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.
This enka tune probably comes under the category of "You can take the man out of his hometown, but you can't take the hometown out of the man".
Yup, Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）under his songwriting pen name of Joji Hara（原譲二）was responsible for creating "Tsugaru Otoko Bushi"(A Tsugaru Man's Melody) for his deshi and son-in-law, enka singer Takeshi Kitayama（北山たけし）. This is his April 2018 single, and as would be the case for any traditional kayo with a geographical region, "man" and "melody" in the title, it's got a goodly amount of brio in the music featuring shamisen and shakuhachi.
According to the YouTube explanation for the above shortened video, "Tsugaru Otoko Bushi" was the single commemorating Kitayama's 15th anniversary in the singing business, and though he was actually born at the southern end of the nation in Fukuoka, the way that he proudly sings this particular enka, he sounds like a man born and bred in the northern part of the country in the snowy Tsugaru district of Aomori Prefecture. As I mentioned off the top, the lad may have left Tsugaru for the capital, but Tsugaru never left his heart, and he's probably more than happy to return to the home and hearth once his job is done south.
Yep, yep...I pulled off another Van Paugam on Friday night. This time, it was with the J Utah drive through nighttime Singapore (I hope that Noelle and Karen are doing OK there) while listening to "Light Mellow ~ Moment". Love that drive up the main street approaching the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel at about 47:00.
There was a Kohei Dojima（堂島孝平）song on "Moment" but it wasn't available on YouTube. So, seeing that it's been a while since I put up one of his tunes, I found "Benjamin, Sora wo Niramu"(Benjamin, Stares at the Sky), a track from his 12th album, "VIVAP", released in July 2010. Written and composed by Dojima, I'm not quite sure what the tune is about....perhaps Benjamin is a curious fellow (or dog) entranced by what the sky offers, but it's a plenty catchy pop number with buzzy guitar, and I can only imagine old Ben is having a ball of a time outside....with some strutting and dancing about.
"Benjamin" may not quite fit the evening drive through Singapore, but hey, I still quite the like the cut of Dojima's jib musically speaking. "VIVAP" has got the singer cutting a particularly whimsical figure on the cover.
Realizing that considering the title, maybe I'm jumping the gun by putting this one up on a Sunday, but it's a very pleasant Sunday-worthy ballad.
I'm talking about singer-seiyuuMaaya Sakamoto's（坂本真綾）"Kayoubi"(Tuesday), a track from her November 2019 10th album"Kyou dake no Ongaku"（今日だけの音楽...Music for Just Today）. This was another recommendation from that commenter who had also recommended fellow voice actor Saori Hayami's（早見沙織）"Yuuei"（遊泳）the other day with the reason being that both songs were created by former Kirinji member Yasuyuki Horigome（堀込泰行）.
Like Hayami and "Yuuei", Sakamoto's "Kayoubi" has nothing to do with an anime as far as I know, but sometimes I think it would have been placed as an ideal ending tune for one. It's as calming as chamomile tea as the singer reminisces about a past romance that was abruptly ended on a Tuesday, and judging from the music, it looks like it was a fairly bittersweet breakup with the emphasis on the sweet part. The arrangement reminds me a bit of a Tomita Lab concoction. As for "Kyou dake no Ongaku", the album managed to reach No. 11 on Oricon.
From listening to the "Light Mellow ~ City" album, I encountered a nice collaboration between a singer Shun Sakai（酒井俊）and a fusion band Special Jam Company centered around alto saxophonist Genji Sawai（沢井原児）and keyboardist Yasuo Ogata（緒方泰男）. This unit was formed due to a session one night involving singer-songwriter Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）at a live house called Jirokichi in one of the outer hubs of Tokyo, Koenji. As for Sakai, she has specialized in blues and jazz and made her debut in 1976 with a stint at a Roppongi club called Misty.
Now, the track from "City" by Special Jam Company and Sakai, "Indian Summer"（インディアン・サマー）isn't anywhere on YouTube, but I was able to find its trackmate, "Dancing Waves" from their 1979 album"City Vibration" (nice shoutout to the Holiday Inn, by the way). With jazz guitarist Junshi Yamagishi（山岸潤史）and Sandii on backing vocals, "Dancing Waves" makes for a nice percolating number with a good stretch of jazz instrumental thanks to Sakai's free-as-a-bird vocals, unrelenting samba-esque percussion, light fingers on the piano, and Sawai's honeyed sax solo.
Good heavens! I don't know how long it's been since I've stayed at a Holiday Inn. The first one was probably in Montreal back in 1980 but the last time may have been for a wedding reception in Toronto later that decade. I had no complaints about it but it was never all that much about the amenities for me. As long as the mattress was firm enough and the bedbugs didn't bite, I was cool.
The thumbnail photo is from my Musashi-Kosugi-residing friends' condo. It's a nice sunset shot and an appropriate one for this song.
"Shiawase ni Naru tame" (To Be Happy) was vocal group Hi-Fi Set's（ハイ・ファイ・セット）6th single from June 1976. Written by Yumi Arai（荒井由実）, composed by Kunihiko Murai（村井邦彦）and arranged by Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）, this reassuring country-type ballad (thank you, harmonica) is about the trip home at dusk and despite the hardships, things will be OK. Maybe loved ones are apart due to circumstances but they will be back together again. I would say that the song would even be fine for all of us under our current circumstances.
Right now, Ontario hasn't had a great week in terms of COVID-19 but the Premier had warned us some time ago that there were going to be darker days ahead. But by the same token, I'm hoping that there will be some brighter ones coming up, too.
Really nice start to the weekend, and I'm not just talking about the summery weather outside that Toronto is feeling.
I wrote about Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）huge 1982 hit"Madonna-tachi no Lullaby"（聖母たちのララバイ）all the way back in July 2012, and when I did so, I had also been hoping that I would also be able to cover the B-side of her 28th single. Alas, searching around YouTube hadn't been too successful for many years.
That is, until last night. I was listening to one of my albums and was about to turn in when just for the heck of it, I decided to see if there was anything new in the Iwasaki file on YouTube and so once again as I've been doing for the past 8 years, I threw in "Akai Ito"(Red String) into the search engine on the site. Well, voila! The B-side was there!😍
Now, why have I been obsessing about a B-side for a singer's mega hit for almost a decade? Well, a lot of it is for sentimental reasons. When my brother had gone on his Toronto Japanese Language School graduation trip in the summer of 1982, a year after my own odyssey there, he brought back a few 45" singles including "Madonna-tachi no Lullaby", and both sides got a lot of airplay. To be honest, I haven't caught sight of the record in my home for decades, but I know that it's hidden somewhere in the dark corners.
The other reason for my search is that, well, it is a Hiromi song, and very frequently, a Hiromi song, even if it's not an A-side, is still quite polished in my estimation. "Akai Ito" also falls under that category, and just to let you know, I still have been able to listen to it despite the missing situation of that 45" because I managed to pick up a few BEST albums for the lass with her A-sides and B-sides years ago. "Akai Ito", when compared to its much more dramatic A-side, certainly comes off as a B-side; it may not be as flashy but it's got that certain air of mystery and wistfulness with an arrangement by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）that has a similar urban contemporary sheen to that of the more pop version of "Madonna-tachi no Lullaby" that is the A-side.
Asunaro（あすなろ）was responsible for the melody while Hikaru Yamazaki（山崎光）provided the lyrics. Back in 1982, when I still trying to grapple with the fact that I'd fallen hard for Japanese pop culture, I had no idea what this red string was all about. Now I know that it has something to do with the red string of fate that's an East Asian belief...something often along the lines of star-crossed lovers. For me, though, "Akai Ito" is just another one of those "missing" songs that I've been searching for and able to find again online, much to my happiness. Hopefully, it stays up for a good while. Oh, as a P.S., the last reason that I've been loving that single? Hiromi's splendid visage on the cover!
I did visit Hokkaido years ago but only Sapporo, so I missed out on the famous lavender fields of Furano. As the video above from the YouTube channel, Good Day Hokkaido, shows you, the lavender spreads out like a huge rolling carpet to produce what is probably one of the most famous landscapes in Japan. Since I've missed my opportunity, I think the only lavender that I'll come across in the near future will still be through an aerosol can.
Now, according to Wikipedia, lavender isn't native to South America but man, am I really liking this Latin-spiced song by Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）titled "Lavender no Naka de" (In the Lavender). Originally from his March 1988 album"Realism", that's some nice bossa nova arranged in this peppy number by Sakiya and lyricist Rinko Yuuki（有木林子）. And that arrangement reminds me a bit of 80s group Matt Bianco. I may need to spray the room with lavender after hearing this...well, I may need to spray the room regardless after dinner. All joking aside, this song alone would make me want to purchase "Realism", if available.
However, though, a remastered version of "Realism" was released last year with a healthy number of bonus tracks. Happily, "Lavender no Naka de" is still in there.
