Sachiko Kobayashi & Katsuhiko Miki -- Moshikashite Part 2 （もしかして・パート２）

As far as my memory goes, enka star Sachiko Kobayashi（小林幸子） was arguably the first big name from Japanese music to come to Toronto. Perhaps, others may have preceded her arrival to T.O, but they probably came before I was born. I think she came over just shortly after her big hit of "Omoide Zake" （おもいで酒）in 1979, and the venue was the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC). Not sure how the organizers pulled it off but most likely, a concert in New York probably helped in the logistics since by air, a flight from The Big Apple to The Big Smoke is barely an hour. In any case, Kobayashi's arrival to perform here was treated like an appearance by the Queen. I remember my parents dressing up to the nines to see her.

In any case, Sachiko Kobayashi had a fine decade in the 80s. One of her teiban songs was "Moshikashite" (By Chance), originally released in January 1984. A sparkly and sprightly tune, the song matched the singer's bubbly personality. It has a bit of a tango flair in it as well. Whenever we borrowed any music tapes from Nippon Video, she was sure to pop up with this one.  "Moshikashite" got as high as No. 11 on the Oricon weeklies, and got her a ticket to that year's Kohaku.

The song was written by Michiko Sakaki（榊みちこ） and composed by singer-songwriter Katsuhiko Miki（美樹克彦）. For Miki, I guess it just wasn't enough for him to stay on the sidelines; he decided to jump onto the stage and so, in July 1984, "Moshikashite Part II" was born with some changes in the lyrics to fit a duet for both him and Kobayashi. It looks like the upgraded version had some bigger benefits. The song again peaked at No. 11 but also became the 60th-ranked song for 1984, and earned a Gold Prize at the Japan Record Awards on New Year's Eve. And it has become a karaoke favourite with the older couples...perhaps after a few drinks.

The Peanuts -- Santa Claus is Coming to Town

And here I thought that the sisters merely specialized in giant caterpillar calling (just joking). Over here, when one thinks of The Peanuts' Christmas, one would automatically think Charlie Brown, that sickly Xmas tree and the glorious dance on the auditorium stage with Vince Guaraldi. However when I go into kayo kyoku mode, I think of Emi and Yumi singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" or as it's known over there, "Santa ga Machi ni Yatte Kuru"（サンタが町にやってくる）, a direct translation.

According to the uploader, The Peanuts did their cover of the Yuletide classic (still remember the Rankin & Bass cartoon with Fred Astaire) in 1962 as a special single. Would love to know if there is a "live" version of them singing it somewhere on YouTube.

courtesy of potato potato
from Flickr

Judy and Mary -- Chiisana Koro Kara （小さな頃から）

This was never meant as a Xmas song (the January 1995 release would illustrate that), but again this is a personal choice, since along with trf's "Samui Yoru Dakara" （寒い夜だから...Because It's a Cold Night), Judy and Mary's "Chiisana Koro Kara" (Since I Was Little) was one song that I'd heard over and over again on another late-night show, especially during December for some reason. Vocal YUKI and bassist Yoshihito Onda（恩田快人）created this song, and I think it does fit the Xmas mood at least in melody and delivery since YUKI has that girlish voice.

Here's the concert version of the song. "Chiisana Koro Kara" peaked at No. 37 on Oricon and was a track on Judy & Mary's 2nd album, "Orange Sunshine". It went as high as No. 5 on the weeklies and became the 46th-ranked album of 1995. I think what makes the song for me is the intro and YUKI's final yell.

trf -- Samui Yoru Dakara （寒い夜だから）

Not sure if this is considered to be more of a general Winter song than a Xmas song, but I've played it a lot before December 25. I think it basically insinuated itself into the Christmas part of my brain after having heard it nearly nightly as the closing theme of a late-night show in 1994 and 1995.

"Samui Yoru Dakara" (Because It's a Cold Night) was another Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉） concoction which became trf's 5th single....just before the singing-&-dancing unit truly hit the heights of popularity the following year. Released in December 1993, the title popped up in Komuro's head one night when he was bicycling over from his home to the studio....merely a 5-minute ride. Feeling the chill in his bones, once the title arrived, it apparently took him the remainder of his commute to come up with the whole song. A bit of a Galileo moment, I see.

The single peaked at No. 8 on Oricon and was included as a track in trf's 3rd album, "World Groove" which was released in February 1994. The album became a million-seller and hit the top spot before becoming the 9th-ranked release in the charts for the year.

Yumi Matsutoya/Seiko Matsuda -- Koibito ga Santa Claus （恋人がサンタクロース）

 

Whereas Yuming's "Lodge de Matsu Christmas"（ロッヂで待つクリスマス...Christmas Waiting in the Lodge) in 1978 had that evening heartwarming down-home Xmas feeling of somewhere in Colorado, her 1980 "Koibito ga Santa Claus" (My Lover is Santa Claus) was definitely on the other end of the spectrum in tone.  The feeling is more December daytime fun in the sun on the slopes of Nagano.

I'm not a skier by any means. I had my one and only try at downhill skiing with my junior high school students way back in 1990....was on the slopes for the entirety of an hour before I slunk back to the lodge for several more hours of cocoa and reflection by the frost-tinged windows. Anyways, my thoughts whenever I hear "Koibito ga Santa Claus" usually bring forth images of a Santa Claus manning not a sleigh but a starship driven by eight warp engines named Donner, Dancer, etc. The arrangement has that pop/rock feeling of good times at Christmas, which is basically what the Yuletide is all about in Japan: pop those firecrackers, clink that Beaujolais Nouveau, lunge into that Kentucky Fried Chicken!

"Koibito ga Santa Claus" was never released as an official single but was part of Yumi Matsutoya's 10th album, "Surf & Snow" released in December 1980. The album got as high as No. 7 on Oricon. In Yuming's huge repertoire, this song is probably up in the Top 10 in popularity.

I'd heard that the song has been covered by a number of singers over the years such as the lead singer of Princess Princess, Kaori Okui（奥井香). But I was still a bit surprised when I bought this compilation album titled "Fantastic Christmas" and saw Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子） name beside the famed song. At first, I assumed that Yuming had originally written "Koibito ga Santa Claus" for Seiko specifically since in the early 80s, she was doing so under her alias of Karuho Kureta. But it turned out that Seiko was doing a cover of the song for her first semi-Xmas album "Kin Iro no Ribbon"（金色のリボン....A Gold Ribbon) in 1982. The arrangement is slightly different but Seiko's bounciness and the overall fun of the song made a good match.

Myojo and Heibon (明星・平凡）

Ah, yes. Those old magazines. To be honest, I don't know exactly remember where and how I got each individual one, although generally speaking, they've come from purchases in Japan and in Toronto's Chinatown, and perhaps I inherited a few of them from one of my fellow J-Pop enthusiasts back a quarter-century ago.

This is the oldest magazine (March 1984) that I have here since the cover does feature Yu Hayami, Hidemi Ishikawa and Masahiko Kondo（早見優・石川秀美・近藤真彦）. The covers were always famous for that pose of all of the currently popular aidoru or even tarento gleaming their teeth at the camera. Basically, Myojo (Morning Star) and Heibon (Commonplace) were the popular Japanese equivalents of America's teen idol magazines such as "Teen Beat". Not sure about the lifetime of Heibon since it finished its run several years ago, but Myojo is still continuing and has been since 1952. Back in the 80s, the price of a single issue of Myojo was about 300 to 400 yen....not too bad at all for a rather thick magazine, but getting them in Toronto was easily 4-5 times more expensive. Still, I did indulge in my little habit of running down to Chinatown.

Inside an average monthly, there were the beginning glossy front pages with the top aidoru posing in the coolest fashion of the day. Sometimes, the situations were like the one for Akina Nakamori（中森明菜） up here just straight posing for the camera. Sometimes, the singers would find themselves in a domestic situation, trying to cook up an omelette or something. But no matter what, most of the pictures had to be happy-happy!

Seiko Matsuda in concert

It wasn't all aidoru....here's actor Yuji Oda in a
1991 issue.

Of course, at the time, my ability to read Japanese was restricted to hiragana, katakana and an odd sprinkling of kanji, so full articles were simply out of my purview. Not to say that I can now race through "The Daily Yomiuri", but I think I can handle a Myojo article OK now. But going back to those early days, I used to look at the pictures in the main book but enjoy looking at the "Young Song" booklets that came sandwiched in each issue of Myojo. This is the May 1986 issue with the Onyanko Club members festooned on the cover.

Miki Imai -- Piece of My Wish

"Young Song"had all the popular songs of the month, along with the lyrics, and in some cases, included even the score.....great for all those kids with pianos or organs....which would probably mean 95% of the population. Often a certain singer would be highlighted or a certain theme such as songs for evening listening would be featured. In those days, I would rely on these booklets way before YouTube came along.

It's always nice to go through these magazines once in a while just to see how things were back then and how young these folks all were way back when.

Seiko Matsuda -- Snow Garden

For an old J-Pop fan like me, it wouldn't be Xmas without putting this into the ol' Discman (yes, I am an analog digital type of guy) at this time. I first heard of this album by Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子） when someone kindly loaned a cassette tape with all of the songs in my U of T days.... later on, in Japan, I would finally get the CD itself. "Snow Garden" is actually Seiko-chan's 2nd half-Xmas/half-Best album released in November 1987; her first one, "Kin Iro no Ribbon"（金色のリボン...Golden Ribbon) had been released in 1982.

I would place the first song as one of those J-Pop tributes to a Norman Rockwell Christmas, kinda like Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや） musical approach to the Yuletide. The first track on "Today's Avenue Side"（i.e. the Xmas side) is "Please Don't Go" which starts with an epic 3-minute intro that sounds like an audio story in itself of presumably Seiko trying to run and catch that train to New England (maybe the same one that took Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen to Vermont in "White Christmas"). Just before Seiko finally enters, there is a brief sophisticated jazz riff and then she starts into her song which sounds a lot like the stuff that would get sung on those ol' Bob Hope or Andy Williams' Xmas specials. Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆） wrote the lyrics, but the surprising composer is Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝） (his songs are profiled), who's more known as a singer of either very manly or City Poppy tunes. "Please Don't Go" is about as Americana sentimental as Seiko has ever gotten.

Track 3 is "Pearl-White Eve" which was released as a single at the same time as the album. Unlike "Please Don't Go", this song is more along the typical lines of a Japanese Xmas tune. Once again, Matsumoto takes care of the lyrics, but the composer here is singer-songwriter Senri Oe（大江千里）. My old university mate, who was also the huge Checkers fan that I've mentioned when I've profiled the band, was just as big a Seiko fan. In fact, she used to get teased a lot for being a little too much like her idol (something that she only half-denied). Every time she played this song, she always had to gigglingly mention the supposed raciness of the lyrics because near the end of the song, Seiko would sing those lyrics about inviting the young man to untie the ribbon on her and open her up like a present. I would usually retort good-naturedly, "Just like life, eh?"

Ahem....anyways, "Pearl-White Eve" did reach the top spot on the Oricon weeklies and despite the late release would still become the 48th-ranked song for 1987. Her 24th single was her straight 22nd No. 1.

The B-Side was "Yesterday's Street Side", basically showing some of her past hits such as "Hitomi wa Diamond"（瞳はダイヤモンド）. However, the very last track was another Xmas tune titled "Yuki no Fantasy"（雪のファンタジー.... Snow Fantasy), a tenderhearted ballad which brings to mind standing in a quiet snowfield at night while the winds blow wisps of flakes (personally, sitting in an armchair with my mug of cocoa in front of a toasty warm flat screen TV would be more my thing). There's even a shoutout to "Silent Night" and a little English message from Seiko-chan, although I don't think that's what got her the guest gig on "Bones". In any case, this song was actually a re-lyricized and re-arranged version of the original from that first semi-Xmas album in 1982. Again, Matsumoto was behind the lyrics while Masaaki Omura (大村雅朗）took care of the music.

Although I'm not sure how the overall album did in the yearly rankings, "Snow Garden" did hit the No. 1 spot.

Seiko Matsuda -- Snow Garden