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.
Ten days ago on the 14th, I posted a Nash Music Library Xmas-themed song titled "Kamakura de X'mas" from the October 2024 compilation by NML titled "Christmas Avenue". It got the two labels of Xmas and Traditional Instrumental which would certainly explain the title.
Another track from "Christmas Avenue" is more conventional. Well, at least the song itself. The title has made me wonder, though. "Tipsy Reindeer" sounds more like an occupational hazard for Santa Claus after his eight employees and perhaps Rudolph got too much into the egg nog. Still, the actual song is a very pleasant pop tune that almost approaches Smooth Jazz status. The entire album would make for some fine kitchen cooking accompaniment.
I only came across the above video yesterday during my usual YouTube browsings. It's the annual Turner Movie Classics"TCM Remembers" which pays musical tribute to the entertainers around the world that have passed on during the calendar year. We did lose quite a few famous folks from film such as Gene Hackman, Robert Redford and Tatsuya Nakadai（仲代達矢）.
However, during the tribute, I was surprised to find out that Argentine musician and composer Lalo Schifrin had passed away months ago in June at the age of 93. I didn't know a lot of his work but what I do remember has stuck with me as two of the most iconic theme songs in American TV history. There was the cool jazz theme for private eye "Mannix" and then the far more famous one for "Mission: Impossible" which got its most recent unveiling when the final movie in the Tom Cruise version of the franchise (I'm confident that there will be at least a try to revive it with a new lead) hit the theatres some months ago.
"T.H.E. Cat" was a short-lived series on NBC that lasted only a season, premiering in September 1966, the same month when "Mission: Impossible" launched on CBS. It starred a leopard-lithe and quick Robert Loggia (I had to really look up my sources to make sure that this was the same burly Robert Loggia from "Big" and "Mancuso") as a former acrobat and master thief-turned-security guy named Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat who helped clients who were in over their heads.
Although "T.H.E. Cat" started its brief run when I was not even a year old, this would still apply as a Reminiscings of Youth article for me because I only found out about the series when it ran on a local gonzo late-night show during my teenage years, appropriately titled "The All-Night Show"(which I will feature as a ROY probably sometime next week) that often unearthed long lost shows from the heap of TV history.
Schifrin came up with the theme for "T.H.E. Cat". It's not nearly as famous as his themes for "Mannix" and "Mission: Impossible", but it does have that sinewy downtown coolness which describes Mr. Cat to a tee. And the jazz orchestra reminds me of some of the stuff that Henry Mancini had created for projects such as "Peter Gunn".
Tomorrow on Christmas Day will have the usual and holiday-themed ROY but I wanted to provide this special Xmas Eve ROY in tribute to the great Schifrin. There were two Japanese singles that were released when "T.H.E. Cat" made its debut in September 1966.
I heard this one several weeks ago on an episode of NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）and it was my first time with it. Not only that, I hadn't heard a Masako Mori（森昌子）song in quite a while, so I just had to add it to the KKP collection.
"Tachimachi Misaki"(Cape Tachimachi) is Mori's 39th single from August 1982 and it's a go-touchi song of the titular geological formation found just southeast of Mount Hakodate in Hokkaido (officially, it represents the city of Hakodate). As soon as I also read in its J-Wikipedia article that it juts out into the Tsugaru Strait, I realized right there and then that this would be an enka/kayo kyoku regarding lost love. After all, the Tsugaru Strait seems to be the go-to spot for sighing over heartbreak as in perhaps what is the most famous example, Sayuri Ishikawa's（石川さゆり）"Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki"（津軽海峡・冬景色）.
Written by Ou Yoshida（吉田旺）, composed by Keisuke Hama（浜圭介）and arranged by Shunichi Makaino（馬飼野俊一）, "Tachimachi Misaki" has certainly got the dramatic brio as Mori pines for that one that got away (the wailing chorus helps). But then again, something as dramatic as this cape should get something equivalent. And it was lauded for it as the song reached No. 36 on Oricon and won the Grand Prize at the Masao Koga Memorial Music Awards for that year. Plus, it would serve as Mori's invitation for her 10th consecutive appearance at NHK's Kohaku Utagassen.
We've got KKP representative Kayo Grace Kyoku all gussied up for Christmas as she's traveling in a sleigh, so that does mean Christmas Eve is here. I'm under the assumption that Santa Claus is already making his way over Japan and much of the Pacific at this point while we here in the Eastern Standard Time zone are racing around for that last-minute shopping. Did my final forage in the supermarket earlier this morning.
Model/actress/singer Elaiza Ikeda（池田エライザ）was someone that I had first encountered earlier this year on the "Premium Talk" segment of NHK's"Asaichi"（あさイチ）show, and I found out that she has contributed some music to the Neo-City Pop field. At around the same time, I realized that ELAIZA had also released a single back in December 2022 just in time for the Yuletide titled "Catch Up SANTA".
Feeling pretty soulful, Justin Reinstein and Mayu Wakisaka were behind the music while ELAIZA and Yui Mugino took care of the lyrics. The singer gets all sultry here and "Catch Up SANTA" sounds like something that Mariah Carey would cover, and apparently, the video director must like Chippendales.
Sunday evenings at 6 pm in Ichikawa usually meant dinner time for me. Television choices varied almost as much as my cooking at that time. Fuji-TV was always "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）, but there was also a program on TV Tokyo at the same time called "Drive A Go-Go!"（ドライブ A GO!GO!）.
Japanese TV will never fail to fascinate me when it comes to the breadth and depth of ideas and new angles to apply to programs based on edutainment. "Drive A Go-Go!" was a half-hour travelogue featuring tarento and other celebrities taking a drive together with one of the stars behind the wheel as the gang for that week (could number between three and five folks per episode) head for a certain area in Japan to explore and nosh. The above video is labeled as a 1998 episode and that's when "Drive A Go-Go!" began as it went through its odyssey of eighteen years. The duo above (if it doesn't get deleted) is the late singer-songwriter KAN and former aidoru Wakako Shimazaki（島崎和歌子）.
Of course, a long-running TV show like "Drive A Go-Go" will have had lots of ending themes by various bands and singers, and sure enough, somewhere in the middle of its run, the program had the duo metro trip come up with one such ending theme. I've already spoken on metro trip back in October when I introduced their tune "BABYBABY" from 2006. "Driving" hails from metro trip's 2nd and final album"Lovers" which was released in July 2007. Written and composed by one-half of the duo, Taka Aoki（青木多果）, it's a suitably breezy and funky piece for the highways and byways.
Got some more Xmas shopping done today...this time for dinner on the 25th. Not as many people as there were at the mall on Saturday, but still a lot more than usual for a weekday morning. I still think I'll probably need a few more supplies tomorrow.
It's been a fascinating time exploring the career of Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）, one of the more underrated Japanese singers that I've come across in my many years of exploring kayo kyoku and J-Pop. The beginning of her career in the early 1980s was one of refined older pop with an orchestra often backing her up as a creation that hovered between Fashion Music and City Pop. But then going into the 1990s, it seems as if Kurahashi went for a lighter, breezier and more contemporary sound.
Nowadays, it's not easy to find a Kurahashi song that hasn't already been covered by me since I've been a big fan of hers, but I managed to do so. My collection of her singles and albums stopped in 1991, so this one is a new one for me since it was released in December 1992. Titled "Atarashii Asa ni..."(On a New Morning), it is as expected: enjoyably light, breezy and more contemporary as described above. Used as the ending theme for the NTV newsmagazine program "The Sunday", I'm sure that this was the type of song the network desired as something audibly hopeful after some serious topics. Kurahashi herself took care of the lyrics while Makihiko Araki（荒木真樹彦）was the composer.
My one and only time in Hollywood was in the summer of 1989 when our plane, due to technical issues, was stuck at LAX for the night so we actually got to spend an accidental night in Los Angeles. Our hotel's manager took pity on us JET teachers and he got us a tour through the LA area including Hollywood and Beverly Hills, so we got to see how people in a higher income tax bracket got to live. In some parts, it really did feel like an illusion worthy of a holodeck.
And this gets me to segue over to "Hollywood Illusion" by jazz pianist Himiko Kikuchi（菊池ひみこ）. A track from her 1984 album"Reverse It", it really does sound like our whirlwind tour through Los Angeles...seeing those familiar landmarks in person and not through television such as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Venice Beach, the Hollywood sign and even a few celebrity mansions including the one belonging to Elizabeth Taylor.
Yes, that not-quite-5-minute "Hollywood Illusion" manages to smash in disco, jazz, funk and even some of that Golden Age melodic sophistication to illustrate the craziness of life in the Hollywood area. The intro even sounds like the beginning of the Oscars ceremony from decades ago, and at the same time, I got those eerie reminders of Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）classic "Kawa no nagare no youni" (川の流れのように), five years before the song was even released. It's a long way from 1989 to 2025 but I wonder how much Hollywood has changed.
Completely off-topic here but from a humorous interview with Sir Patrick Stewart on The Graham Norton Show, I learned about the swanky Tower Bar & Restaurant in LA which is part of the Sunset Tower Hotel. I can only wonder what going there would be like. By the way, I first posted about Kikuchi back in 2020, so you can also check out her "Sevilla Breeze" which sounds like the name of a cocktail that could be served at the Tower Bar.
.jpg)
.jpg)