Bibari Maeda is a Japanese actress as well as a talented pop singer. The first film she appeared in was director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (a.k.a. Tanin no kao, 1966). It’s an amazing movie and happens to be a personal favorite. It’s also finally being released in the US today on DVD from Criterion as part of their terrific Three Films By Hiroshi Teshigahara DVD Box Set. If you enjoy avant-garde Japanese cinema I highly recommend giving The Face of Another a look. You can find a review I wrote about the film here.
In The Face of Another, Bibari Maeda appears in two brief bar scenes and in the second one she gets to sing what sounds like a German drinking song. It’s a nice song and she sings it beautifully, but it’s a shame that she isn’t in the film more
According to her IMDb page Bibari Maeda was born in Canberra, Australia on August 8, 1948. I have read that she grew up in Kamakura (Kanagawa prefecture) in Japan and that her mother was Japanese and her father was American, but I haven’t been able to confirm it. I believe she first started performing in musicals in 1964 and gained popularity in 1966 after she started modeling for Shiseido Co.
Besides her small role in The Face of Another, Bibari Maeda also appeared in the Japanese monster movie Son of Godzilla (1967) and she recently did some voice acting in the anime film Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust which are both available on DVD in the US.
I don’t know much about her recording career, but I do know she recorded popular singles with both Columbia and Philips in Japan during the sixties and seventies. It seems that most of the songs she recorded during that time were done in conjunction with Japanese bands or they were duets with male artists. To celebrate the release of the film The Face of Another with Bibari Maeda I thought I would share one of her best songs. It’s called Twilight Beach and it was performed by Bibari Maeda along with Munetaka Inoue & His Sharp Five. The song was released by Columbia Records Japan in 1967.
Bibari Maeda is currently signed with the Japanese talent agency Creem International and her official web page can be found here. According to that site she continues to perform in musicals and her last role was in a Japanese stage production of Thoroughly Modern Millie in April of this year.
The talented songstress Kayoko Moriyama was born in Japan on Feb. 23, 1942. She is often referred to as the “First Lady” of Japanese pop music, but she’s not very well known outside of Japan and I’ve had a hard time trying to to find information about her, but here’s what I do know. Corrections are welcome!
Kayoko Moriyama has a really lovely voice and covered many popular songs during the 1960s. Her first big hit was a Japanese version of the Italian diva Mina’s hit single Tintarella Di Luna which was released in 1960. Tintarella Di Luna was a huge success for Kayoko Moriyama and many more hits followed. She covered a lot of popular songs throughout the 1960s including Pocket Transistor, which was originally recorded by Alma Cogan as Just Couldn’t Resist Her And Her Pocket Transistor, and Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo, which was originally recorded by the actress Sophia Loren.
During the 1960s Kayoko Moriyama also started acting and appeared in some Japanese television dramas and musical comedies alongside the well known Japanese pop star Kyu Sakamoto. She also costarred in the critically acclaimed Japanese film Kuroi junin no onna (aka Ten Dark Women, 1961) directed by the award winning filmmaker Kon Ichikawa (The Burmese Harp, Tokyo Olympiad, An Actor’s Revenge, etc.).
Kyoko Moriyama’s career seemed to wane a bit in the late 1960s, but in 1970 she updated her image and recorded Butterfly Samba. The song was another huge hit for her in Japan and it propelled Kayoko Moriyama into the spotlight once again. She continued recording throughout the 1970s for Columbia Japan, but she seemed to have stopped recording in the early 1980s. I believe she still performs live on occasion.
Here are three of Kayoko Moriyama’s most popular singles which I really enjoy. I hope you’ll like them too!
Kayoko Moriyama - Tintarella Di Luna (1960)
Kayoko Moriyama - Pocket Transistor (1965)
Kayoko Moriyama - Butterfly Samba (1970)
This great video features Ayumi Ishida singing her hit single Anata Nara Dosuru which is worth a look and a listen. The song was originally released in 1970 and is very pretty!
Happy belated New Year! Many thanks for the nice comments we’ve gotten about Let’s Go J-Sound! in recent months. We’ve been neglecting the blog, but we hope to keep it updated a lot more frequently in 2007 and expand it’s focus a little to include news and other tid bits about Japanese music made between 1955-1985. We’d like to start updating Let’s Go J-Sound at least once a week or at the very least every other week, so please visit us more often!
We’ve gotten lots of requests from people asking us to repost some of the old songs we talked about here last year, so we decided to kick-start the new year by compiling all the tracks into a mini compilation for your listening pleasure. We plan on making it available for a month and after that we will remove the file and the songs will not be posted ever again so grab them while you can.
The cute Japanese singer and actress Ayumi Ishida was born in Osaka in 1948. She seems to have started her singing career in 1964 at the young age of 16. Ayumi recorded at least 23 singles with Victor in Japan during 1964-1967 and although she had some popularity with great songs like Shadow of Love on that recording label, it wasn’t until she left Victor and started recording with Columbia that she found super stardom thanks to her popular hit Blue Light Yokohama. Blue Light Yokohama was written by the well-known Japanese songwriter Tsutsumi Kyohei who wrote many popular Japanese songs during the 1960s & 70s. The song was a huge hit for Ayumi Ishida & Tsutsumi Kyohei, and it spent 32 weeks on the Japanese music charts. Blue Light Yokohama combines the charm of old style Enka music with a much more modern sound and in turn appealed to Japanese music fans of all-ages.
For your listening pleasure here are two of Ayumi Ishida’s popular singles. The first is Shadow of Love which was recorded in 1967 for Victor and was composed by Suzuki Kunihiko who’s also responsible for many popular Japanese songs during the 60s-70s as well as soundtracks for some great Japanese movies such as Onna banchô: Nora-neko rokku (Female Juvenile Delinquent Leader: Stray Cat Rock) the second is her big hit Blue Light Yokohama which was recorded in 1968 for Columbia.
Chiyo Okumura is often referred to as the “Eastern Sylvie Vartan” and with her cute looks and sultry voice it’s pretty easy to see why.
She was a popular vocal star in Japan during 1965-1971 and also appeared in three films for Toho studios alongside actors such as Gen Shimizu, Yutaka Sada, Ryuji Kita and Kei Tani. Chiyo Okumura is still recording and performing in Japan, but she’s most well known for her early efforts.
In 1969-1970 she teamed up with the Japanese songwriters Kunihiko Suzuki and Nakanishi Shitsu to produce three hit singles. “Koi No Dorei” (aka “Love Slave” or “Love Theif”) was the first of these three songs and it’s easily one of Chiyo Okumura best efforts.
“Koi No Dorei” features some nice string and horn arrangements, as well as some solid rhythm guitar and catchy electric piano riffs. It’s one of our favorite Chiyo Okumura songs and really shows off her strong voice.
I don’t know a lot about the Pinky Chicks, but I do know this six piece girl band made some fun music.
The band’s 1968 debut single for Victor was called “Yopparata Ojoosan” (aka “The Drunken Girl” or “The Drunk Girl”) and features what sounds like Alvin & the Chipmunks contributing backup vocals.
This odd, but cute tune tells a humorous tale about a girl getting drunk after she is stood up by a boy she was supposed to meet at a bar. Since the boy never arrives she decides to drown her sorrows with various alcholic drinks and becomes a “drunken girl” before the song is over.
Bibari Maeda is a Japanese actress as well as a talented pop singer. The first film she appeared in was director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (a.k.a. Tanin no kao, 1966). It’s an amazing movie and happens to be a personal favorite. It’s also finally being released in the US today on DVD from Criterion as part of their terrific Three Films By Hiroshi Teshigahara DVD Box Set
The talented songstress Kayoko Moriyama was born in Japan on Feb. 23, 1942. She is often referred to as the “First Lady” of Japanese pop music, but she’s not very well known outside of Japan and I’ve had a hard time trying to to find information about her, but here’s what I do know. Corrections are welcome!
The cute Japanese singer and actress Ayumi Ishida was born in Osaka in 1948. She seems to have started her singing career in 1964 at the young age of 16. Ayumi recorded at least 23 singles with Victor in Japan during 1964-1967 and although she had some popularity with great songs like Shadow of Love on that recording label, it wasn’t until she left Victor and started recording with Columbia that she found super stardom thanks to her popular hit Blue Light Yokohama. Blue Light Yokohama was written by the well-known Japanese songwriter Tsutsumi Kyohei who wrote many popular Japanese songs during the 1960s & 70s. The song was a huge hit for Ayumi Ishida & Tsutsumi Kyohei, and it spent 32 weeks on the Japanese music charts. Blue Light Yokohama combines the charm of old style Enka music with a much more modern sound and in turn appealed to Japanese music fans of all-ages.
Chiyo Okumura is often referred to as the “Eastern Sylvie Vartan” and with her cute looks and sultry voice it’s pretty easy to see why. 
I don’t know a lot about the Pinky Chicks, but I do know this six piece girl band made some fun music.