Let’s Go J-Sound!

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)

Download all three songs HERE

Kyoko Moriyama’s offical web page at Columbia Japan can be found here:
http://columbia.jp/moriyama/index.html

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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.

- Let’s Go J-Sound! 2006 Collection

Cheers!

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.

Ayumi Ishida - Shadow of Love
Ayumi Ishida - Blue Light Yokohama

Last but not least, here’s a short but great video featuring Ayumi Ishida singing Blue Light Yokohama!

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