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.
Been some months since I listened to Keizo Nakanishi（中西圭三）so it's nice to hear his golden tones yet again.
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When I was first recommended to give Nakanishi a try back in the early 1990s, I (naively) thought that there was a certain resemblance to Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）, both in their looks and genre of music. But listening to both fellows over a long period of time, I've come to realize that there are distinct differences.
For one thing, whereas Kubota has proceeded a lot more into funk, I think Nakanishi presented himself initially more as the old-fashioned Motown showman. I could envision him leading a doo-wop group onstage on the old Ed Sullivan show. And I think his "Glory Days" has that updated Motown sound.
A track on his 3rd album"Steps" from March 1993 (it hit No. 1 on Oricon), Nakanishi took care of the rousing music while Masao Urino（売野雅勇）came up with the lyrics about a student falling for a young female student of mystery from afar. His description of the inner glow within her coming to the fore in his eyes reminded me of that famous speech by Jimmy Stewart to Kate Hepburn in "The Philadelphia Story" about her own incredible internal luminescence threatening to blind all others. Kinda too bad though that the protagonist may not get a chance to finally pour our his feelings to the lass before she graduates. Not sure if the glory days of the title refers to Nakanishi reminiscing about his time in school or about the time to come for his lady love.
Still "Glory Days" is another one of his peppy and happy tunes whose sound always says "Nakanishi" to me.
Last night was a bit disappointing in terms of the weekly kayo program although I could understand the timing. Instead of the usual episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）coming back after the Holiday hiatus, we got the highlight show with a small group of kayo singers simply watching and commenting on past performances over 2017. My parents' grumbling mood wasn't helped by the fact that there were one singer and one co-host that neither liked very much at all.
So, allow me to source this from the episode of "Itsuki-sensei o Utau! SHOW Gakko"（五木先生の 歌う！SHOW学校）that we caught the Tuesday before. Along with the Haruo Oka（岡晴夫）tribute, I also paid notice to a Hachiro Kasuga（春日八郎）number which I hadn't heard before.
Titled "Are kara Juu-nen Tatta ka na" (Has It Been 10 Years?), it was released in 1959, and right from the title, the nostalgia is baked right in. Written by Ryo Yano（矢野亮）and composed by Minoru Watabe（渡部実）, at first, I had assumed that the song was about a guy reminiscing about celebrating and commiserating over life with an old friend in a ramshackle boarding house a decade prior. However as I went over the lyrics some more, I believe that there was something far more romantic involved in that threadbare room with a man and a woman conducting a tryst and then perhaps reluctantly going their separate ways. Probably the same questions have popped up in the man's head about how the lass is doing, where she's living and with whom?
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Considering that in a couple of weeks, "Kayo Kyoku Plus" will be reaching its 6th anniversary, the song may be 4 years early but I guess in a way, the number might rather fit my feelings about the blog right now.
My experience with California has just involved three cities: downtown Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, and they all have their own distinct personalities. My personal favourite (and I hope Larry is reading this) is the City by the Bay because of those hills, some great food, mild climate and Fisherman's Wharf. Plus it doesn't hurt that Starfleet Headquarters is (or perhaps will be?) situated there (sorry, that was rather geeky of me).
But Santa Monica is a place in the Golden State that I've never visited. My only images of the city include swinging palm trees and blue sky, but wouldn't that be true for a lot of places along the western coast of California?
For Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）, apparently it's a place for her to beckon her beau to come and visit. According to Yu Aku's（阿久悠）lyrics in her 26th single"Santa Monica no Kaze" (The Winds of Santa Monica) from February 1979, she's waiting at that resort hotel in the beachfront city for her boyfriend to show up. He just has to phone her and she'll be copacetic. Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）came up with the pleasing music of the times...I've heard this arrangement with some aidoru music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It sounds innocent, tropical and now nostalgic at the same time. The good ol' days, you might say.
To be honest, I don't think Sakurada had the most stable of vocals when she was singing live so you can listen to a part of the recorded version at iTunes. "Santa Monica no Kaze" got as high as No. 24 on the charts and placed 99th in the yearly Oricon rankings for 1979.
Certain things have different names depending on geography (which leads to dialects). Apparently, when it comes to that long piece of furniture in your living room, Americans might call it a couch while Canadians would prefer the term sofa (that is the case in my household) or chesterfield. Perhaps that may also be true when it comes to one of the perennial favourites in any playground: monkey bars or jungle gym. Not sure if these are geographical variants.
It was rather odd to me then that the lovely singer-songwriter Mayumi Itsuwa（五輪真弓）would come up with a tune titled "Jungle Gym". Considering her rich and ardent songs of love gained or lost, the title struck me as being rather kiddie. However, then I realized that compared to my country or the United States, the jungle gym perhaps has a deeper sentimentality in Japan. I've often seen scenes set in jungle gyms at night, such as the one above for "Tokyo Love Story", where one of the main characters heads to contemplate a troubling decision made or to be made.
Depending on your emotional state, the intro to Itsuwa's 10th single from April 1976 can have you tearing up. It sounds just like a mother's lullaby. And the singer's lyrics talk of the jungle gym as a metaphor for happier days of the past or a former lover or even Mom...all things that brought comfort when things were down. After hearing this ballad, I can now understand why jungle gyms have been the go-to objects for folks feeling down on their luck in J-Dramas.
Supposedly, today isBlue Monday. Somehow, sociologists or other folks in other sciences determined that the third Monday in January is saiaku due to the long night, wintry weather and the credit card bills rolling in due to all that Holiday cavorting the previous month. Well, my bills will most likely be arriving in the next few days and the other two conditions have been met. But I'm not feeling particularly down at all...I'm furiously knocking on the wood on my desk right now.
Before I get onto this article's song, allow me to give you some background. Between September 2014 and March 2015, there was the usual NHK 15-minute morning serial drama, and it was called "Massan"（マッサン）, about a young man Masaharu plowing through all sorts of obstacles (a common trope in the NHK asadora) to set up the Nikka Whisky Distilling Company a century ago while his wife from Scotland, Ellie, gets accustomed to life in Japan. "Massan" had the distinction of being the first NHK morning serial to feature a non-Japanese thespian as a co-star, and during my 2014 trip to Japan, I kept seeing the lovely visage of Charlotte Kate Fox on the screen in the dining hall of my hotel while I was having breakfast. The above video (sorry but the video has been taken down) is from the variety show that immediately follows the serial drama, "Asaichi"（あさイチ）, and the program featured here was just after the final "Massan" episode, and apparently there wasn't a dry eye in the studio...even Fox's interpreter needed a ton of Kleenex.
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As I said, today is Blue Monday. Well, I think on a day like today (especially over here when we're expecting another good dousing of snow tonight), something to bring the spirits up is in order (a bit of a pun here).
NHK approached singer-songwriter Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）early in 2014 to come up with an encouraging tune for not only Masaharu & Ellie but also for all those Japanese people who keep fighting the good fight. I think judging from her success with "Chijo to Hoshi"（地上の星）, the theme song for another NHK program and itself an anthem to all those hardworking entrepreneurs out there, the network was hoping for yet another inspirational paean from Nakajima.
Nakajima, who I will always envision now as a Japanese version of Britannia with her shield and trident since she has been coming up with these songs of pride and defiance, did indeed come up sevens once more with "Mugi no Uta" (Wheat Song). Recruiting a Japanese bagpiper to get that Scottish aspect, the singer created a less defiant but still very proud country-style song of cheer which had me feeling like I needed to salute that bottle of Canadian Club in the family wine cabinet. Joking aside, it is a pretty heartwarming song.
Her 44th single, officially released in October 2014, hit No. 5 on the Oricon charts and became the 49th-ranked song for 2015. "Mugi no Uta" is also available in her 40th album from November 2014"Mondaishuu"（問題集）which can be translated as "Collection of Problems" or "Workbook". That release peaked at No. 4. The song even made its way onto the Kohaku Utagassen with Nakajima making that rare appearance.
T-Cat's article on Marlene's（マリーン）cover of "Beware Boyfriend" had me thinking about devoting a Marlene article to another cover she did for "Magic", which was originally recorded by great Japanese fusion band The Square (known as T-Square today).
Listening to the original version by The Square which was a single from October 1981, I thought it was somewhat subdued for what I've become accustomed to by the band just according to their BEST album that I have of them (as pictured above), "T-Square Plays The Square". I mean it's got the bounce in there but I think even the vocals were a bit quieter than they should have been. "Magic" was also the title track from their 5th album which came out a month after the single.
Actually, the first time I had heard "Magic" was through Marlene's cover on one of my Wah Yueh-bought compilation tapes. In fact, it was the first time that I had even heard of Marlene herself. Her take came out as a single in September 1983 and it had a whole lot more of a kick through a fine horn section and Marlene's more forward vocals. Plus there were those virtuoso strings. Her version really stood out from the rest of the tracks on that tape since it first struck me as being so disco. It was almost to the point that I wondered why it was included on this particular tape.
In fact, all these years, I had assumed that Marlene's "Magic" was the original so when I heard T-Square performing it on the above mentioned "T-Square Plays The Square", I was slightly taken aback at hearing this instrumental version so I did some checking out and found out the actual story.
Of course, you gotta have both The Square and Marlene get together to make some "Magic". Incidentally, Linda Hennrick provided the lyrics while The Square's leader, Masahiro Ando（安藤正容）, took care of the melody.
In a post on Etsuko Yamakawa by J-C, I commented on how she had worked her magic for a particular Onyanko Club song. Curious as to how it had all gone down, I went back in time in order to come forward into the past ... Mari Wilson was a British pop singer in the early 80's who eventually moved into jazz (and still performs). While a teenager she spent some years in New York and fell under the spell of Motown and Philly soul, styling her music and look as 60's retro. Her 1982 song "Beware Boyfriend" wascomposed by Teddy Johns and arranged by Tony Mansfield, reached #51 on the UK charts, and released in 1983 as an EP in Japan.
Japan ? Mari had been discovered in the UK by Tot Taylor, whose band Advertising had flopped there but was "big in Japan". He also headed a highly-regarded indie label - TheCompact Organization - and Tot was referred to as the "British Eiichi Otaki" ( イギリスの大瀧詠一 ). During the early 80's his jazz and techno-inspired offerings were popular in the Aoyama import record shop Pied Piper ( パイド・パイパー ); where fans included members of the Moonriders, Sandii and the Sunsetz, Yukihiro Takahashi (YMO), and the Pizzicato 5 (Tot's influence can be heard in what was to become Shibuya-kei). He released "Beware Boyfriend" into the Japanese market on his label. Personally I find this song to be ponderous, flat, and the vocals rather ominous - beware indeed, boyfriend. There are some interesting instrumental flourishes but on the whole, not quite my cup of Earl Grey. However ...
In 1983 Marlene Pena Lim ( マリーン・ペーニャ・リム ) covered "Beware Boyfriend" ( ボーイフレンド ) as an EP and on her album Deja vu ( CBS Sony ). J-C has already dipped into Marlene's career and though much of her work is still up on YouTube, the mp3 for this song was pulled (not before I grabbed it). The lyrics stay the same and are entirely in English, but the arrangement is now credited to Masanori Sasaji ( 笹路正徳 ) who styled it for Marlene's more jazzy delivery. The entire song is brighter and more upbeat with a very clean production, the vocals swing, and while we're not yet in aidoru-land we're on our way. Some of the distinctive instrumental riffs have been kept and the EP cover screams sultry tsundere. Still beware, boyfriend.
(J-Canuck here: actually found an excerpt of Marlene's cover via the Sony Music Shop above.)
Her version was used in a CM for Hakushika (White Deer) Sake, making a third go-round for "Beware Boyfriend". But like a cat it had multiple lives ...
Spring of 1986 found Onyanko Club preparing for their first longitudinal tour (and graduation for Nakaji (#5) and Sonoko Kawaii (#12) ). March 1986 saw the release of the second album "Yume Catalogue" ( 夢カタログ ) and on side B was: "Umbrella Angel" ( アンブレラ・エンジェル )
( Note: the video has nothing to do with the song; the poster used a section of the 4-DVD set "Onyanko Club - Backstage Pass" that documents the spring tour from behind the scenes).
Yes, it's almost "Beware Boyfriend". New lyrics by Yasushi Akimoto; vocals by Mamiko Takai (#16) with backing from Mako Shiraishi (#22), Susan Yamamoto (#32), and Minayo Watanabe (#29); and arrangement / keyboards by Etsuko Yamakawa. Etsuko was responsible for arranging 4 of the 10 songs on Yume Catalogue (and 15 total for the 5 canonical Onyanko Club albums). The new lyrics are from a male point of view - the young man is caught in a sudden downpour when a strange girl suddenly appears to give him shelter under her umbrella - his Umbrella Angel (and all the romance a shared umbrella implies). She gets on her bus and rides away, but as he watches wistfully a rainbow appears to connect them. Beware, no more.
The music is full of trademark Yamakawa-isms: the song bounces, muted crisp drum rolls kick it along like running through the rain. Soft voices are layered to build up to a snazzy jazz break that rides on cymbals and flugelhorn, then rolls seamlessly back to the vocals. The upward-chiming instrumental rideout is pure Yamakawa-Onyanko. (Interesting that the original vinyl album insert uses English for production, writing, arranging, and instrumentation credits - everything else is in Japanese).
And while Mamiko had a brief solo career before becoming Mrs. Aki-P, when she graduated on Yuuyake Nyan Nyan in April 1987:
