[Gentle ballad]
No.139 "Ame-no naka-no fun-sui" by Kaoru Sudo
Hi. Today's song is "Ame-no naka-no fun-sui" (A fountain in the rain) by "Kaoru Sudō".
We are now at the entrance of the rainy season which may last 1-2 months.
And it might be a prelude, there is a light rain from the morning.
So, today's choice is a song about the rain.
Some links to the music shops offering song samples are located on the bottom of this page.
Few contents have been put away in a " ▼Memo " tab in each section, so please click it to read.
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Thank you.
Song data
| Title | Ame-no naka-no fun-sui |
|---|---|
| Artist | Kaoru Sudō |
| Album Title | |
| Catalog Number | MHCL-1143 |
| Track No. | 10 |
| Duration | 4:13 |
| Released | 1983 |
| Publisher | |
| Lyricist | |
| Composer | |
| Arranger |
About the creators
Shun TaguchiLyricist
"Shun Taguchi" is a well received lyricist, singer-songwriter, music producer, guitarist and a bassist of a progressive rock band "Yuka & Chronoship", active since 1980.
"Taguchi" first participated in the music production of "Kaoru Sudō" on her 3rd album "Amazing Toys" in 1982.
Since then, "Taguchi" had become one of the chief lyricist for "Sudō" and, offered more than 40 songs.
"Sudō" alternatively once took part in "Taguchi"s band "LORELEI" as a backing chorus in the early '80s'
Debut
In 1980, "Taguchi" teamed up a rock band called "LORELEI" with 3 others members.
The band soon debuted as a professional, and "Taguchi" started his music career with this.
"LORELEI" released 2 albums, and gained a few of core fans. But it ended its activity in around 1982.
As a lyricist
"Taguchi" formed few bands after this, like "Reico", "Sense of wonder" or "Daizō Koshiba & Water club band". This early trial phase lasted until around 1991.
Simultaneously in 1982, "Masataka Matsutōya", who was already a powerful producer, strongly requested "Taguchi" to write quite a few lyrics for the newly debuting singers whom "Matsutōya" was producing such as "Kaoru Sudō".
According to an interview, he wrote about 80 lyrics in 1 month for just one album, in other words, "Kaoru Sudō"s 4th album "planetarium" (1983). And the 14 of them were selected for the album by "Matsutōya".
Popular lyricist
Such "tough love" might not be allowed in the modern world. But "Taguchi" completed a mission, and contributed to the albums of those artists.
Since then, he quickly gained attention. And soon became one of the most popular lyricist.
The number of singers he offered lyrics, has already surpassed 100. And, it is still increasing.
In 1988, he was honored as the best selling lyricist. in the J-pop.
Band again
"Taguchi" had not been doing band activities after Daizō band. But he resumed it in 2009, by forming a 4-piece progressive rock band "Yuka & Chronoship".
Of course, he is carrying on a lyricist job in parallel.
Video clip
Finally, here is a music video of "Koh Shibasaki"'s hit song "Kimi no koe" (Your voice), released in 2008.
"Shun Taguchi" wrote the lyrics of this song.
This song was originally recorded as a theme music of a movie.
It is a nice pop ballad featuring a clear voice of "Koh Shibasaki".
If you like, please have a look.
* "Kimi no koe" (Your voice) by "Koh Shibasaki
Tetsuji HayashiComposer & Arranger
"Tetsuji Hayashi" is a composer, arranger, music producer, and a singer-songwriter active since 1973.
Early times
"Tetsuji Hayashi" started his career by joining a music school run by "Yamaha" in 1970.
"Hayashi" studied composition and arrangement in there, and after finished the school, he debuted as a singer-songwriter in 1973.
As an arranger
Interestingly, some people in music business looked at his noticeable ability for arrangement, than singing. And began to offer arrangement works for him.
Since then, he became visible as an arranger, and he began to focus on arrangement and composition.
Big hit songs
In the '80s, his music entered blooming season, and produced a series of hits.
For example, the songs like, "Kanashii iro-yane" by Masaki Ueda, "Kita-Wing" by "Akina Nakamori", or "Kanashimi-ga tomaranai" by "Anri" are , well known super hit songs of the early '80s.
Momoko & Omega
"Tetsuji Hayashi" has written more than 1500 songs to the various artists including himself.
But according to some interview to him, an idol star "Momoko Kikuchi" & "Omega-tribe" were the artists he particularly focused on his career.
For "Momoko Kikuchi", "Hayashi" wrote or arranged almost all the song she released, and succeeded to raise her music quality further.
In case of "Omega-tribe", he formed a tag-team with a leading lyricist, Kan Chin-hua, and created very good songs for "Omega-tribe" next by next.
And "Omega-tribe" successfully sent all of them to the hit chart.
Through these remarkable achievement during the "80s, "Tetsuji Hayashi" completely established his name as one of the most competent composer, arranger & producer.
Recent
"Hayashi" is constantly writing melodies to the various artists, TV programs, or movies even after 2000s.
And in 2015, he released his 9th studio album "Touch the Sun" from "King records".
(Ref: Wikipedia-jp, Tetsuji Hayashi)
Video clip
Finally, this is a music clip of "Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega-tribe"s debut song, "Summer suspicion".
It seems to be a live clip, but we could not find where and when it was filmed.
But it is a very good performance.
As mentioned earlier, this is a song created by the mighty tag-team of the '80s, "Kan Chin-hua and Tetsuji Hayashi".
If you like, please listen.
* "Summer suspicion" by "Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega-tribe"
Cover art today
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Copyright notice on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Healing pop ballad
This is a moderated, little sentimental pop ballad.
Gentle & sentimental
The bass, drums, keyboard, synthesizer, strings, and a trumpet play a little sentimental, but gentle introduction, and the main part starts.
When the main melody starts, slightly moist, and relaxing Kaoru Sudō's vocal joins. And a weak reverb (echo) effects on vocal is adding a bit of silence.
In the bridge, a beautiful saxophone solo is performed, and making this song more stylish.
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
Kaoru SudōA model of pop singer
"Kaoru Sudō" was a pop singer active from 1979 to 2013.
She was also a member of a pop duo "Sudō Kaoru & Sugi Masamichi".
Unlike the other pop artists at that time, she did not engage herself for songwriting jobs, but concentrated on being a vocalist.
She debuted in 1979 with single "Yasahii Tokai"(Gentle city).
Since then, 16 singles, and 11 original, live, and 5 best albums have been released until now.
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Kaoru Sudō)
Debut
She started her music career when she was a student of the University near Tokyo.
Initially, she was singing as a backing chorus, but in 1979, she debuted with a single titled, "Yasahii Tokai"(Gentle city), which was originally sung by "Miki Hirayama" in 1976, and its lyricist was "Yumi Arai", and the composer was "Kyōhei Tsutsumi".
Anata-dake I love you
In 1980, she released her 1st album "Chef's Special".
It was a very well made pop-rock album in the taste of '60s America, and produced & arranged by a talented creator "Masataka Matsutoya".
Interestingly, there was a song having a little different taste from other songs. That was "Anata-dake I love you" (I love you, only you.)
A phantom hit song
Different from other songs, "Anata-dake I love you" was written and arranged by a pop music maestro, "Ei-ichi Ōtaki".
By request from the producer of the album, "Ōtaki" wrote 2 songs for her.
The first one was "Anata-dake...". It was chosen, and included in the album, and became her first smash hit.
Regrettably, the 2nd one was not adopted by the producer. Because, the lyrics of that song was written in the male point of view.
"Ōtaki" took this 2nd song back, and released it as his song "Kimi-ha Ten-nen-shoku" (You are a natural color girl) in his 1981 album "A LONG VACATION".
And at the end of the day, "A LONG VACATION" achieved a million seller, and "Kimi-ha Ten-nen-shoku" became a historic super hit song.
We are very curious if "Kaoru Sudō" could sing this song."
Here are samples of "Anata-dake I love you", and "Kimi-ha Ten-nen-shoku". Please listen and compare.
"Anata-dake I love you"(1980)
(I love you, only you.)
by "Kaoru Sudō"
(You can still listen this song by clicking the banner. Please select the track No.5, once the page is open.)
"Kimi-ha Ten-nen-shoku"(1981)
(You are a natural color girl)
by "Ei-ichi Ōtaki"
(Please select the track No.1, once the page is open.)
Namida-no step
Since debut, "Sudō" was getting popular pretty quickly.
In April 1982, she released her 3rd Album "Amazing Toys", and the 8th single "Namida-no step" (Dance steps with tears) at the same time.
This song "Namida-no step" was a bittersweet love song in a good American oldies atmosphere, and quickly became popular.
In 2 years time, the song was chosen as a theme music for a mid-nigh TV drama series, and it gained further popularity.
Thanks to a series of smash hits, namely "Anata-dake I love you", and "Namida-no step", "Kaoru Sudō" established her name as a popular singer.
Short break
Since then, her business on music was going fairly smoothly.
In December 1991, "Sudō" released "Winter Moon" as her 10th studio album.
But in around 1993, she finally need to take a break, because of child-raising according to Wikipedia.
Come back
Sometime around 1998, thanks to the repeated invitation from her long time music partner, "Masamichi Sugi" and Sony records, "Kaoru Sudō" decided to come back to a music scene as a member of pop duo, "Sudō Kaoru & Sugi Masamichi".
A veteran pop artist and music producer, "Masamichi Sugi" and "Kaoru Sudō" had been a music colleague for nearly 20 years at the point of 1998.
"Masamichi Sugi" quickly formed a backing band for their debut concert. The name of the backing band is "Chilly dogs", which has 5 members including a guitarist "Itaru Watanabe".
The debut concert of "Sudō Kaoru & Sugi Masamichi", which was held in Yokohama in 1998, was really successful.
Since then, the unit and backing band created a team, and named it as "Sudō Kaoru & Sugi Masamichi with Chilly dogs".
And continued the band activity until August 2012.
And...
But, in November 2012, she became ill, and was hospitalized.
And, in March 2013, "Kaoru Sudō" passed away. She was 58.
A lot of music colleagues, and fans gathered to send her off.
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Kaoru Sudō)
(Ref: music-calendar.jp, Kaoru Sudō, 03-03-2016)🇯🇵
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Kaoru Sudō)🇯🇵
(Ref: ameblo.jp,song-la, 2012-09-23
Kaoru Sudō with Moment String Quartet)🇯🇵
Video clip
We looked for some nice music videos of "Kaoru Sudo", but there aren't any suitable ones on youtube so far.
As an alternative, we would like to post a video clip of "Kaoru Sudo" song medley played by a Tokyo based 4-piece string quartet, "Moment String Quartet"(Mome-Quar) active since 2008.
This was presented as an opening act of "Kaoru Sudo" live held on 22nd, September-2012. And it was also a surprise gift for her appeared after this, and performed as a solo artist after a long interval.
The song titles are,
- "Anata-dake I love you"
(I love you, only you.) - "Ki-no beach driver"
(A beach driver of love) - "Foolish"
- "Wow wow train"
- "Midori-no stadium"
(A green stadium) - "Second love"
- "Love again"
If you like, please listen.
* "Kaoru Sudo" song medley by "Moment String Quartet"
Music Samples
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Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
Apple Music(jp)
10
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | 雨の中の噴水(Ame-no naka-no fun-sui) |
|---|---|
| Artist | 須藤薫(Kaoru Sudō) |
| Album Title | Drops |
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