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.
Yuka Iguchi（井口裕香）has been a seiyuu name that I've often seen through various anime that my buddy has shown me over the past decade, but for the life of me, I am admittedly hard-pressed to name any of the characters that she has played. In fact, the only one that I know off the top of my head is Mako Reizei（冷泉麻子）, the extremely competent yet very unmotivated tank driver in the "Girls und Panzer" franchise.
Of course, that makes the above scene all the more noteworthy (and adorable) in what might be one of the most out-of-character moments in anime.
However, I can perhaps add one more memory of Iguchi into the old brain but not especially through her character of Tsukihi Araragi（阿良々木 月火）in "Nisemonogatari"（偽物語...Fake Stories） which came out in 2012. This is a show that I never saw but I've heard about the surprisingly intriguing toothbrushing scene. In any case, my new Iguchi memory has formed due to her providing the third opening theme for the show "Platinum Disco".
First off, my compliments to the director for the opening credits, Yukio Takatsu（高津幸央）. But Iguchi has also given me a fine aural memory due to her catchy and adorable song which seems to inject some of that titular disco into a piece of soundtrack from a chambara series. Let's just imagine John Travolta back in the late 1970s prancing around medieval Japan in a chonmage and that would be my "Platinum Disco". The song was written by Satoru Kousaki（神前暁）and composed by meg rock, the same duo behind "Ren'ai Circulation"（恋愛サーキュレーション）which was an opening theme for "Bakemonogatari"（化物語）, a sister series to "Nisemonogatari". And like that one, I first heard "Platinum Disco" when it used to be played on a lot of those zany Anime Brain videos.
Nice way to finish off tonight with an earworm once again burrowing through my head.
Well, it's been a while but maybe for Hump Day Wednesday, we can bring on some SHAMBARA.
Around 3 1/2 years ago, I introduced this City Pop/AOR supergroup consisting of members from fusion band Casiopea (カシオペア) and vocalists Kaoru Akimoto（秋元薫）and Yurie Kokubu （国分友里恵）along with instrumentalists Nozomi Furukawa（古川望）and Kunihiko Ryo（梁邦彦）. The band lasted for perhaps a year or so but it was quite a ride on their lone album "Shambara" from 1989.
I remember putting up the catchy-as-all-heck"Solid Dance"and just marveling that Akimoto and Kokubu were singing together with a part of Casiopea backing them up. Well, the track following "Solid Dance" cools things down significantly to a slow dance. "Lovin' You" is interesting in that it begins with a piano solo that feels like it's going into a certain ballad style but then suddenly the synths come in to take things into a different love song direction.
No matter though. "Lovin' You" is gentle and soulful and it sounds so 1980s. It would have been quite the thing to have heard this at my university prom since I graduated right in that year of 1989. Listening to it would have been so easy...finding the date was the hard part. However, the song is something that can be appreciated at any time of the day.
Last night, I had the opportunity to listen to Come Along Radio's latest Summer Mixtape and in what has become a custom, I enjoyed the hour-long session while watching another enjoyable J Utah video, this time a drive through San Francisco. I also had the opportunity to visit the city almost 30 years ago while I was taking a trip with some of my fellow colleagues at the Board of Education for my town on the JET Programme. We were able to visit Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, and the zigzag Lombard Street among other places. My only regret was that we couldn't get to see the Golden Gate Bridge because of another San Francisco phenomenon: the fog.
J Utah in his description for this particular video mentioned that this was filmed during the current pandemic so traffic is lower and I have also noticed that a lot of the shops have been boarded up. This hit home especially on the news that many areas in the United States including California have had to backtrack on any re-openings. And so I'm hoping that my friends in the Golden State, fellow KKP contributor Larry Chan in the SFO area and Come Along Radio's Rocket Brown in LA, are hanging in there, as well as my other friends elsewhere in the country.
One of my most cherished standards happens to be "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", and of course, the ultimate singer for this classic is Tony Bennett. However, having said that, the first time I ever heard "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" wasn't his rendition but one that was performed by The Norman Luboff Choir via that record collection of standards that my father had gotten along with the RCA stereo decades ago.
I love Bennett's version but there was also something very haunting and elegiac about the cover by The Normal Luboff Choir, almost as if their version was meant as a tear-jerking musical requiem for a beloved longtime resident in the City by the Bay. Unfortunately, I couldn't find their take on YouTube or elsewhere.
According to Wikipedia, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" was originally written back in 1953 by George Cory and Douglass Cross with Bennett's first recording his version in 1962. Of course, others have covered it over the decades and that includes Japanese singers according to what I got when I placed the Japanese translation of the title "Omoide no San Francisco" (San Francisco Memories) into the YouTube engine. One such English-language cover was by The Tough Guy himself, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）. The uploader states that Ishihara's version was recorded in 1974 and it can be found in his 5-CD "Ishihara Yujiro ~ Cover Song Shuu"（石原裕次郎 カバーソング集...Cover Song Collection）. Ishihara is no Bennett but he's got the timbre and gravitas in his vocals to perform a pretty decent cover.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
Judy Ongg（ジュディ・オング）also provided her version of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" on a TV show and along with her wonderfully smoky delivery of the tune which I would love to have caress my ears in the minutes before slumber, there are other reasons for my choice. One is that I finally get to see trumpet player Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）for the first time and the other is that Ongg's cover is done in Japanese, thanks to Rei Nakanishi's（なかにし礼）lyrics.
In the "Killing-two-birds-with-one-stone" department, I also found a San Francisco-themed kayo to include here. Titled "San Francisco no Hito" (San Francisco Woman), this was The Peanuts'（ザ・ピーナッツ）33rd single from October 1971 and was the final part of the "Hito"（女）trilogy of songs that Emi and Yumi Ito（伊藤エミ・ユミ）recorded following "Tokyo no Hito"（東京の女）and "Osaka no Hito"（大阪の女）in the previous year.
While "Osaka no Hito" took things into enka territory, "San Francisco no Hito" is more into happy-go-lucky pop kayoalthough the story is more melancholy as a woman gets summarily dumped on one of those San Francisco slopes. The same duo behind "Osaka no Hito", lyricist Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composer Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）, was also responsible for this one, and "San Francisco no Hito" was performed by The Peanuts at the 1971 Kohaku Utagassen at their 13th out of 16 appearances on the New Year's Eve special.
And no...The Peanuts' voicing of "Cisco, Cisco" wasn't probably not a premonition for a certain multinational technology conglomerate that rose up years later. To be honest, when I first heard those lyrics, my immediate thoughts went to a certain Starfleet captain-turned-religious emissary (yes, I know the spelling is different😒).
Finally to end things off, for those who have never heard of The Norman Luboff Choir, you can have a listen to another standard that coincidentally saw off the show in which that Starfleet captain had starred in. Wow, this was something...I never thought I could incorporate Tony Bennett, The Tough Guy, The Peanuts, "Star Trek" and J Utah into one article.
Looking at what is trending on Twitter today, apparently today is National Nude Day. I'm fairly conservative about that sort of thing but I can promise you that I will give my respect to it later tonight when I take my shower.
However, perhaps I can be a bit daring right now and show off the cover for Juicy Fruits'（ジューシィ・フルーツ）5th album"Tennen Caffeine"（天然カフェイン...Natural Caffeine）. Released in June 1983, the band led by vocalist/guitarist Atsuko Okuno（奥野敦子）is looking considerably less clothed for some reason.
Okuno was also behind the music for the first track "Natsu Kaze Afternoon" (Summer Cold Afternoon) with Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）providing the lyrics. Not quite as quirky as Juicy Fruits' most famous song "Jenny wa Gokigen Naname"（ジェニーはご機嫌ななめ）, it's still got that light but propulsive New Wave beat as Okuno sings about a tryst that hasn't taken place with the excuse by one of the partners being that nasty summer cold.
So far, I haven't come across any Juicy Fruits songs that have been mundane at all. Maybe they were ahead of their time at that time, but a few decades later, I'm sure that they've picked up some more fans with their brand of pop.
I was watching a recent episode of "Chiko-chan ni Shikarareru"（チコちゃんに叱られる!...Don't Sleep Through Life）, that hit NHK information variety show starring the all-knowing 5-year-old Chiko-chan, and none other than enka legend Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）was one of the guests, albeit remotely due to the pandemic. And one of the questions posed by the CG girl was "Why do people put their hands in their pockets?"
Chiko-chan was apparently more than happy to use Itsuki as an example since it seems that many of the covers for his singles feature the singer with his hands in his pockets such as the one for his February 2015 maxi-single"Nagisa no Onna" (Woman on the Beach). Incidentally, the answer, which of course followed Chiko's customary admonishment of not falling asleep at the wheel in terms of knowledge (no matter how arcane), was that putting one's hands in one's pockets had to do with physically assuaging doubt or anxiety. Not quite sure whether Itsuki in the cover above ever seemed especially anxious about something.
In any case, as for "Nagisa no Onna", it's a mix of enka and dramatic classy pop that reminds me of some of the material that his fellow enka singers brought out during the late 1970s going well into the 1980s. Perhaps I could even categorize it as a hybrid between the traditional genre and the Fashion Music that Mayumi Itsuwa（五輪真弓）and Asami Kado（門あさ美）sang.
The music was created by Itsuki with lyrics by the late Yoko Yamaguchi（山口洋子）who had passed away in 2014. According to the J-Wiki article for "Nagisa no Onna", Itsuki laid down the melody to the lyrics that Yamaguchi had written back in 1989 in tribute to the singer's hometown of Mihama-cho, Fukui Prefecture. And in fact, the number itself had been recorded in that year as the coupling song to Itsuki's single "Omokage no Gou"（面影の郷...Town of Shadows）. On hearing about Yamaguchi's death in September 2014, he decided to release a new version of "Nagisa no Onna" and its coupling song was a new version of "Yokohama Tasogare"（よこはまたそがれ）, arguably Itsuki's most famous classic and also another song for which Yamaguchi had provided the lyrics back in 1971.
Ever since I heard my very first Miki Imai（今井美樹）song, "Natsu wo Kasanete"（夏をかさねて）, in that relaxing lodge-style café in Gunma Prefecture over 30 years ago, the usual reaction template was set whenever I hear one of her ballads: exhalation. Yup, just like walking through a forest or watching an ASMR video of someone getting a scalp massage, I exhale in relaxation and stress seems to slowly melt away.
(very short version)
"Haru no Hi" (Spring Days) is one of those Imai songs that does just that. A track from her July 1995 9th album"Love Of My Life", perhaps the timing is a bit off here, but putting this one up right now makes me forget that we're approaching the dog days of summer (albeit the weather was somewhat cooler today).
With lyrics by Imai, music by Mayumi Horikawa（堀川まゆみ）and arrangement by Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）, the singer's soft vocals, the resonant piano and what sounds like an accordion immediately puts me at ease, and I feel like returning to that mountain café for a cup of coffee. As much as I've not done too badly under the COVID-19 restrictions for the past few months, a song like "Haru no Hi" does make me pine a bit for a visit to a stylish coffeehouse with one or two buddies.
Last night, JTM and I were having a good conversation over Skype on a number of different topics, and one was on past shows that perhaps deserve a redux since "Hawaii Five-0" and "Magnum P.I." have gotten their second lives. I was suggesting anything from the Quinn-Martin productions of the 1970s such as "The Streets of San Francisco" and "Cannon". But then JTM came up with a great suggestion of his own..."Mannix".
Ahhh...good ol' Joe Mannix. I still vividly remember the opening credits from my childhood. Armed with street smarts, charm, fists and a great theme song, he could thank Lalo Schifrin for that last one. Yup, Schifrin is the same fellow behind another legendary theme, the one for "Mission: Impossible". As much as "Mission: Impossible" the theme was all about the action and derring-do of the IMF, the "Mannix" theme was all class and cool (although I've been reading about how violent the show was) as if the song was relating Joe going for dinner and dancing with his date after a resolution of a case.
Earlier today, I wrote the article for Koh Suzuki's（鈴木こう）"Sa-Ra-Vah Street" in which I mentioned another Suzuki, trombonist Hiroshi Suzuki（鈴木弘）. He's already gotten some representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" through "Romance" from his 1975 album"Cat". Then, I decided to try out some more of that album and thoroughly enjoyed the first track "Shrimp Dance".
I read one comment on YouTube for the entire album in which the person felt like that the album would be the ideal song to walk to during a foggy day in his/her native San Francisco. Well, listening to "Shrimp Dance" on its own, I felt as if that song would be perfect for a TV show featuring someone as tough as nails as Joe Mannix. Despite that title, "Shrimp Dance" sounds totally landbound in a grimy downtown somewhere where the cynical private eye loves his booze ice-cold and his jazz volcano-hot...and he has an insatiable appetite for garlic shrimp. Unfortunately, that would make any attempts at romance rather tenuous...unlike Mannix's situation. Joking aside, all those instruments together (sax, bass, trombone, trumpet, etc.) help make that gumshoe character and his dogged attempts at justice.
Anyways, also have a listen to the full version of the theme from "Mannix". Perhaps someone from Hollywood might read this and make JTM's dream come true.
