Tina Turner -- What's Love Got to Do with It

 

Yesterday, the news came down that the iconic Tina Turner had passed away in Switzerland at the age of 83. As a result, I wrote up a special ROY article then to describe the song where I first got to know Turner, "Proud Mary" from 1971. Her presence on the stage to perform that hit had basically been the lone image that I would have of the singer when I was a kid.

It was going into the 1980s that I actually started getting interested in music on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, so as I was getting into kayo kyoku in Japan, I also got into and purchased American, Canadian and European pop music. What certainly helped was the blossoming of music videos on MTV and Canada's MuchMusic and all of the local music video shows such as "Toronto Rocks". 

Well, a few years into that, I got reacquainted with the Queen of Rock n' Roll after many years through a song titled "What's Love Got to Do with It" which was released on May 1st, 1984. A story of someone going through internal turmoil about falling in love again after getting romantically burned previously, the song by Graham Lyle and Terry Britten struck me as this very calm and grounded tune very much of the 1980s. Naturally, hearing it again brought lots of nostalgia and warm feelings, especially with the sunny video of Turner taking a leisurely walk through New York City. And man, those 80s fashions!😎 To be honest, that image of her in the denim jacket, short black skirt and mounds of hair replaced the one of her singing "Proud Mary".

The Wikipedia piece on "What's Love Got to Do with It" has already stated it, but it became Turner's first and only No. 1 single on Billboard (hit the top in Canada, too) with over 2 million records sold globally. Also included in all of the accolades was that the song won three Grammys: Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

I will give my condolences to Turner's family, friends and fans but I have a feeling that the legend is probably and very happily performing all of her discography in another realm.

Seeing that last week's ROY was also a record from May 1984 which I then compared with entries from the Oricon Top 20, this time around, I will go with three of the singles that were released in that month.

Hiroko Yakushimaru -- Main Theme （メイン・テーマ）

ALFEE -- STARSHIP - Hikari wo Motomete （光を求めて）

Mariko Takahashi -- Momo Iro Toiki （桃色吐息）

Hiroshi Inoue -- Tokyo Waltz（東京ワルツ）/Wakare no Tango（別れのタンゴ）

 

I've mentioned this to people and readers before but my favourite era in Japanese history isn't particularly the Muromachi or Taisho periods for example. Actually, the one group of years that has been interesting for me is the postwar era extending to the early 1970s because I had always wondered how Japan was able to rise above the ashes to become the 2nd-largest economic power behind the United States at one point. But before I end up wearing those rose-coloured glasses of romanticism, a lot of those years were ones of struggle and with the sudden ramp-up in industrialization once more, there was a heavy toll on the environment and health.

Still, I've been able to get a glimpse and a feel for the Tokyo of the 1950s or 1960s thanks to visits to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama. The time warp walk around the city seems to make one's vision go sepia and the ramen is pretty darn good, too. 😋 I must thank the good people at Nippon Wandering TV for the above video.

But of course, this is a kayo kyoku blog and not a ramen one, although I imagine that there are far more of those than there are of mine. And perhaps filtering over the speakers in the mockup Tokyo underneath the ground floor of the museum is a September or October 1961 single by crooner Hiroshi Inoue（井上ひろし）depending on whether you go with the J-Wiki article on Inoue or YouTube uploader Ka Fu respectively. "Tokyo Waltz" is a Mood Kayo written by Sou Nishizawa（西沢爽）and composed by Itsuro "Raymond" Hattori（服部逸郎）and has the rich tenor of Inoue expressing a man's heartbreak within the Tokyo nightlife. The melody indeed takes on a sad and slow waltz.

The B-side is "Wakare no Tango" (Farewell Tango) which continues the themes of dancing and imminent romantic loss, but this time as the title says, the melody by Tadashi Manjome（万城目正）has a bit more of that Latin spice. Ko Fujiura（藤浦 洸）came up with the lyrics, and listening to the song, I can imagine a couple born of the nightlife in the megalopolis having one last teary cheek-to-cheek dance on the nightclub floor before having to part permanently.

Ike & Tina Turner -- Proud Mary

 

The news has been rolling in from all sources over the past hour. I hadn't heard anything from Tina Turner in the last few years and I knew that she was getting up there in years, but it's still hard to believe that even in her 80s, the vivacious Grande Dame of R&B and the Queen of Rock n' Roll would be anything but the rapidly sashaying and high-powered entertainer. Alas, her death has been announced today at the age of 83.

This will be a special Reminiscings of Youth then regarding Tina Turner. In the early 1970s, I was too young to know much about Turner aside from her appearances on various music-variety shows on TV. My image of her had been of her in that slinky spangled dress working hard on the stage and behind the mike, and I thought that she vibrated so hard that she threatened to disintegrate the floor beneath her.

The song that I always associated with her in the early days was "Proud Mary" in partnership with her ex-husband Ike Turner. Released as a single in January 1971, I had no idea that it was a cover of the original version by rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival back in 1969. But arguably, Ike and Tina took ownership of "Proud Mary". The part of the Turners' song that I am most familiar with is the latter half where the song clicks into high gear with those horns, and my image of Tina begins shimmying on the stage. She could have powered the electric generator for Memphis with her performance.

"Proud Mary" by the Turners hit No. 4 on US Billboard and it went as high as No. 11 on Canada's RPM charts. I'll be devoting the regular ROY article tomorrow to Tina as well since it's also a song that has remained with my memories as I was growing up in the 1980s.

The following were winners at the Japan Record Awards in 1971.

Grand Prize: Kiyohiko Ozaki -- Mata Au Hi Made （また逢う日まで）

Best New Artist: Rumiko Koyanagi -- Watashi no Joukamachi (わたしの城下町）

Performance Award: Hiroshi Itsuki -- Yokohama Tasogare（よこはま・たそがれ）

Cherish -- Ochiba no Mori no Bansankai（落ち葉の森の晩餐会）

 

It was about nine years ago that I put up folk duo Cherish's（チェリッシュ）famous and amiable "Tento Mushi no Samba" （てんとう虫のサンバ）which was their July 1973 7th single. My, how time flies. 

Well, the B-side of the single is "Ochiba no Mori no Bansankai" (The Dinner in the Woods of the Fallen Leaves) which was taken care of by the same duo behind the A-side: lyricist Daizo Saito（さいとう大三）and composer/arranger Shunichi Makaino（馬飼野俊一）. Melodically speaking, it sounds just a bit more contemporary kayo than the folksier "Tento Mushi no Samba", but personal as well as professional partners Yoshitaka Matsuzaki（松崎好孝）and Etsuko Matsui（松井悦子）still bring their happy-go-lucky charm to their vocals.

All in all, "Ochiba no Mori no Bansankai" is a cheery and breezy tune that could any accompany any picnic on a Sunday. In fact, there's something about that title that has me thinking of that tea party in "Alice in Wonderland".

GANASIA -- Grow up Potential ~ Yume ni Mukatte（夢に向かって）

 

When it comes to car racing, if I'm lucky, I am able to catch the Indianapolis 500 or the odd Formula One bout.

I know that Japan has its fair share of Formula One fans and there is even one weathercaster on Japan's "Weathernews Live" who's such an F1 maniac that viewers wonder if she chose the right career and should be calling F1 races instead. For me, I'm such a casual viewer that I had to look up what the differences were between Formula One and IndyCar.

To no one's surprise, there has been at least one manga and anime adaptation on car racing in the past 30 years. "Bakusō Kyōdai Let's & Go!!"（爆走兄弟レッツ&ゴー!!...The Racing Brothers Let's & Go!!）had its manga run between 1994 and 1999 with three seasons of an anime going from 1996 to 1998 with the focus on a couple of brothers really hard into a form of miniature car racing known as Mini 4WD.

One of the ending themes for the second season of the show was the rousing and driving "Grow up Potential ~ Yume ni Mukatte" (Face Your Dreams) performed by short-lived duo GANASIA (1996-1998). This was their 2nd and final single from February 1997 as written and composed by one of the pair, Takumi Ozawa（尾澤拓実）, with the other member being Kana Takahashi（高橋佳奈）. There had been one other person, Mimi Murakami（村上ミミ）, as a part of the band although whether GANASIA had once been a trio or Murakami had been replaced by either Ozawa or Takahashi isn't known. I have to say that the CD cover for "Grow up Potential" is one of the most 90s J-Pop photos that I have ever seen. 

Hitomi Hayase -- Kita No Misaki（北の岬）

 

I don't know about some of the enka-listening veterans out there, but I often find it difficult to discover female enka singers outside of the most famous people such as Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）and Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）in the 1970s and 1980s. Not sure why but perhaps at the time, girls or women who wanted to get into a singing career tended to aim for aidoru, folk or pop singer.

So, it's always pleasant when I do find such a singer. Case in point: Hitomi Hayase who was born Hitomi Chiba（千葉仁美）in 1961 in Iwate Prefecture.  According to a local newspaper feature (1983) in her home prefecture via J-Wiki, the singer has been a great fan of kayo kyoku through TV and radio programs since she she was little, and lucky for her, she was blessed with a great voice without any particular need for vocal training. 

Winning as Grand Champion on the audition show "Star wa Kimi da!"（スターは君だ!...The Star is You!）, Chiba took on the stage name Hitomi Hayase（早世ひとみ）and made her debut with "Kita no Misaki" (The Northern Cape) in November 1980. A melancholy enka with a folksy bent, the song had been created by lyricist Makoto Kitajo（喜多条忠）and composer Takashi Miki（三木たかし）and deals with a woman wondering what went wrong when her wonderful relationship with a man suddenly ended while they were walking along one of those spectacular capes. There is something rather Ishikawa-esque about her delivery.

As far as I know, I don't ever recall seeing her appearing on any TV program, certainly not on NHK, and it looks like Hayase never quite hit A-level stardom. However, she had been steadily working until the early 1990s. Since then, she's released a couple of singles and an album in the 21st century. With a slight change in her stage name kanji（早瀬ひとみ）but with the same pronunciation in 2003, Hayase has been focusing mainly on live performances.

Dance for philosophy -- Heuristic City（ヒューリスティック・シティ）

 

After having a rather large roast chicken dinner with all of the trimmings earlier tonight, my metabolism is having an inner war involving all that protein and carbs against the cup of strong coffee. Who will win? Stay tuned.

However, I will try to support the coffee side by writing up another article for KKP. Let's take things forward into time to the end of 2018 when funky aidoru group Dance for philosophy（フィロソフィーのダンス）released their 23rd digital single "Love Variation with Scoobie Do/Heuristic City" in December, and I'm looking at the lightly soulful "Heuristic City" here. Written by Sho Yamamoto（ヤマモトショウ）and composed by Gento Miyano（宮野弦士）, it looks like the video has the group going off on a fun road trip. Meanwhile the lyrics are more wistful and melancholy as a woman talks about the impending breakup between her and a guy.

I'm no computer scientist so when I saw that word "heuristic", I began thinking of all things circuit-like but tracking down the definition for the word, I came across the following from The Oxford Dictionary: 1. enabling someone to discover or learn something for themselves. 2. (computers) proceeding to a solution by trial and error or by rules that are only loosely defined. From these definitions, I can assume that the woman sees her surrounding city (maybe not the one that she's originally from) as the setting where she first learned the whole process of love, from falling in and falling out of it. The wisdom that she's learned is sad, precious and invaluable.