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.
NTV's ritual on Friday nights was to broadcast movies between 9 and 11. The show was called "Kin'you Road Show!"（金曜ロードSHOW!...Friday Night at the Movies） and it was hosted by the late movie critic and TV personality Haruo Mizuno（水野晴郎）who reminded me in personality to Canada's own Elwy Yost who hosted his own show for the longest time "Saturday Night at the Movies". But instead of having the equivalent of a cinema class with "Saturday Night at the Movies", "Kin'you Road Show!" was simply the movie and that was it. Or almost it...I saw a few of those movies and didn't appreciate the fact that the network sliced key scenes from the movie just so that it fit those two hours. Another observation was that at one point during my days and nights in Ichikawa, "Kin'you Road Show!" loved to show Hayao Miyazaki（宮崎駿）flicks so much that I felt like re-naming the broadcast "Studio Ghibli at the Movies!"
"Kin'you Road Show!" started its run in 1985 and that opening must have really sent me for a loop since the song and opening sequence still resonate within me right to this day, despite the fact that those finished their time in 1997 to be replaced with a new sequence. The combination of dusk-filled contemplation and that melancholy melody with trumpet had me wondering about my life choices and whether I bought enough life insurance...and Geritol. Man, that was a dramatic theme song for what was basically a movie slashed for two-hour broadcast!
But then again, I shouldn't really be one to talk. When I was much younger, American networks also had their movies of the week, and ABC had some pretty newfangled graphics for the time and a lush theme tune that I only found out very recently was by none other than Burt Bacharach. Titled "Nikki", it was named for his daughter.
Then, there was the theme for a similar program by CBS, "So Young, So Old" by Morton Stevens, the same fellow who created the "Hawaii Five-O" theme. For me, there was a particular sense of old Hollywood in this song. These themes by Bacharach and Stevens haven't been used in decades and yet as soon as I heard them again through YouTube, nostalgia just washed over me as I remember being told to get to bed by my parents since of course the movies of the week came on just as bedtime was upon me.
Now, getting back to our regularly scheduled song, I was wondering what this song was all about, and it turned out to be titled "Cri D'amour" (Cries of Love) by French pianist/composer Pierre Porte with trumpeter Dominique Derasse. I couldn't find out the exact year when the song came out, therefore, I will go with the year when it was first made known to Japanese audiences, 1985. Actually, the title in Japanese for the piece is "Friday Night Fantasy" (which is why I'm writing it tonight) which I think makes it sound like a title of a porn movie so for Porte's sake, I decided to go with the original title. In any case, it seems as if Porte's fame grew in Japan because of this song.
However, as they say in commercials, wait there's more. I didn't know about this until last night, but apparently the following year in 1986, singer Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）performed a sung version of "Cri D'amour" under another different title, "Yoru kara no Tabidachi" (Travel From Night) which is available on her 3rd album"Naturally". Unfortunately, I couldn't find out who provided the Japanese lyrics. That trumpet is largely supplanted by Tone's vocals but it does make an appearance, and it sure sounds like Derasse here, too. The difference is that listening to this version, I no longer felt that I had to go over my life choices.
To finish off, here is the original form of Bacharach's "Nikki" which came out in 1966, according to an article in "The Independent".
A couple of months ago, I wrote about Akiko Mizuhara's（水原明子）"Love Duet", the cover of Michael Franks' 1982 song, and looking at the article again, I did mention off the top about the COVID-19 situation in my city. Well, in terms of new infection rates, we've happily further plummeted into double digits consistently since then although I still think there's gonna be some sort of bounce up going into the autumn, and we got a premature kick in the side to remind us of that. Apparently, about 550 patrons of a strip club downtown may have been exposed to the virus because of an employee who tested positive and the management wasn't following all of the restrictions.
In any case, getting back to happier stuff with Mizuhara, I also mentioned in "Love Duet" that there isn't much in the way of information about her except that she did release two albums: "Love Message" in 1982 and then "So Crystal" in 1984. Well, some kind soul has put up "So Crystal" and I wanted to cover the second track at 0:41 titled "Burnin' Night".
Whereas "Love Duet" reflects the soft rock/disco of the late 1970s through the City Pop/J-AOR screen, "Burnin' Night" has a distinctively different tone although I would still categorize it as a City Pop tune, albeit one that also goes into straight pop. The tempo kinda takes things into Michael Sembello's "Maniac" territory while the melody has me thinking of some of Ian Thomas'"Hold On" which was famously covered by Santana. Even the keyboards give a whiff of uncertain times in a 1980s Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）way. The lyrics were provided by Yukari Sato（沙東由香利）and the music was by Mizuhara herself. In fact, Sato was responsible for the lyrics for most of the tracks on "So Crystal".
Taking a listen to the rest of the album right now, and I'm getting those "Buy it!" vibes in my head. Allow me to cross my fingers and hope that it's within reasonable access.
Couldn't have asked for something nicer to start off City Pop Friday. So far, the Taeko Rei（令多映子）file on KKP has consisted of tracks from her 1984 album"Taeko", and I've been able to find this gem from there as well.
"P.S. Darling" is somewhat like biting into a special Smartie and realizing that the originating company Nestlé put in some extra-special tasty chocolate within the candy coating. It begins with some bittersweet jazz piano as if it were meant to illustrate a person's feelings after having his/her romantic heart torn out but then after a minute, the person has moved onto bigger and better things. And those bigger and better things include plenty of boppy bass, really sharp horns and that lush piano in a much happier place within a lovely mélange of City Pop, AOR and Latin to surround Rei's warm and chocolatey vocals. Some really nice West Coast feeling in there, too.
Arisu Sato and Akiko Kosaka（佐藤ありす・小坂明子）were on words and music respectively for this feel-good song by Rei. I've already made the decision to try and get "Taeko" in my bid to get back into the album-purchasing saddle again.
Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）: Good to see you again! It's been a long time. Tetsuya Watari（渡哲也）: Yeah, why don't we have that drink again?...just like old times, boss.
The above commercial for Shochikubaisake isn't exactly the most seamless in terms of CG but the good intentions for Ishihara Gundan（石原軍団）fans were there. My little conversation above between The Tough Guy and his beloved Lieutenant is my own concoction, but if there were a heaven, then I could imagine that actors/singers Ishihara and Watari are having that most welcoming reunion there right now.
As usual when it comes to these things, I woke up this morning and NHK's "News at 9" started off with the news of the passing of Watari at the age of 78 earlier this week on August 10th of pneumonia. I saw him often in leadership roles and historical ones in which he played military commanders who could reduce hardened drill instructors into puddles with his fierce expressions and exclamations. However, in commercials and interviews, he was always the silver-haired congenial gentleman...very comfortable in shirt, sweater vest and slacks.
The role that I know him the best for, though, is that of Sergeant Keisuke Daimon（大門圭介）, the leader of the blood-and-guts Daimon Force in the Tokyo Police Department in the long-running "Seibu Keisatsu" (Western Police) series which began in 1979. He was the veteran cop in the military recruit haircut and sunglasses with his trusty Remington Model 31 at the ready to dispense justice in an alternate-universe Tokyo that apparently tolerated a lot of automobile destruction, explosions and enough bullets flying around like gnats so that even Dirty Harry would have gone "Whoa there!".
Of course, Daimon's own boss was none other than the wise Section Chief Kenzo Kogure（木暮謙三）played by Watari's own senpai, Yujiro Ishihara, a relationship that was probably very similar to the real one that Watari and Ishihara had in the Ishihara Gundan (it's not surprising that Watari became the de facto leader of the pack when Ishihara passed away in 1987 and the second president of Ishihara International Productions, Inc.) Seeing Daimon and Kogure together was like watching Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams on the original "Hawaii Five-O" or Kirk and Spock on "Star Trek".
When it comes to the music of Japanese police shows, the first theme for "Seibu Keisatsu" is in the Big Three for me along with the theme songs for Ishihara's earlier cop program with the funky "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）theme and the rapid-fire technopop of the theme for "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）that came out later in the 1990s. Known simply as the theme for "Seibu Keisatsu", the instrumental was composed by the late movie-and-TV soundtrack artist Yasushige Utsunomiya（宇都宮安重）, and in contrast with those other two themes, this theme, which adorned the images of mayhem all around in the megalopolis, was a proud, even jaunty, march mixing in some disco and even some cowboy western influences. Perhaps Utsunomiya took that comment by the narrator in the intro about the show being a "concrete western" to heart, and maybe the composer infused the arrangement with that sense of "Love the smell of gunpowder in the morning".
Well, wherever Ishihara and Watari are right now, I hope that they are enjoying the afterlife in that bar while drinking down some of that fine sake.
Around four years ago, I wrote about this singer named Mari Kunitake（国武万里）that I hadn't ever heard until "Kayo Kyoku Plus" was well under way, but she had this appealing early 90s brand of City Pop hit with the quaintly outdated title, "Pokeberu ga Naranakute" (ポケベルが鳴らなくて).
That was her 2nd single from 1993, but tonight, it's about her debut single"Mou Hanararenai"(I Can Never Leave You) from November 1992. A more conventional pop song compared to "Pokeberu", it nonetheless has a current of rock n' blues running underneath which makes things a bit more interesting. It was created by the same duo for that 2nd single, lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composer Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, and I also like the rich piano intro that strangely reminds me of a certain part of the "Goodfellas" soundtrack.
As with "Pokeberu", though, Kunitake's debut also had a TV drama connection. It was an insert song for the 1992 TBS drama "Homework"（ホームワーク）in a couple of episodes, but the show's theme song became much more popular as a seasonal tune. It was none other than Junichi Inagaki's（稲垣潤一）"Christmas Carol no Koro ni wa"（クリスマスキャロルの頃には）.
There were a few restaurants during my time in the Tokyo and Chiba areas that I used to frequent enough that the owners became familiar and friendly towards me. One was the neighbourhood Skylark family restaurant near my subway station that I used to go for the all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast. Another was even closer to the station; in fact, it was literally under the tracks. That was Tonki the tonkatsu eatery and I'm certainly hoping that I visit it again once it's safe to travel to Japan. The last one, alas, closed up shop years ago but it was an English tea room in the Ichigaya district near my second school. I used to have some of the best tuna sandwiches that I'd ever had anywhere on the planet there while other teachers and students and I gathered there to chat. Ironically, I never had the tea service with the clotted cream and scones much to my regret.
The reason that I've started out with the restaurant story is that yesterday I came across the above video featuring some of the dishes that appeared in the 2015 movie version of "Shinya Shokudo"（深夜食堂...Midnight Diner）. It began back in 2009 as a TBS TV drama and is currently streaming on Netflix. I knew about the movie because of a review that I had caught in "The Japan Times" when I was still living there. It's basically about an overnight diner based somewhere deep in Shinjuku called Meshiya（めしや）which serves comfort food and advice from among the Master and regulars. And I gotta say that the dishes served above sure look scrumptious and are the type of food that I've seen and eaten at some of the older Showa Era eateries that I occasionally visited, including in Shinjuku (although I very rarely got the opportunity to try them in the middle of the night).
Although "Shinya Shokudo" premiered well into the 21st century, there's still very much an old-style anthology feel as if the Master and even Meshiya itself are acting like the show's Rod Serling. It even has its own spoken introduction just like "Space, the final frontier..." in "Star Trek" and "You unlock this door with the key of imagination...." in the original "The Twilight Zone" spoken by the aforementioned Serling.
Hamburg steak at Royal Host
When people finish their day and hurry home, my day starts. My diner is open from midnight to seven in the morning. They call it "Midnight Diner." That's all I have on the menu. But I make whatever customers request as long as I have ingredients for it. That's my policy. Do I even have customers? More than you would expect. (found at the TV Tropes website)
The opening theme for "Shinya Shokudo" is "Omoide" (Memories), an immediately calming and atmosphere-inducing ballad about the seeming ephemerality of life. Sung by Tsunekichi Suzuki（鈴木常吉）, his well-worn voice directly reflects the old wood and metal that have absorbed the aromas of the food and drink of Meshiya along with the variety of conversations that have taken place in the little eatery over the years. The diner must be an oasis among the cacophony, visual and aural, of the neon and nightlife in Shinjuku, and I could imagine the singer coming into places like Meshiya as one of those traditional balladeers to offer to sing such an appropriate song.
"Omoide" was released on Suzuki's 2010 album"Zeigo"（ぜいご）. Suzuki came up with the lyrics but as for the composition, although one site has listed him as the composer as well, other sites including JASRAC have stated that "Omoide" was based on an Irish folk song.
Suzuki started out as the vocalist and guitarist for the rock band Cement Mixers（セメントミキサーズ）, although according to the cover of one of their CDs, the first word was spelled Sement. I'll give more details later since I plan on providing an article on this band but unfortunately I have to finish off here in saying that Suzuki passed away a little over a month ago on July 6th for esophageal cancer at the age of 65.
There is a trope at the "TV Tropes" website which is called "Early Installment Weirdness", and it refers to everything from advertising to TV shows to real life. For television, it talks about the early days of a particularly long-running/famous program when perhaps the cast, crew and writers were still groping for their distinct identity and hadn't quite settled into what the familiar patterns and rhythms are.
For example, in the first couple of years of the American sitcom "Happy Days", it had Fonzie in a light blue jacket instead of his Smithsonian Museum-worthy brown leather jacket and Richie and Joanie actually had a big brother named Chuck before he conveniently disappeared once the show went on before a live audience from Season 3. In the original "Star Trek", Mr. Spock was surprisingly emotional in the first several episodes of that inaugural season (he really needed a Kolinahr back then) and instead of Starfleet, there was the United Earth Space Probe Agency.
When I think of veteran singer Anri（杏里）, and I believe when many of her longtime and newbie fans think of Eiko Kawashima（川島栄子）, the images that percolate through are her R&B/City Pop funky hits that made an 80s aerobics instructor swoon. I'm thinking of "Cat's Eye" (the first Anri song that I ever heard), those amazing and dynamic tunes in the Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）years in the early 1980s through albums including "Timely!!", and then her collaborations with lyricist Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）and arranger Yasuharu Ogura（小倉泰治）in the late 1980s/early 1990s in releases including "Circuit of Rainbow".
The "Early Installment Weirdness" of Anri's career (not to say that Anri is weird, all right?) then comes with her first three albums between 1978 and 1981. I've already written an article on Album No. 3"Kanashimi no Kujaku"（哀しみの孔雀）and will get to her second release "Feelin'" in due time. I want to focus here on her debut album"Apricot Jam" released in November 1978. I found that in all three, it was very much of an exploratory time for Anri and the people around her in terms of what she could and wanted to sing about. There weren't any of that snazzy Kadomatsu or Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）arrangements, and things were more subdued although there was already that sense of summer in a number of the tracks in "Apricot Jam". Anri was just starting out and she was only a high school sophomore at the age of 17 when this was released. This was recorded in Los Angeles, to boot, which awakened her desire to record her albums overseas whenever possible (and apparently she's now living in LA). But I can't even imagine what she must have felt going to a foreign country as a teenager during summer vacation to record non-aidoru material with professional session musicians, so I shouldn't be surprised that things seemed far more sedate on this debut album when compared to her later releases.
Opening "Apricot Jam" is the classic karaoke fan favourite and her debut single"Olivia wo Kikinagara" （オリビアを聴きながら）which was the subject for one of my earliest articles for "Kayo Kyoku Plus". As much as her really uptempo hits later on characterize the singer that is Anri, this first release is also a trademark tune and it fits as a reflection back to her origins with that innocent-sounding keyboard intro and the shy vocals. Incidentally, all of the tracks were arranged by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）.
Of the tracks for which I could find separate videos on YouTube, one is "So Long", a mellow tropical tune that was actually composed by Anri herself and written by Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）. As the title intimates, "So Long" goes into a bit of bittersweet farewell as a summer romance comes to an end. The arrangement had me thinking more of Jamaica rather than Shonan.
Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）was responsible for the creation of "Olivia wo Kikinagara" and she also came up with "Chinese Doll"（中国人形）, a mid-tempo song about a young lady possibly comparing herself to the titular porcelain figure: all fragile and looking for someone to love her. This is one of the tracks that made me realize how young Anri was at the time, and her delivery back then seemed rather similar to folk/City Pop singer Sumiko Yamagata（やまがたすみこ）. My other observation is that it must have been a genuine thrill for her to have had a few songs created for her by Ozaki since according to her J-Wiki file, she grew up listening to her along with Yumi Arai（荒井由実）, Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）, Yosui Inoue（井上陽水）and others.
Anri then dives into a bit of the funk and City Pop with "Blue City" by lyricist Okada once more and a composer named Al Hoffman who has no connection with another composer by that name since he passed away in 1960. Perhaps it's a pseudonym...I don't know. In any case, Okada weaves a story of a rather jaded seen-it-all and done-it-all city resident who is just trying to make his way through the metropolis without dying of boredom.
The album ends with "Fade Out"（フェイド・アウト）which was written and composed by singer-songwriter Kuniko Fukushima（福島邦子）, and it's an appropriately elegiac way to end "Apricot Dream" with the 1970s soft rock/country balladry. Perhaps as much as the first track, maybe "Fade Out" also has some tribute given to Olivia Newton-John since I could envisage the Australian singer tackling this one, too.
This video has the entire album so perhaps I can quickly go over the rest of the tracks. For example, at 4:38 is the second track "Rhapsody"（ラプソディー）which is one of the more uptempo songs on "Apricot Jam" with that bouncy electric piano and the City Pop haze. This was written and composed by Tomohiro Kobayashi（小林倫博）and perhaps should go along with a cup of really strong coffee before a shopping spree.
At 12:32 is "Nishibi Usurete"（西日うすれて...Fading Sunset） which is another Okada and Hoffman concoction which has Anri doing a cute vaudeville jazz number that screams for a soft-shoe dance interlude. Her protagonist is playfully wondering about her ideal boyfriend and when she's actually going to go for the gusto and grab him.
Ozaki is back with another uptempo track in "Flying Gozen Juu-ji Hatsu"（Flying 午前10時発...Flying at 10 am） at 19:32, a traveling pop song about a woman who had thought that she would be making her tropical trip from Tokyo with her beau only for a breakup to get in the way. Hate it when that happens. Ozaki's lyrics may come across as rather bittersweet but her melody illustrates that the lass isn't gonna let heartbreak stop a fun vacation.
Finally at 28:18 is "Keyword wo Sagase"（キーワードを探せ...Look For The Keyword）, another playful tune observing a likeable cad and his attempted conquests. This was written and composed by singer-songwriter Keiko Maruyama（丸山圭子）who had also provided another track from "Apricot Jam" that I've written about in the past, the more City Pop"Sozorosamu"（そぞろ寒）. This time, though, there is some more of that tropical clime feeling with a bit of a reggae beat.
Considering her later success, Anri's"Apricot Jam" may be quite an eye-opening revelation for those who are listening to the album for the first time. It did rather modestly on Oricon, peaking at just No. 51. However, despite the relatively quieter arrangement on her debut album, I think that there were seeds in there for what was to germinate in terms of how her music would be described in her heyday. Still, there were a few more years and albums to explore around for what her musical identity would become.
