Four Clovers -- Fuyu Monogatari（冬物語）

Back in November 2015, I mentioned about this folk group from the late 1960s into the early 1970s, Four Saints（フォー・セインツ）, which teamed up with actress/singer Keiko Matsuzaka（松坂慶子）to record this comely tune right in the same year about old friends getting together.

Well, I think it's maybe time I delved into their original run which lasted from 1968 to 1973. I did talk about some of Four Saints' history in that 2015 article, but I also didn't state that when the group made the move from Toshiba to Nippon Columbia sometime in 1971, lead vocalist Tohru Uehara（上原徹）and the guys changed their name from Four Saints to Four Clovers（フォー・クローバース）for the remainder of that first run together.

In October 1972, Four Clovers released the single "Fuyu Monogatari" (Winter Story) which is a heck of a song to talk about right now considering that we are in the dog days of summer, but let's live a little dangerously, shall we?😁 It's quite the atmospheric number starting with a lot of rain before the classy strings and some dramatic arrangement come in. There's also a nice addition of some bluesy piano in there, too. Prolific lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and prolific composer Koichi Sakata（坂田晃一）created the song.

My overall impression is that "Fuyu Monogatari" is even somewhat epic but then again, it would have to be since it was used as the theme song for an NTV soap opera of the same title which ran from November 1972 to April 1973. According to J-Wiki, the show was about a romance budding between newly-widowed Nobuko and a somewhat rough-and-tumble Yoshiyuki. In fact, just looking at the first several minutes of Episode 1: "Ame no Meguriai"（雨のめぐり逢い...An Encounter in the Rain）, it looks like Nobuko was still in her mourning clothes when she is literally bumped into by Yoshiyuki. For some additional information, Nobuko is played by Ruriko Asaoka（浅丘ルリ子）while Yoshiyuki is played by the late Yoshio Harada（原田芳雄）.

As for Four Clovers, they may have ended their initial run in 1973 but a few decades later, they banded up again from 2006 and brought back the old name of Four Saints.

THE CRAZY RIDER Yokohama Ginbae ROLLING SPECIAL -- Tsuppari High School Rock n' Roll（ツッパリHigh School Rock' n Roll）

Ahhh...good heavens! Rockabilly greasers twisting away in Yoyogi Park have been in existence since the late 1970s probably. I even remember America's "Entertainment Tonight" focusing on those guys one night. Just kinda wonder what the trigger was for the young folks back then to emulate the rock n' roll of the 1950s.

Maybe part of it was the advent of the Downtown Boogie-Woogie Band with their eternal "Minato no Yoko, Yokohama Yokosuka" （港のヨーコ・ヨコハマ・ヨコスカ）in 1975 (and of course, I also think about the band Carol even earlier). However, another band that brought that rough n' tumble rock n' roll image was THE CRAZY RIDER Yokohama Ginbae ROLLING SPECIAL（THE CRAZY RIDER 横浜銀蝿 ROLLING SPECIAL） at the turn of the decade into the 1980s. I saw them perform once again on NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）a few weeks ago.

Commenter T-cat contributed the first full article on Yokohama Ginbae (Yokohama Silver Fly) back in 2018 via the band's "Shogun Kaoru ‘Wolf Ryu" (羯徒毘路薫狼琉), and T-cat was also good enough to provide the original lineup. However, I have to make one correction on the name of one of the members. The drummer is actually named Ran, as in Yoshiyuki "Ran" Tamiya（田宮淑行）, and not Arashi. Ran is just one other reading of the kanji（嵐）.

Yokohama Ginbae's performance on "Uta Kon" was for their 2nd single "Tsuppari High School Rock n' Roll" (Delinquent High School Rock n' Roll) released in January 1981. Specifically, it's been given the additional moniker of the "Toukou Hen"（登校編...At School Version） in contrast with later versions (including a special "Social Distancing" version on the show). Ran was behind the words and music of this short and spicy ode to all things troublemaking 50s teenage rock n' roll. Still in the song, main vocalist Sho（翔）wants to let the mothers know that although they may be a bit rough around the edges, they're still good lads at heart following their own paths...I hope.

"Tsuppari High School Rock n' Roll" peaked at No. 2 and became the 15th-ranked single for 1981. As for how the band got its name, Sho, Taku, Johnny and Ran got started in September 1979 and one time, the owner of an establishment that the guys frequented once blasted out "You guys are as annoying as silver flies!" which had Ran going "Hmmm....", according to an interview with Yokohama Ginbae to commemorate the band's 40th anniversary at Hama Repo via J-Wiki. Sho also mentioned that he and the guys had wanted to be No. 1 at something right from the get-go, so they opted to go for Japan's longest band name, and thus officially, they took on THE CRAZY RIDER Yokohama Ginbae ROLLING SPECIAL.

As T-cat mentioned in his article, 50% of pop music is style, so I'd say that Yokohama Ginbae with the ideas in the above paragraph and their appearance/attitude in the sunglasses, leather jackets and pompadours pretty much launched themselves into pop culture style history. They made their mark at the right time and place. No band could have asked for anything more to start a career.

More Than Paradise -- Fireworks

It would have been a few weeks ago that the Sumida River Fireworks Festival would have taken place in Tokyo as it would usually around that time every year. Maybe as much as a million people would have shown up in the traditional quarter of Asakusa in traditional summer garb risking a lot of sweat and privacy to watch an hour's worth of some of the most spectacular fireworks to soar into the night sky.

I had my opportunity to catch the festival up close and personal thanks to an English student (who unfortunately passed away many years ago) who opened up her apartment right by the Sumida itself to some of us to view the light show. But aside from that, my viewings of what is probably the most famous fireworks festival in Tokyo were restricted to watching it on TV Tokyo in air-conditioned comfort (not a fan of crowds or heat).

Regrettably, COVID-19 scrapped the 2020 edition of the festival although I read that TV Tokyo provided a retrospective of past highlights, and perhaps a lot of the fireworks fans have gone to sites like YouTube to get their fix of their hanabi.

So, it is appropriate that I provide my final KKP article for tonight, "Fireworks" by the 1990s three-member group More Than Paradise. I've actually written about these folks before in 2018 with their fun Shibuya-kei "Natsu Monogatari"（夏物語）. More Than Paradise consisted of Yudai Suzuki（鈴木雄大）, who has his own flock of songs here, along with Eiko Kamata（鎌田英子）and Jun Kageie（景家淳）. 

I'm happy to read that the Japanese music blog "Music Avenue" also discovered the source album with "Fireworks", "Love Parade" (1992). Apparently, author kaz-shin fell for the charms of Suzuki and so have I when it comes to "Fireworks". But in comparison with "Natsu Monogatari", this particular song, which was written by Yui Natsumi（夏実唯）and composed by Hidetoshi Yamada（山田秀俊）, has more of that sophisti-pop style that I've heard incorporated in a number of City Pop tunes in the late 80s and early 90s (so I gather that I might be watching the fireworks from the top of a swanky hotel bar as I listen to this). kaz-shin gives his compliments to bassist Tetsuo Sakurai（桜井哲夫）here and I'd like to give my praise to the bossa nova as well. The author of "Music Avenue" also swoons in the blog entry that on hearing this classy number, he imagines being at Haneda Airport in the evening and catching sight of the bright lights of Tokyo in the distance. However, as for the video above featuring the song, the city is actually Melbourne, Australia where "Love Parade" was recorded according to the uploader.

Is this album still around? From just casually looking around the Net, apparently it is (or was recently), although one site, Amazon.jp, states that it will not deliver it to Canada and it costs more than it did when "Love Parade" was first released. No sign of it at Tower Records so perhaps it'll be one of those rarities to track down through auctions.

Kosetsu Minami -- Sayonara no Machi（さよならの街）

Up to this point in the blog's history, we've only had one example of longtime folk singer Kosetsu Minami's（南こうせつ）work (thanks to Noelle Tham) under his own name, and that was through his contribution to Yuzo Kayama's（加山雄三）The Yanchars（ザ・ヤンチャーズ）...basically a get-together of Kayama and his good buddies for a jam session.

Now, allow me to provide some more of Minami and his own early solo works. I've seen this amiable folk singer from Oita Prefecture on television off and on for years now, so I'm a tad sheepish about introducing him on his own for the first time more than eight years after beginning the blog. He just seems like the most approachable musician who never ages.

Minami started off on his own in 1970 and later on in October of that year, he joined up with what would become the first incarnation of the folk band Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）. The following year, the second incarnation came into being with Minami, Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）and Panda Yamada（山田パンダ）getting together, and gradually they would get their big hit with "Kandagawa"（神田川）in 1973.

The singer still continued on with his solo career with an official debut album "Kaerimichi"（かえり道...The Road Home） being released in July 1975 and a first single coming out in early 1976, "Kyou wa Ame"（今日は雨...Rain Today）. The song for this article, though, is the first track from his March 1976 2nd album "Negai"（ねがい...Wishes）, "Sayonara no Machi" (Goodbye City). It's also the first track in the above video.

"Sayonara no Machi" is as gentle a folk song as you can hear. Written and composed by Minami, it's a bittersweet ballad (not sure whether the bitter or the sweet won out here) about a young man heading back to his hometown after several years in the big city and a lot of adventures including a romance now over. He states in the lyrics that he can't go back home (the city) again so I guess that he may still be harboring some hard feelings about some things such as the end of the relationship and maybe even the fact that he couldn't really make it big there. Still, the lovely music by Minami helps soften any blows, and I certainly can relate to an extent about the feelings expressed in "Sayonara no Machi".

As for the album "Negai", both it and "Kaerimichi" reached as high as No. 2 on Oricon.

GWINKO -- Natsu no Owari, Chikazuita Sora（夏のおわり、近づいた空）

A bit early in the week for some of the funk and groove perhaps but that's OK. KKP contributor JTM has often espoused the talents of a Japanese singer, GWINKO, so I was able to write about "Yokubari na Weekend"（よくばりなウィークエンド）. This singer is definitely one example of late 80s/early 90s funk and groove in Japan, and the video for "Yokubari na Weekend" provided the most entertaining trip to the mall that I've seen in a while.

The song was also included in GWINKO's 4th album "I'm In" from July 1990, and the lead track for the album is "Natsu no Owari, Chikazuita Sora" (The End of Summer, The Approaching Sky). This is another bouncy R&B tune which starts with some smacking drums before GWINKO sings about some stormy clouds hovering a relationship which ends with one of the couple being dumped on the beach. I didn't think that breakups ever deserved their own choreography considering all of that wonderfully funky bass and light tripping on the piano. I'm pretty sure if GWINKO had ever decided to get a music video for "Natsu no Owari, Chikazuita Sora", it would have had plenty of beach blanket boys and girls dancing on the sand.

"Natsu no Owari, Chikazuita Sora" was written by Junko Ohyama（大山潤子）, who also took care of the aforementioned "Yokubari no Weekend", while Yoichiro Kakizaki（柿崎洋一郎）came up with all that funky music.

Never Gonna Let You Go produced by Sergio Mendes

Geez...sorry Mr. Mendes.

This morning, I did something that I hadn't done in 37 years. No...not that, my bladder is still as tight as a kettle drum. Actually, I am referring to the fact that I painted fences for the first time since the summer of 1983 since our superintendent sent around a flyer asking residents to handle the painting of their area fences over the weekend. So I went to the superintendent's office yesterday morning to pick up the stain, the brush and the stir stick and waited until this morning to get started because yesterday was a meteorological washout. Today, however, is a fine day so I got out after breakfast and did Part 1 of the job in about an hour. It was rather nice to be doing something outside of translating, teaching or blogging for a change.

As I said, the summer of 1983 was the time for me to earn my first amount of money in a summer job, so I got to paint a whole ton of fences during July and August for a particular townhouse area in Agincourt in the northeastern part of Toronto. I also had to pick up garbage and water the lawns in what was a pretty hot summer. Ended up with the worst case of athlete's foot but all in all, it was good honest work to earn some money for university.

It was also a somewhat eerie experience because for most of my days there, I swore that I thought I was the only person anywhere in the development. I gather that most of the adults were off at work and the kids were off to summer camp. Whenever I needed more paint, I would leave a message for my boss, and by the next morning, the paint would be there without me ever meeting the delivery person.

However having said that, at one point, there was one townhouse resident who apparently had his/her radio on fairly loudly and it was playing all sorts of pop music. The one song that I remember distinctly was "Never Gonna Let You Go" that had been produced by Sergio Mendes as an April 1983 single and was also included on his self-titled album that came out the same time. It was created by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann and sung by Joe Pizzulo and Leeza Miller to become a No. 1 hit on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart. Apparently, though, according to Wikipedia, "Never Gonna Let You Go" in the form I know wasn't the first rodeo for the romantic ballad. In 1982, Dionne Warwick and Stevie Woods recorded their own versions on their own albums, but the Pizzulo and Miller version was the one to take things to the top.

For all intents and purposes, that was the first time I had ever heard of Sergio Mendes...through his AOR phase in the 1980s. It wouldn't be until much later that I learned about his major contributions to bossa nova through Brasil '66, and of course, their classic "Mas que Nada".

"Never Gonna Let You Go" is a ballad that is so 1980s that it can make me want to put on a skinny tie and grow a mullet again. And in fact, when I got out to do the painting, that very song entered my head once more. But it wasn't just something that I heard out among the wooden fences. I also knew about how popular it was because of the late Casey Kasem's televised "America's Top 10" in which it got plenty of notice (although the program above doesn't have it in the Top 10 here).

Speaking of discovering someone anew, I had no idea that Kasem had been a veteran radio DJ and was surprised to find out that the voice actor behind Shaggy of "Scooby Doo" and team leader Mark on the imported and dubbed version of "Gatchaman" (aka "Battle of the Planets") had been spinning discs all this time. Now...back to the countdown.

So, what were the Top 3 singles on Oricon for April 1983?

1. Takashi Hosokawa -- Yagiri no Watashi (矢切の渡し)

2. Akina Nakamori -- Ni-bun no Ichi no Shinwa （1/2の神話）

3. Akio Kayama -- Hisame （氷雨）

September 27, 2022: Oh, by the way, I just came across this Rick Beato YouTube video proclaiming "Never Gonna Let You Go" as the most complex pop song of all time. 

Takashi Sato -- My Classic: In Your Action!（マイ・クラシック）

Of the five KKP articles that have so far involved singer-songwriter Takashi Sato（佐藤隆）, there has only been one that has actually had him behind the mike, and that would be the eclectic "Peking de Choshoku wo" （北京で朝食を）from 1980. Even as a City Pop song, it's not one of the more typical Japanese urban contemporary tunes.

But that's what makes the exploration all the more fun and intriguing. Here is my second article with Sato behind the mike in the recording booth, "My Classic: In Your Action!", his 6th single released in May 1984.

This was actually the campaign song for Daimaru Department Store in that year, and I couldn't find the commercial for it on YouTube, but I'm wondering if Daimaru had been aiming for one of those strange and exotic ads along the ones that Parco had done in the 1980s. The reason that I posit this is just how strange and exotic "My Classic" sounds. With Sato behind the music and Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）taking care of the lyrics, a couple of listens to this one has had me thinking Andrew Lloyd Webber  musicals. With those sweeping synth strings and the haunting keyboards, I just imagine the late set designer Eiko Ishioka（石岡瑛子）whipping up some sort of fantastic and retro-futuristic setting in an Eurasian mansion in the wilds of Mt. Takao in Tokyo. Now, could you imagine what it would have been like to have Webber and Ishioka working together on a project?

"My Classic: In Your Action!" was also the first track in Sato's 5th album "Otoko to Onna"（男と女...Un homme et une femme） which came out in June 1984. I've taken a listen to one more track on that one, and yep, it's pretty different and attractive. Perhaps it's something along the lines of Faye Dunaway biting into a hard-boiled egg for millions of dollars.