hit "Never Gonna Let You Go" by Sergio Mendes. Yes, that Sergio Mendes...the one behind "Mas que Nada", his signature tune from the 1960s. And yet, "Never Gonna Let You Go" was the first Mendes song that I had ever heard, a dreamy and epic ballad of the 1980s that was far into the AOR genre. I also remember seeing it on Casey Kasem's"America's Top 40" TV show frequently.
Well, in the 1970s which was perhaps seen as a quieter period for Mendes, he released the album "Magic Lady" in 1979 which had the disco-pop song "Summer Dream" as one of the tracks.
However, I only found out about "Summer Dream" and "Magic Lady" because I discovered the cover version first in the form of Yuko Asano's（浅野ゆう子）"Summer Champion". It was released as Asano's 14th single in April 1979. The Japanese lyrics were provided by Ayumi Date（伊達歩）, and like the original, it's quite the roving downtown City Pop number with the sultry vocals by the singer. As with some of her other output during the late 1970s going into the 1980s, it's quite the revelation that she used to perform some of those urban contemporary songs I've enjoyed when I consider that I used to know her simply as the trendy drama queen and the classy if quirky commercial pitchperson.
Not certain which album it was released on or even if it did get onto an album, but it has been placed on her "Golden Best RCA/Fun House Years" （GOLDEN☆BEST 浅野ゆう子 RCA/FUN HOUSE YEARS）from 2005.
I finished my time painting just before my senior year in high school. Battling sunburn, heatstroke and athlete's foot, I rather felt like a summer champion by the time Labour Day swung by. And the money helped in getting me into first year at University of Toronto.
Somewhat belated news but I heard about actress Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）getting married late last year with the announcement coming out in early January of this year 2018. So many congratulations to her and the lucky fellow who is just a civilian not involved in the entertainment industry.
Well, I can't just let this piece of happiness go by without paying some tribute to the happy couple. And sure enough, I found this cute little song about love titled "Koi wa Dan Dan" (Love is B-Bump) which was Asano's 2nd single when she had been an aidoru. She was all of 14 years old when she released this ditty of a girl trying to make the leap to some more mature love.
"Koi wa Dan Dan" came out in August 1974. It was written by Mieko Arima（有馬三恵子）and composed by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）, the same duo behind Asano's debut single"Tobidase Hatsukoi"（とびだせ初恋）which had come out in May of the same year.
I've seen Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）mostly as an actress and as a regular presence on commercials so it was pretty surprising to hear her singing something like this. I mean, I've already written on a couple of songs from her early aidoru period that I had already been aware about through all sorts of retrospectives on TV.
But little did I know that she even tackled the smooth sounds of City Pop/J-AOR which her 17th single"Hanbun Aishite" (Love Me By Half) falls solidly into. Released in 1980, Asano channels Junko Yagami（八神純子）very well through this song penned by lyricist Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）who are veterans at the genre. Had no idea that she could croon a tune like this. It makes for a nice evening down by Tokyo Bay. I can only wonder what other City Pop delights she came up with at the time.
As I intimated for my other article on actress Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）, I first got to know her through all those sparkly trendy dramas that she starred in the late 1980s and early 1990s such as the one above, "Dakishimetai!"（抱きしめたい!...I Wanna Hold Your Hand）. With the face and body of a model but with the temperament of a good buddy, it was no surprise about how popular she became as the face of the trendy drama. Plus there was that whole Double Asano fad whenever she appeared with fellow thespian and fellow beauty Atsuko Asano（浅野温子）, although they weren't related to each other...Yuko Asano was actually born Yuko Akazawa（赤沢裕子）in 1960.
So I had to play some catchup when I discovered that she had once owned a career as an aidoru in the early 1970s. In fact, I managed to find a short version of her debut single"Tobidase Hatsukoi"(Jump Out, First Love) from May 1974. Yep, she's doing the cute teenybopper thing but the thing that floored me was that she was just at the higher end of 13 when she released this song! I'm looking at that video above and trying to wrap my head around the fact that she was just barely into adolescence as she was go-go dancing.
Mieko Arima（有馬三恵子）took care of the lyrics while Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）composed the light and fluffy tune. Of course, her biggest hit would be "Sexy Bus Stop" a couple of years later.
It's amazing what one can find out about an old tune.
I first heard this song with the "only-in-Japan" title of "Sexy Bus Stop" when EPO did a cover version on her "Poptracks"album of 1987. The melody instantly got me thinking of funk-n-disco (pardon my French...ahem). I would later find out that it was originally performed by actress Yuko Asano（浅野ゆう子）, one of the most popular trendy drama stars of the 80s and 90s, when she had started out in show business in the early 70s as a young starlet and aidoru. "Sexy Bus Stop" was Asano's 8th single and her biggest hit. When I discovered this fact, I frankly went "She actually sang?" which kinda shows how far her acting career has eclipsed her singing one although she continued to release singles off-and-on until the late 90s.
The above video is just 30 seconds long but it has a teenage Asano (nee Yuko Akazawa...赤沢裕子) bopping about on the stage looking fairly tomboyish....quite a far cry from my image of her as the sultry, sweet and sassy characters she played in those dramas over a decade later. "Sexy Bus Stop" peaked at No. 12 on Oricon.
But the story is not over. I found out that Asano herself was doing a vocal cover of the song which had originally been an instrumental. When I came across the name of the band, Dr. Dragon and Oriental Express, I first assumed that it was an American disco group. Its "Sexy Bus Stop", which had been released just a month before the Asano version, certainly sounded American enough. Then, I dug a little deeper.
Apparently, it was Japanese after all. And it had quite the lineup. Dr. Dragon and Oriental Express started life in 1976 and starred these folks: Shigeru Suzuki (guitar), Tsugutoshi Goto (bass), Tatsuo Hayashi (drums) and Akiko Yano (keyboards)."Sexy Bus Stop" was the debut for this group, and they even released one album, "The Birth of a Dragon". The producer for the whole disco project was Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平） who also composed "Sexy Bus Stop" under the name of Jack Diamond, while Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）provided the lyrics for the Asano version.
Just to give another example of this band's output, here is their theme song.
