Tsuyoshi Kon -- Zig-Zag

 

I've gone through enough liner notes for various Japanese pop albums in the 1970s and 1980s to recognize the famous musicians helping out any singer or band. There's saxophonist Jake H. Concepcion, chorus group EVE and keyboardist Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）. Another musician that I've seen and can identify easily through his very brief two-kanji full name is veteran guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）.

Kon hails from Hokkaido and began his career in the late 1970s just as the Japanese fusion boom was beginning. At the tender age of 18, he helped form the band Panta & Hal in 1977 and then also joined the supergroup Parachute with drummer Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）, fellow guitarist Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）and keyboardist Akira Inoue（井上鑑）. Throughout his long career, he's worked everyone from Akira Terao（寺尾聰）to Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）, and for those two singers, he was involved in their big hits "Ruby no Yubiwa"（ルビーの指輪）and "Automatic" respectively.

In July 1980, Kon released his first solo album "Studio Cat" which was produced by the aforementioned Hayashi. The first track is "Zig-Zag" which was created and performed by the man himself as a good-time sparkling and rollicking tune heading down the Ventura Freeway. Sounds like he's going at about 100 mph along the West Coast with his buddies which include Hayashi, keyboardist Mark Jordan and synthesizer operator Michael Boddicker.

Misia -- Welcome One

 

Last Saturday, there was a special on NHK via TV Japan called "Live Yell" which I'd assumed was yet another retrospective on that popular morning serial "Yell" which had aired for a good chunk of last year on the national broadcaster. I kinda rolled my eyes since though I knew how much folks loved the program but I felt that it was time to let it go and move on.

But actually I was mistaken. "Live Yell" is the second annual music-based special that was first aired last year as a means to cheer up the nation during this pandemic. Basically it's the summer version of the New Year's Eve Kohaku Utagassen which itself had been established decades ago to also lift people's spirits up during the first uncertain years of Japan's recovery from World War II. Even the hosts, comedian Teruyoshi Uchimura（内村光良）and NHK announcer Maho Kuwako（桑子真帆）, were straight from the Kohaku. This year's edition may have been even more needed perhaps since it isn't just about COVID, as really bad as it is now, but also about the torrential rains and floods that have been damaging parts of Japan.

The first up to bat was the marvelous Misia who had not only performed Japan's national anthem at the Opening Ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics a few weeks ago but also what I gather was the welcoming song for everyone in the stadium. Misia indeed performed that latter song, "Welcome One", which is her 50th single released in April this year.

"Welcome One" isn't Misia's first Olympic-related contribution. Back in 2002, she provided NHK's official theme song for its coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, the epic power ballad "Hatenaku Tsuzuku Story" （果てなく続くストーリー）. With "Welcome One", though, it is more of her earlier disco music mixed with some Disney cheer.

Written by Misia & Kelli Smith and composed by Minoru Komorita（小森田実）& Liantian, "Welcome One" doesn't have quite the affecting impact for me as "Hatenaku Tsuzuku Story" did, but it's still a fun and positive Misia number that would have been very welcoming for the tourists and athletes alike if they'd been able to tour through the megalopolis of Tokyo. I'm hoping that they will come back soon enough. One last point of trivia is that "Welcome One" hadn't started out as the Olympic welcome song; it was actually the campaign tune for the Japan Racing Association.

HALCALI -- Strawberry Chips（ストロベリーチップス）

 

Heck of a time for me to put in an Xmas-themed song but to be honest, I hadn't even known that it was a Christmas song of sorts.

Moreover it's been so long since I had written about a tune by the Okinawan song-and-dance duo HALCALI that I just had to squeeze this one in before retiring this Sunday night. And Halca and Yucali always used to come up with the catchy tunes alongside their just-as-eye-catching dancing, too.

"Strawberry Chips" was HALCALI's 4th single from November 2003, and I distinctly remember the music video with the girls bopping about in their Christmas tree costumes and then smacking each other with strawberry shortcake, a common cake during the Yuletide in Japan thanks to stores like Fujiya. Plus, the melody by DJ Fumiya from hip-hop group RIP SLYME just grabs my ears right away with the beefy drum and the disco strings. The song also seems to be imbued with not only early 1970s soul but even some of that Motown sound; in fact, I almost felt like categorizing it as a Shibuya-kei tune as well.

The lyrics were provided by RYO-Z, another member of RIP SLYME and they seem to be about having that great Xmas party with all of the fixings including champagne. However in the end, the young lady involved heads home alone. It's indeed that Xmas song that doesn't sound like an Xmas song, aside from a few jingle bells here and there. "Strawberry Chips" peaked at No. 22 on Oricon and was placed on the album "Ongaku no Susume"（音樂ノススメ...Recommended Music）, HALCALI's second effort which was released in November 2004 and got as high as No. 24.

Ai Furihata -- AXIOM

 

Looks like with the Ai Furihata（降幡愛）songs that I have made my acquaintance with so far, I've gotten some good nostalgic dollops of the 1980s. For example, there is the pumping "CITY" with its Vaporwave aesthetics and then the interesting Steely Dan/kayo hybrid of "Purple Eye Shadow"（パープルアイシャドウ）. Both are indeed cool and gleaming.

The 80s...and the 60s are still with us and Furihata in song and video respectively through her limited-release single "AXIOM" which came out this year in April. With Akimitsu Honma（本間昭光）behind the music and Furihata taking care of the lyrics, this time "AXIOM" decides to go with some Buggles-like spacey synthpop. "AXIOM" is also rather gleaming but instead of cool, there's more of that playful perkiness involved and I think there's even a feeling of an anthemic feeling as if Axiom was an actual superhero. 

The music video definitely plays up the perkiness factor since it looks like Furihata is dreaming up a sequence that must have occurred after she had overindulged at the buffet line at Red Lobster. I'd say that the future for the singer must be what folks in the mid-20th century had assumed was the future as Furihata takes on the guise of a dolled-up 1960s housewife complete with bouffant hairdo before switching to a space girl straight from a B-grade sci-fi movie from the same decade.

Michiru Kojima -- Yume no Temae de（夢の手前で）

 

I never saw "Konchu Monogatari Minashigo Hatchi"（昆虫物語 みなしごハッチ...The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee） as an anime but as a child, I remember seeing the manga version in some of the books that my parents had gotten me from Furuya, the old Japanese food shop in Chinatown. The picture that I always remember of the manga is the one where teary-eyed Hatchi is in the embrace of his mommy bee and I try not to grab for the Kleenex.

Apparently, the original anime first came out in 1970 on Fuji-TV for the better part of two years before a second season was broadcast for only six months in 1974.

Then, there was a reboot beginning in the summer of 1989 which lasted for more than a year on NTV. I have realized that there was a maturing of sorts within the tie-ups between anime and anison, but I was still caught slightly off-guard for the ending theme for this 1989 version of "Hatchi". "Yume no Temae de" (Ahead of the Dream) was performed by Michiru Kojima（児島未散）as her 4th single in August 1989, and it sounds more like a polished urban contemporary love song for people rather than an anison about honeybees. However, it still sounds plenty fine for me. There are some fine people behind it as well including Kojima such as lyricist Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composer/arranger Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）.

Mika Bridgebook & Philadelphia -- MIRAI

Thank you, Ms. Bridgebook for the use of
this photo.

I'm starting off this final article for tonight with a bit of an announcement. City Pop maestro Van Paugam and I got together over the airwaves last weekend to tape a podcast centering around the singer-songwriter Miki Matsubara（松原みき）to talk about some of her albums and about that particular song "Mayonaka no Door ~ Stay With Me"（真夜中のドアー）which became a big sensation last Xmas on TikTok. We also had some time to talk about what City Pop was all about as well. If you're interested, have a listen to us at "City Pop Podcast EP IV: The Heart of City Pop" which is now up at Van Paugam's site.

At the end of taping, I believe that I also complimented Van on his podcast's ending theme, and he was kind enough to tell me that the song is "MIRAI" (Future) by soulful Mika Bridgebook & Philadelphia. It's some nice groovy Neo-City Pop and I find Mika's vocals very reminiscent of Mai Yamane（山根麻衣）back when she was tackling some of the original City Pop in the early 1980s. Come to think of it, I'm also reminded of Haruko Kuwana（桑名晴子）. Nothing says a Tokyo night out on the town more than "MIRAI", and it sure would be nice to get back to my old stomping grounds someday.

https://www.facebook.com/mikabridgebook/posts/3159275664190911

Ms. Bridgebook also happens to be a good friend of Van, so he was able to tell me a little about her. If I've read correctly, "MIRAI" was also placed on the 2020 album "1964 Tokyo Olympic to 2020 Tokyo Olympic", a release that regrettably has yet to happen due to factors including the pandemic. Hopefully, it will see the light of day sometime soon. For the rest of her biography, I'll quote directly from Van through Twitter:

Mika is a singer/song writer/guitar player who has been in the industry for many years and has worked with a lot of artists. She visited Chicago and I was introduced to her during the filming of "Hisashiburi City Pop", the short documentary about the genre, in which Mika can be seen performing towards the end. Mika herself sang on the Captain Harlock OST under the name TIA. We became friends and she invited me to DJ in Tokyo in Shinagawa at a venue called Live Cafe Again, where the owner was very close friends with Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）, him having performed there various times himself. The event was titled "Chicago to Tokyo", and featured Mika and her music family singing covers of city pop. 

I've also been given permission by the singer via Van to put up some of her links at Facebook, Wixsite, Youtube and Soundcloud.

Kyu Sakamoto -- Kokoro no Hitomi（心の瞳）

 

A couple of days ago, there was a tweet from someone that I follow. He hadn't known about the fate of singer Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）, the original singer behind the classic "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (上を向いて歩こう), and he was shocked to learn that he was one of the passengers on Japan Airlines Flight 123 which had crashed into a mountain in Gunma Prefecture on August 12th 1985, killing 520 people on the plane including Sakamoto. It still remains the deadliest single-aircraft incident in aviation history.

I remember hearing about the incident as a university student and soon learned of Sakamoto's death. There was an episode of Fuji-TV's "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）music show not long after in which a tribute was made with enka singer Shinichi Mori（森進一）singing one of Sakamoto's hits "Miagetegoran Yoru no Hoshi wo"（見上げてごらん夜の星を）on a darkened stage. Even before his tragic passing at the age of 44, that particular ballad was fairly easy to induce tears, and Mori looked absolutely shattered as he was singing it while the hosts and guests were doing a fair amount of weeping themselves. It was awfully hard to watch.

Of course, the above two songs of Sakamoto that I've already mentioned will be among his most famous numbers, but there is a B-side to what would be his final single "Natsukashiki love-song"（懐しきlove-song...A Nostalgic Love Song） released in May 1985, less than three months before the horrible accident. "Kokoro no Hitomi" (Eyes of the Heart) was written by Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）and composed by Takashi Miki（三木たかし）with Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）as the arranger, and it's a contemporary-sounding pop song with a feeling of a Boz Scaggs ballad that has gained even more poignancy as time has passed and because of the circumstances. It seems to come across as a farewell song as Sakamoto reassures folks that no matter how quickly time flies, the heart and love will always be there.