Jerry (Jelly) Fujio -- Tooku e Ikitai （遠くへ行きたい）

According to the information for this YouTube video, this is the lone concert recording of Hollywood's famous Rat Pack with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. along with Johnny Carson as the host. I was born a few months after this performance in St. Louis so my first now-fuzzy memories of pop culture back then consisted of the last spurt of those big guns from the Golden Age of Hollywood as they often appeared on television in either finely tailored suits or tuxes singing those swingy jazz standards. Folks nowadays usually can't catch such a thing anymore unless they are Michael Buble fans or watch certain episodes of "Family Guy" since star and creator Seth MacFarlane is an ardent fan of the old tunes.

I've always equated Yujiro Ishihara's（石原裕次郎）Ishihara Gundan（石原軍団...the Ishihara Army） with Ol' Blue Eyes' Rat Pack. The Big Man was the Chairman of the Board for that Gundan with members including Masaki Kanda, (ex-husband No. 1 of Seiko Matsuda, father of Sayaka), Hiroshi Tachi and Tetsuya Watari as the cool tough guys in their own fine threads. They even starred in their own cop shows from the 1970s onwards.

However, singer-actor Jerry Fujio（ジェリー藤尾）actually looked like he could have joined Dean, Frank and Sammy on stage in Las Vegas. I haven't seen him too much in the last several years but when we could get access to a VCR (either through showings at the Buddhist Church or when we finally purchased our own), I was able to see footage of the dapper fellow in his tux singing old chestnuts such as "Danny Boy". And that's how I've always seen Fujio.

From what I've read of Fujio, he had a pretty tough upbringing. According to his J-Wiki bio, the singer was born Shigeki Fujio（藤尾薫紀）, the son of an NHK announcer, Shigehiro Fujio（藤尾薫宏）, and his English wife, Olivia Heath Gonzales in 1940 in Shanghai, China. When the family returned to Japan after World War II, Olivia and young Shigeki were discriminated for a number of reasons including the language barrier. The anxiety was too much for Olivia as she descended into alcoholism and died when Shigeki was in his first year of junior high school. After jobs as a bouncer and a roadie, in 1957, Fujio was scouted by someone working for Manase Productions when he spotted Fujio suddenly jumping onto to the stage to sing Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" at a jazz lounge. Thus, his career in showbiz began.

In 1962, on the NHK music-variety program, "Yume de Aimasho"（夢であいましょう...Let's Meet In Our Dreams）, Fujio sang "Tooku e Ikitai" (I Want To Go Far Away), one of the most melancholy-sounding kayo that I have ever heard. The power duo of songwriting at the time, Hachidai Nakamura and Rokusuke Ei（中村八大・永六輔）, created this ballad of wanting to travel somewhere unknown and as far away as possible. There's no mention about the reason behind the urge to make that trek all alone but I can only wonder if it were some kind of romantic breakup. Perhaps the pair even made it specifically for Fujio. The song became his breakthrough hit and it has become his signature tune.

I've heard Fujio sing the number but when I re-acquainted myself with "Tooku e Ikitai", there was a voice inside me stating that I've heard this cry-in-your-beer sort of tune even beyond his contributions. And as it turned out, the song was adopted as the theme for an NTV travel show with the same title that has been continuing since 1970...a good 46 years!

And it was here that many singers over the decades have covered "Tooku e Ikitai". Everyone from Duke Aces（デューク・エイセス）to Yo Hitoto（一青窈）have given their own version of the evergreen song.

Here are the Duke Aces with their own version.

And this is the late Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）with her haunting and more introspective cover of "Tooku e Ikitai".

Finally, this is the performance of a much older Fujio singing his signature song. As for the name of Jerry, there was no mention in the J-Wiki article about how he got it. Was he given an English name by his mother or was it placed onto him by the folks at Manase Productions because of his Eurasian appearance? However, for some reason, Wikipedia and even his own webpage have written his nom de guerre as "Jelly" and not "Jerry" although the covers on his records have it listed as the latter. I'm still not clear on this so I have placed the two names at the top. Frankly, if there is anyone who should have earned the name "Jelly", it would be me due to considerations of my own girth.

Yoshinori Monta with Junko Ohashi -- Natsu Onna Sonia（夏女ソニア）

Woof! Now this would make a great theme song for a show about a tough-as-nails female police officer. But instead, "Natsu Onna Sonia" (Summer Woman Sonia) was used as the campaign song for Kose Cosmetics. And there was quite the powerhouse vocal duo behind this jingle with the sonic boomer of Junko Ohashi（大橋純子）and the raspy-voiced Yoshinori Monta (もんたよしのり), leader of Monta & Brothers（もんた&ブラザーズ）who had the No. 1 song of the year in 1980, "Dancing All Night"（ダンシング・オールナイト）.

Released in April 1983 as a special duet number, "Natsu Onna Sonia" was written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed by singer-guitarist Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）. It gallops at a fast pace, but it also has a nice if very brief slower passage handled by Ohashi before things go back to full speed. I wouldn't have minded if that passage had been extended a bit more since I'm a fan of Ohashi and that voice of hers. Still, it's a nostalgic and dynamic reminder of some of that Japanese disco sound from the 1980s and even the decade before that. The song got as high as No. 16 on Oricon.

Meiko Nakahara -- Coconuts no Kataomoi (ココナッツの片想い)

Happy Monday! From a number of folks that I've spoken with over the years, it seems that they became J-Pop fans through the anime route; they listened and enjoyed the theme songs for the show and decided to investigate the rest of those singers' output. For me, I kinda got into it through osmosis thanks to my Dad's record collection, the trip to Japan in 1981 with the additional video tapes of music shows, and so on.

The same thing could be said about my relationship with the singer Meiko Nakahara（中原めいこ）. Many anime fans first got to know her through one of the ending themes for the 1980s show "Kimagure Orange Road"（きまぐれオレンジ☆ロード）, the catchy "Dance In The Memories", while in my case, it was listening to her zany and just-as-catchy single "Kimi Tachi Kiwi Papaya Mango da ne"（君たちキウイ・パパヤ・マンゴだね）on one broadcast of "Sounds of Japan".

Well, last night I discovered that a couple of years before her fruit-themed hit, Nakahara had penned another song based on a tropical food, the take-it-or-leave-it coconut (I will happily take it), titled "Coconuts no Kataomoi" (Coconuts One-Way Love). It is a track on her 2nd album "Friday Magic" (December 1982) whose title track has already been featured. Unlike the later speakeasy-friendly "Kimi Tachi Kiwi Papaya Mango da ne", "Coconuts no Kataomoi" has a City Pop (nice bass) beat anchoring the happy Latin vibe. It certainly sounds as if Nakahara had mastered the samba corner of the urban contemporary part of Japanese pop music.

Actually, Marcos V. beat me to it by about a couple of years when he wrote about the cover by aidoru Chieri Ito（伊藤智恵理）.

Yutaka Akiba & Arrow Knights -- Yuwaku （誘惑）

Ikebukuro

It's a cool Sunday night here. Most likely, most folks in Japan at this point in time would just be resting up after a hearty dinner and watching TV before heading back out into the rat race on Monday. So, they would probably not be too enthused about hitting the bars or karaoke boxes as may be the case on a Friday or Saturday night.

My family and I enjoyed a good round of tempura tonight. And yes, I kept things homebound as well, not that there is anything remotely resembling a friendly neighbourhood nomiya or karaoke box in my neck of the woods at all. Still for today's second entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I felt more in a Mood Kayo mood so I settled on searching for something appropriate.

Well, I came across a tune by Yutaka Akiba & Arrow Knights（秋庭豊とアローナイツ）. Now, Noelle has already written on this Mood Kayo group in some good detail so you can check out her write-up on "Nakanoshima Blues"（中の島ブルース）which the Arrow Knights debuted with in 1973. However, my contribution concerning the Hokkaido-based band is one of their later songs, "Yuwaku" (Temptation) which was actually released in 1990.

Although enka has been coming out steadily up to the present day, I think its cousin genre of Mood Kayo hasn't been quite as prevalent so I was initially surprised to hear this example of the old stuff being released at the beginning of the final decade of the last century. But "Yuwaku" has got that classic sound (with a bit of modern arrangement) for enjoying a glass at some swanky bar or club in Ginza or Akasaka. And I do like whoever is handling the electric guitar.

I had to do some research to find out how to read the lyricist's name but it is Akira Saketani（酒谷明良）, and he does a marvelous job in setting up the Mood of two ships passing in the night and tripping the light fantastic. Composer Hiroyuki Nakagawa（中川博之）, as I intimated above, brings back those sweeping sounds to accompany those clinking ice cubes and the smell of cigarette smoke.

The release of the song must have come with some sorrow since the original leader, Yutaka Akiba passed away at the age of 44 during the summer of 1990. Along with that point, I can further add to Noelle's information on the Arrow Knights by saying that most of the members came from the city of Utashinai in Hokkaido Prefecture, which is currently the smallest city in terms of population in the nation. Also, the group formed while they were working as coal miners!

Ikimonogakari/Nao Matsushita -- Arigato (ありがとう)

I heard this song on today's edition of NHK's "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）and I finally decided to profile it. Not being a fan of pop band Ikimonogakari（いきものがかり）per se, I still enjoy the inspiring feeling of "Arigato" (Thank You) as this cheer-up song. I've heard the band's 18th single a number of times over the past few years including a recent Kohaku Utagassen.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xw3vjk_op-%E3%82%B2%E3%82%B2%E3%82%B2%E3%81%AE%E5%A5%B3%E6%88%BF-156_shortfilms

The theme song for the NHK morning serial "GeGeGe no Nyobo"（ゲゲゲの女房...GeGeGe's Wife）which was televised for most of 2010, the show starred actress Nao Matsushita（松下奈緒）as the wife of manga artist Shigeru Mizuki（水木しげる）as the story related how they had to endure the tough times before Mizuki finally found success with works such as "GeGeGe no Kitaro"（ゲゲゲの鬼太郎...Kitaro of the Graveyard）. As is the case with all of the asadora, there were episodes which ended with a cliffhanger or some sort of tragedy, but I've got a feeling that Ikimonogakari's theme song reassured viewers that things would inevitably turn out all right.

"Arigato" was written and composed by Yoshiki Mizuno（水野良樹）, one of the guitarists for Ikimonogakari, and released in May 2010. It has become one of the band's biggest hits, hitting No. 2 on Oricon and finishing the year as the 33rd-ranked single. It even hung on the following year as the 175th-ranked single. "Arigato" also went Platinum and won the band a Best Song Prize at the Japan Record Awards that year. Ikimonogakari has had a long run on the Kohaku Utagassen (if they are included in this year's edition in a few months' time, it will be their 9th consecutive appearance), and "Arigato" marked their 3rd appearance.

Last year's appearance by the band was to perform "Arigato" again in tribute to artist Mizuki since he had passed away in November at the age of 93.

In that 2010 appearance by Ikimonogakari, their performance was prefaced by Matsushita's own version of "Arigato" as an accomplished pianist. A recorded version is available on a BEST compilation from that same year, "Scene 25 ~ Best of Nao Matsushita".

80kidz -- Esquire

One of the things that I like about a city is not only its night life but also its nightscape. The neon dancing around, the tall towers filled with lights and the cars buzzing around everywhere lend a punch to the urban sight.

Now I don't drive a car. As I may have pointed out in another article, knowing what kind of person I am, my dread (or phobia, if you will) is that if I ever get behind the wheel of a car, I would weaponize it immediately. As such then, I don't get much of an opportunity to see the wonderful bright lights of my city of Toronto at night from a car on the Gardiner Expressway unless I'm a passenger in a friend's automobile. These days, it's only my anime buddy who drives us around and that is almost always in the northern part of the city so a view of the downtown nightscape will probably remain a rarity.

During my 17 years living in the Tokyo area, getting that grand view of the megalopolis at night from a car never materialized for me...not that I can remember anyways. And if I were to harbour a regret about not driving, it would be that I never got to see how wonderfully lit Tokyo is. In fact, it wasn't until that trip back to Japan in October 2014 that I could finally get a car ride at night, and that was only because I was so tired after a late arrival at Haneda Airport that I just said "Screw it! I'm taking a taxi to the hotel!" It was a nice ride....and expensive, too, at 10,000 yen, but heck I really wanted to get to my accommodations in Asakusa after that delay.

One of the great things about seeing Tokyo at night while bombing down the highway (provided that it's not rush hour) is that the highways don't just run along the city, they permeate it. They criss-cross among and curve around the buildings which encourage the upload of videos like the one above. Watching that video, I was re-acquainted with the electro-rock group 80kidz via the first song, "Esquire".

One day, when I visited the Shibuya branch of HMV which struck me as being the cooler cousin to my other favourite CD shops of Tower Records and Yamano Music (could have been the pink-and-black colour scheme), I saw the display for 80kidz and their very first album, the bluntly titled "This Is My Shit" from 2009. I had a listen to a couple of the tracks from the album and thought it fun and funny hearing the title track with the title repeatedly being said over and over to a techno track.

"Esquire" which is a track on 80kidz' 3rd album "Turbo Town" (2012) isn't quite as scatological (never thought I would ever use that word in this blog), and it makes for a nice driving song on Tokyo highways such as the Wangan Expressway. Those guitars provide some added horsepower to those synths.

Although 80kidz started out as a threesome consisting of Ali&, Jun and Mayu, it's now just the first two as a duo act, and they seem to be rather camera-shy. They have helped provide remixes for other Japanese singers such as Ayumi Hamasaki（浜崎あゆみ）and Orange Range and also overseas acts.

Aw, heck...I'll leave you with "This Is My Shit" since I also like the cover of that album.

Miki Imai -- Bluebird/amour au chocolat

Speaking of bluebirds, our own version of it in the form of a professional baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays, is in danger of letting any chance of post-season play slip away. Ach....I think it's pretty much game over already but hopefully they may be able to snatch the final wild card spot before the regular season ends tomorrow.

In any case, let's pivot to a happier version of bluebird....namely Miki Imai's（今井美樹）"Bluebird", her 9th single from July 1993. I was more of a collector of Imai's full albums and BEST releases rather than her individual singles so this one nearly slipped by me until I purchased her second compilation of hits "Ivory II" since it was probably the first album that included this really upbeat tune. Not that I ever considered Imai a singer of downbeat material but my impression of her is that she has had a good mastery of love ballads and mellow fare.

But of course, the singer with the wide-as-the-Mississippi smile has released her fair share of happiness and "Bluebird" has it in spades. Written by frequent Imai collaborator, Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）, and composed by future husband Tomoyasu Hotei（布袋寅泰）, this is a song that is a jump start for getting out of the blues and into the sunshine again. Certainly the concert performance above puts an emphatic point on that statement along with the rock guitars. It also feels different from the tone of her previous singles and albums.

And going on with this different feeling is the coupling song to "Bluebird" which was "amour au chocolat"...quite the pretentious title. I bought Imai's 1992 album, "flow into space" through "Eye-Ai" while I was back in Toronto, and this is where I first heard this dreamy and mellow piece. As I mentioned on the article for Imai's old-style "Blue Moon Blue" which is another track on the album, "flow into space" is notable for showing a more "organic" side for lack of a better expression. With a lot of her ballads and mid-tempo entries from the late 1980s, they could be heard at a small town cafe, but the tracks from her 7th album come off as if they were meant to be played over the speakers at a coffeehouse in a trendier neighbourhood in Tokyo, say, Aoyama or Shimo-Kitazawa. Probably for you readers who have never visited my old stomping grounds, that last sentence may not mean a whole lot but I tried. And I encourage you to go and visit!

"amour au chocolat" (at least the original album version...apparently, the coupling song is a new take) is the yang to the yin (or should that be the other way around?) of "Bluebird". Hotei's music goes at a leisurely pace with his guitar adding a dramatic Western twang and then even going a bit "drunk" near the end. I can imagine him having composed this on a wooden porch outside with a slight rain coming down. Meanwhile, Imai coquettishly delivers her own lyrics about helplessly falling in love with a man who is already taken. Perhaps that title might be analogizing the addictive properties of that emotion to one of the most beloved flavours. I can certainly sympathize. I'm no longer a rabid chocoholic but I still get those cravings for a Hersheys once in a while. The whole song was arranged by Joe Hisaishi（久石譲）, the fellow behind all that wonderful Studio Ghibli music.

The single "Bluebird" managed to get as high as No. 12 on the charts. And before I forget to mention it, the song was used as the theme for the TBS variety show "Hitachi Sekai-Fushigi Hakken!"（日立 世界・ふしぎ発見!...Discovery of the World's Mysteries）, a long-running educational quiz program based on some of the weird and wonderful things from around the planet that has continued to be shown on TV since its beginnings in 1987.