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.
Maintenance of a blog can sometimes bring up some unfortunate truths. For one thing, the elimination of videos for the first couple of articles of a pretty obscure singer. And indeed, that has happened to singer, flutist and actress Ai Kanzaki（神崎愛）. So, at this point, I've had to put her two City Pop offerings back into mothballs until those videos come back.
Right now then, I just have the one active article depicting her 1980 single"Sentakusen"（洗濯船）which lays more on the border between Fashion Music and New Music. As I stated there, it's rather chaise lounge-friendly and has more of that classy exotic kayo feeling. The B-side though is the topic of this article for Kanzaki. "Koibito-tachi no Rondo" (Lovers' Rondo) has a bit more oomph but it's also whimsical to a nearly comical degree as Kanzaki vocally takes on a higher and squeakier tone, although some of those chord changes are pretty cool. It's almost as if she's singing this half-drunk in some French bar. Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）was the lyricist here with Ken Sato（佐藤健）and Yasuo Higuchi（樋口康雄）taking care of the melody and arrangement respectively.
That was my first reaction to Boy George when I heard Culture Club's "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me". There was so much old-time soul in those vocals and yet they were coming out of someone who looked to have been residing on the dividing line between New Wave and New Romantic. As well, the music was something that I couldn't immediately identify but that was because there was a blend of genres coming together: New Wave, soul and reggae. But again, I go back to that voice with the smokiness and vulnerability. And she was pretty, too.
Ah, and then I'd find out a few months later that Boy George really was a boy, George...George Alan O'Dowd, in fact. Still, dang fine voice.
And Culture Club became a sensation from that point for the next several years as Boy George and his band were frequent visitors on the charts. But "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" was the first one, Culture Club's fourth single from September 1982 and it was hitting No. 1 all over the Earth including Canada, the UK and France among other nations while it peaked at No. 2 in the United States.
Well, not surprisingly, such was Culture Club's popularity that corporate Japan came calling.
I also remember that Boy George's appearance was so iconic that there were Boy George lookalike contests all around the world. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any footage on YouTube but I recall the one that had been held in Japan somewhere. I don't think I'd seen so many Japanese New Romanticists in heavy makeup before.
So, what else was being released in Japan in that busy month of September 1982?
The late singer-songwriter Chu Kosaka（小坂忠）who left us a little over three years ago had been involved with a number of groups, beginning with his Group Sounds band The Floral（ザ・フローラル）in the late 1960s. The next decade over, he was associated with Tin Pan Alley（ティン・パン・アレー）. In 1972, he formed a band known as Chu Kosaka & Four Joe Half（小坂忠 と フォージョーハーフ）with drummer Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）, keyboardist Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）, bassist Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）and steel pedal guitarist Hiroki Komazawa（駒沢裕城）.
First though, I felt that I had to give some clarity to that name of Four Joe Half. I believe that it is a humourous translation of the term yojouhan（四畳半）which directly means four-and-a-half tatami mats, basically a small tatami room or even small tatami apartment. From what I've learned, there has been a certain romanticism or nostalgia added to this tiny room since such places were residences for the poor and hungry high school or university student in Japan trying to study but also to make ends meet. It was also a meeting place for the resident and his/her buddies to carouse, drink and play music perhaps. Speaking of which, when a music genre is associated with such humble living back in the 1960s and 1970s, it's usually folk.
The living room in my 2K apartment was probably a yojouhan and true to what I said up above, I did have my friends come over for dinner parties such as hot pot. At one time early in my residency there, I had as many as twenty folks squished in that room. I may as well have called my living room a TARDIS! Well, nowhere near as roomy...
And that's where we come back to the main line here. Chu Kosaka & Four Joe Half were able to release a live album in July 1972 called "Motto Motto"（もっともっと...More and More） and from it, we have the second-last track "Sukinan dakara" (Cause I Love You). Written and composed by Kosaka, it's a Sunday-relaxed tenderhearted ballad about declaring one's love for a live-in partner in what is probably that yojouhan apartment. Maybe things aren't financially resplendent, but as long as the couple are together, then things will work out. Kosaka's soothing vocals, that lovely piano and Komazawa's just-as-soothing pedal guitar keep things very nicely introspective and pleasant.
My previous article some minutes ago had to do with one of America's most famous bars on television. As well, my good anime buddy has just returned from his annual pilgrimage to Japan, including a few days in Hokkaido, so I figure that it was time to search for a shibui Sapporo-based enka or Mood Kayo.
Looks like I may have hit the kayo kyoku trifecta here. To be honest, I couldn't distinguish whether Mina Aoe's（青江三奈）"Sapporo Blues" is an enka or a Mood Kayo (I can hear elements of both genres) and of course, it serves as a go-touchi (local or regional) song. The late singer released "Sapporo Blues" back in March 1968 as her 9th single and also as another entry in her "Blues" series which includes the much later 1983 "Osaka Blues"（大阪ブルース）. Written by Kohan Kawauchi（川内康範）and composed by Koumei Sone（曽根幸明）, the husky tones of Aoe (including those famous moans) deliver a story of longing and trysting in the capital city of Hokkaido where the cold can easily have people search for bodily (or drinkable) warmth.
There was a place that I used to call my home away from home and that was the International Student Centre at the University of Toronto. I started there as a volunteer to help out with the welcoming of foreign students in the fall and ended up as the main receptionist there for a few years. In between those two positions, I was the usual Tuesday night guy behind the front desk where I took care of things after the main staff had gone home. There were the usual clubs (such as the Society of Creative Anachronism) that booked rooms in the ISC so I got to know them well, and even better, some of my friends from the Japanese-Canadian Students' Association dropped by to hang out by the desk. Even when I did lock up, we sometimes went out for a late dinner in Chinatown 10 minutes' walk away. Good times!
I appreciated being part of a social hub like that, but perhaps the seed for that idea came years previously with an NBC sitcom called "Cheers" that had a run of more than a decade starting from September 1982. I remember the original commercial for the series; it just had one amiable fellow who looked like he was about to hit a classy downtown bar on a dark stage simply describing this upcoming situation comedy called "Cheers" which promised to be something a little out of the ordinary.
And it turned out to be so. "Cheers" was about the humourous goings-on within a Boston bar run by former Bosox pitcher Sam "Mayday" Malone. For the first several years, everything basically took place within the comfortable old-style trappings of Cheers the bar among the regular customers who came in for a pint or ten. The above video shows the very first scene from the very first episode, and I still had to catch myself laughing.
One absolutely faithful barfly at Cheers was the lovable Norm Petersen played by George Wendt. He would always burst through the door and then everyone in the bar would yell "NORM!!" in greetings before a brief snarky exchange. It was sad to hear of Wendt's passing yesterday at 76. He's been in other projects although I believe that he preferred performing on the stage, but I will always remember him as ever-imbibing Norm.
Yup, this is an atypical Reminiscings of Youth although we'll have the regularly scheduled one tomorrow but since I enjoyed "Cheers" in the early years especially when Shelley Long and Nicholas Colasanto were part of the cast, I wanted to pay tribute to Wendt. Plus, since hearing about his death, the theme song has been playing in my head frequently.
As you know, I have lavishly included TV theme songs from my childhood and youth within the ROY series, and I think this one for "Cheers" is up there with the best. Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart-Angelo were the ones behind "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" with the former singing the song. Anchored by a piano that sounds as if it belongs to a bar like Cheers, Portnoy gives this truly sympathetic delivery and the equivalent of an arm around the shoulder as if helping a buddy in the blues and inviting him for a round on him at their beloved drinking establishment where the rest of the guys are waiting.
A full version of the song was released by Portnoy in early 1983. Of course, my condolences go to Wendt's family, friends and many fans. NORM!! So, at around the time that "Cheers" came out, what was up at the top of Oricon? I have the Top 3 from September 27th 1982.
Singer-songwriter and musician Hiroshi Narumi（鳴海寛）, one-half of the City Pop/old-timey pop duoTohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）, passed away almost a decade ago, but it's been wonderful that his music as part of that pairing with songwriter Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）and as a soloist has been rediscovered over the years. A couple of years ago, I mentioned that there had been a 2022 album put out in tribute to Narumi titled "Around the Thru Traffic" as a compilation of other songs from his other albums.
One of the tracks there that I didn't cover the first time around is "Ame Agari" (After the Rain). Composed by Narumi and written by Takashi Narematsu, it supposedly first emerged to fans' ears as far back as his 2017 album"Boku wa Uta Tsukuri (Early Works 1975-1978)"（僕は詩つくり...I am a Writer of Songs）, although I couldn't track down the year that it had been first recorded.
It's been a pretty rainy day here in Toronto and since it is a Hump Day, I thought it would be nice to have something like "Ame Agari" start off the Wednesday edition of KKP. "Ame Agari" isn't a City Pop or AOR tune at all; instead it's a light and pleasant bossa nova song with Narumi's vocals fitting the melody perfectly.
Intriguing thing about that "Uta Con"（うたコン）episode that I'd mentioned in my previous article. Being the 100th anniversary of NHK, the show did the weekly dip into the time vault and this time around, they dug through 1986. Of course, that also meant looking at the annual Kohaku Utagassen footage from that year, and lo and behold, dancing wunderkind dancing aidoru Yoko Oginome was on stage.
Additionally, she was singing what is arguably her most famous hit, "Dancing Hero"（ダンシング・ヒーロー）, from 1985 which was the cover version of Angie Gold's "Eat You Up". And it was maybe for that reason that Oginome's voice and the entire song got the Jme treatment of copyright-enforced Muzak-inflicted blanking out of "Dancing Hero". Geez...the powers-that-be are really getting harsh.
Inspired (and triggered) by that incident, I've decided that I'll put up my own favourite five Yoko Oginome tunes in no particular order.
.jpg)
.jpg)