Miyuki Ogawa -- Shine My Heart

I can't come up with the names right at this moment, but I think there were female singers (aidoru or pop) in the 1980s who had voices that seemed to be suited for rocking but were held back because of the genre they were singing in at that point. That was my impression on hearing Miyuki Ogawa（小川美由希）for the first time.

Ogawa had a brief career in the geinokai between 1986 and 1989. Born in Tokyo, she first got that desire to become a singer when she listened to her first ABBA record as an elementary school student, according to an interview she gave in the Japanese variant of "Car & Driver" magazine in 1989. Ogawa actually debuted under a stage name Shima Kitahara（北原志真）in 1986 but then the following year in August 1987, she released her 2nd single "Shine My Heart", under her new stage name of Miyuki Ogawa (her real name is Makiko Sato/佐藤真紀子).

"Shine My Heart" was written by Ogawa and composed by singer-songwriter Goji Tsuno（つのごうじ） and has a tropical summery beat. When I first came upon her name and saw the cover for her debut album "mew club" which was released on the same day as "Shine My Heart", I had assumed that she was one of the countless aidoru that came through the door of show business but listening to the arrangement by Tsuno, I thought that there was more polish on this particular song which also starts off the album. As I said off the top of the article, there is something about that voice of hers which was fine enough but also seemed a tad tentative in the delivery. Ah, now I remember...maybe that was also the case for the late Minako Honda（本田美奈子）, although she did get her opportunity to do some rock tunes later on.

Ogawa provided a total of 4 singles and 3 full albums with her final album "Funny Baby Lady" coming out in May 1989. She's not doing anything in show business currently according to J-Wiki.

Kana Hanazawa -- Summer Sunset

Well, congratulations to seiyuu Kana Hanazawa（花澤香菜）on her marriage to fellow voice actor Kensho Ono（小野賢章）on July 8th a few weeks ago. Apparently, according to "Oricon News", Hanazawa made the announcement on her Twitter account.

I've seen her in many roles over the years but I will always adore her Mei-Mei from "Shirokuma Café"（しろくまカフェ）, and I hope that she was feeling very much the same thing on her wedding day as her character did here.

Perhaps one fellow seiyuu who may be feeling some slight blues right now is Tomokazu Sugita（杉田智和）. Man, the above video has been one on my heavy rotation over the years just for Sugita's constant razzing of Hanazawa. Not sure if that's going to happen all that often anymore. Oh, well, I guess he can always tease Sumire Uesaka（上坂すみれ）.

Well, in commemoration of the blessed event (though belated), I give you "Summer Sunset" by Hanazawa on her 2nd album "25" released in February 2014. A nice slice of Latin-spiced mellow pop, it was created by lyricist Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）and composer Katsutoshi Kitagawa（北川勝利）, the same duo who came up with the more uptempo "I♥New Day!" in her 3rd album "Blue Avenue". Personally, I'm glad that she uses her higher-pitched voice to sing rather than the voices of her scarier characters.

Would also like to take this opportunity to pay a little tribute to fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto（山本寛斎）who passed away almost a week ago at the age of 76. He was always the very flamboyantly eccentric character who would come up with some very crazy designs for clothes and events. I don't quite remember how but I ended up with a tote bag with his name on it years ago when I was in Japan, and it's still with me today although the handles have lost some of the outer coating. In fact, I used it to go shopping at the local supermarket this morning.

Michiya Mihashi -- Chichibu Ondo（秩父音頭）

Years ago, the owner of the juku that I was teaching at for several years invited me on a Sunday day trip over to her hometown of Chichibu in Saitama Prefecture. So I was able to see the usual souvenir shops, her relatives and the nearby town of Nagatoro which has its famous boating excursions.

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching NHK's show dedicated to minyo（民謡...traditional folk song） and one of the singers performed "Chichibu Ondo" (Chichibu Folk Song) which of course brought back those memories of traveling with my old friend to Saitama.

Both Noelle Tham and I have written about minyo including the festival ondo, so there has been my experience with "Tankō Bushi"（炭坑節）and "Soran Bushi"（ソーラン節）. Now both of those songs were born sometime in the 20th century with my surprise that the latter tune had actually been created in the 1970s. However, according to one tourism website for the nearby town of Minano (which states that the song was born there), "Chichibu Ondo" probably had its origins around two hundred years ago in the early 19th century. I couldn't narrow it down to the exact year so I'm using the Label "1800" which would mean that "Chichibu Ondo" is the oldest song to be placed onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus".

Of course, I also don't know who the original singer was for "Chichibu Ondo" but at one point, enka singer Michiya Mihashi（三橋美智也）recorded his version of the song with Kikutaro Takahashi's（高橋掬太郎）lyrics. According to the English page of that tourism website I mentioned, the music was provided by Gisaku Yoshioka with lyrics by local poet Isekiko Kaneko sometime in the early Showa period, so that was probably an earlier form of the song before Takahashi's revision. Again, if I'm mistaken here, please let me know.

There is also a festival dance which accompanies "Chichibu Ondo". The song and dance together represent the hardy people of the area and the industries and traditions that were prominent there such as silkworm cultivation. The Chichibu Ondo Festival usually takes place every August 14th in Minano but when I saw subtitles go up on that NHK minyo program whenever a singer performed a regional ondo or bushi that the particular festival for that song had been cancelled this year due to COVID-19, I figured that the Chichibu Ondo Festival would probably share the same fate for 2020. However, I'm sure that we are all hoping for a return of all of the regional festivals next year, and maybe a major world sports competition as well.

Naoya Matsuoka & Minako Yoshida -- Lovin' Mighty Fire

Found this one not in the "Light Mellow ~ Twilight" as you can see above but in the "Breeze" CD.

Naoya Matsuoka（松岡直也）has been known as a Latin jazz/fusion specialist and also as the composer behind Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）big hit "Meu amor e" in the mid-1980s. Through "Breeze" though, I found out that the first single (his debut album was "Joyful Feet" in 1977) of his to come out was a collaboration between him and singer-songwriter and R&B chanteuse Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）in 1979 called "Lovin' Mighty Fire" as a 12" single.

With Matsuoka behind the music and arrangement, Yoshida handled the lyrics under her pen name of Minnie Shady. The result is a 7-minute-and-change disco groove interlude that had me thinking Chaka Khan. Minaka Khan? In any case, the first time that I heard this, I just had to make sure within the liner notes of "Breeze" that it was indeed only Matsuoka and Yoshida involved without any help from the Chicago-born R&B legend. Indeed, the jazz/fusion specialist and Minnie Shady took care of this, and it's a corker of a tune. The additional funkiness was provided by Matsuoka's band, Wesing（ウィシング）.

Chiyo Okumura -- Kitaguni no Haru wa Mijikai（北国の春はみじかい）

Happy Sunday! Or I hope that everyone is having a Happy Sunday in the immediate vicinity since not every person is a big fan of heat and humidity. Like me. Today will probably end up being one of the hottest days of this summer, and so I've got my electric fan on behind me.

Perhaps I can try for some aural cooling down with this October 1969 song by kayo veteran Chiyo Okumura（奥村チヨ）. This was actually the B-side to her "Koi Dorobou"（恋泥棒...Love Thief）, "Kitaguni no Haru wa Mijikai" (Springs in the Northern Country are So Short), and from the slightly anguished vocals by Okumura and the title, I can surmise a bit that the ballad is a melancholy one about love lost so early in the year, far from the traditional breakup season of fall.

My previous article about Okumura last September was about the similarly titled "Kitaguni no Aoi Sora"（北国の青い空...Hokkaido Skies） composed by The Ventures in 1967, and I had to listen to that one and "Kitaguni no Haru wa Mijikai" a number of times in alternating succession since they also both sounded quite similar. But for this B-side, it was Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）on lyrics with Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）taking care of the music. As is the case with "Kitaguni no Aoi Sora", there is something faintly enka-like with "Kitaguni no Haru wa Mijikai" but in the end, I think this is also a straight-up pop kayo.

Kenshi Yonezu -- Kanden（感電）

Another J-Drama that has been getting a lot of hype on TV Japan these days alongside "Haken no Hinkaku"（ハケンの品格...The Pride of a Temp） is the TBS show "MIU404". Its catchphrase is "You only have 24 hours...catch the perp before anyone else!", and I think it's about this police mobile investigative unit of motley characters that has been given short shrift by every other department as they try to grab the bad guys.

Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）is the fellow behind the cool and funky "Motivation", the theme song for "Haken no Hinkaku", and "MIU404" has singer-songwriter Kenshi Yonezu（米津玄師）providing the funky and groovy "Kanden" (Electric Shock). Up to now, I've had three of his creations on "Kayo Kyoku Plus": one serious, one for the kids, and one fairly inspirational.

But with "Kanden", Yonezu has something light, jazzy, bouncy and danceable as if the title truly wants to get you off your feet in a hurry. Written by Yonezu and composed by him and composer Yuuta Bando（坂東祐大）, it's another song by him that stands out from the other three which in turn stand out from each other. The music video is also quite the treat with the singer himself looking like some muscle for a loan shark in Tokyo as he plays around with some mirror-men that could have been bred by Reynolds Wrap. J.J. Abrams would certainly appreciate the last minute. Incidentally, the video was filmed at Tokyo's Toshima-en amusement park and some parking lot in Shibaura.

Taking a look at the lyrics and from what I've seen by one other YouTuber's attempt at translation and one person's commentary on the song, they seem to be about some young kids trying to live life large for the moment since there doesn't seem to be much to live for beyond that.

"Kanden" was released as a digital download single on July 6th for which it hit No. 1 on the Oricon digital charts. It's also available on Yonezu's 4th major album "Stray Sheep" which is due out on August 5th.

You & Explosion Band (Yuji Ohno) -- Theme from "Daitsuiseki"（大追跡）

Approximately a couple of weeks ago, commenter Michael and I were talking about theme songs to those old police shows on either side of the Pacific after I'd written about Hiroshi Suzuki's（鈴木弘）"Shrimp Dance". Lo and behold, I found another scintillating theme song for another fast-paced Japanese cop caper.

Now, the above video was apparently for the 2017 sequel of the original "Daitsuiseki" (The Great Chase), but the opening credits are supposedly in line with what the 1978 show presented every week: going through Tokyo at the speed of The Flash. The original starred Yuzo Kayama（加山雄三）and introduced a young Kyohei Shibata（柴田恭兵）who would make his own history on a later cop show. According to the Wikipedia article on "Daitsuiseki", the show was pretty tongue-in-cheek with a lot of ad-libbing and comedy; maybe there was even a goodly amount of fourth wall-breaking. Kinda strikes me as the Japanese cop show version of the original "Ocean's Eleven" with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.

Of course, for the feeling of the show and the opening credits, the theme song just had to be absolutely dynamic. So, at the time, the go-to composer was going to be Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）via his You & Explosion Band, and Ohno is one fellow who's familiar in crafting soaring brass-and-string powered theme songs considering what he's done for "Lupin III" and at least one other cop show.

By the way, my compliments to the guy who created the above video which catches the feeling of those opening credits. Just rev up the speed to warp! It's either going to be The Flash or a cop existing on carafes of cappuccino.