[Mellow & Soulful]
No.168 "Hoho-ni yoru-no hi" by Minako Yoshida
Hi. Today's song is "Hoho-ni yoru-no hi" (Night light on the cheeks) by "Minako Yoshida".
This is a much relaxed mellow soul performed by a popular singer "Minako Yoshida".
"Yoshida" is one of the pioneers of the modern Japanese popular music, and continuously releasing excellent music (refined Pops & soul) since debut.
If you like, please listen.
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Song data
| Title | Hoho-ni yoru-no hi |
|---|---|
| Artist | Minako Yoshida |
| Album Title | |
| Catalog Number | MHC7-30019 |
| Track No. | 2 |
| Duration | 5:42 |
| Released | 1982 |
| Publisher | |
| Lyricist | |
| Composer | |
| Arranger |
About the creators
Minako Yoshida Song writer
Lyricist Minako Yoshida is also a composer, arranger, and a singer of this track.
Then, we would like to come back to her later in About the artist section.
L.Leon Pendarvis & Minako Yoshida Arrangers
On this track, it seems that an American session musician, Leon Pendarvis, and Minako Yoshida shared the arrangement works. And Leon Pendarvis provided the strings arrangement, and Yoshida did all the rest.
Because we will be referring to Yoshida later, then we would like to introduce a bit about Leon Pendarvis at here.
In short
Leon Pendarvis is a keyboardist, guitarist, bassist, and music directer active since around the early '70s.'
As a session musician, he has worked with various music artists like, Van McCoy, Barbra Streisand, etc.
Saturday Night Live
He is also known as a long-serving member of "The Saturday Night Live Band", which is a internal music group of a popular TV variety "Saturday Night Live", being broadcasted in the United States.
According to Wikipedia, He has been appearing on the program for more than 30 years, and he is one of the music directer of the program at the moment.
For more details, please have a look at the references below.
Video clip
Finally, here is a PR video of a popular, and long-running American TV variety show, "Saturday Night Live". (SNL), broadcasted regularly by NBC.
There is a special band called the "Saturday Night Live Band", performs opening & closing theme, and some more as a live performance.
According to Wikipedia, Leon Pendarvis has been a member for more than 30 years at the point of year 2014.
Pendarvis is not playing music on this video, but but we can see him answering to an interview.
If you like, please have a look.
Cover art today
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Copyright notice on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Mellow & relaxing
It's a relaxing, but rich & gorgeous mellow soul.
Laid-back
The drums, strings, electric guitar, acoustic piano, bass, Flugelhorn, percussion and horn section start to play a laid-back introduction.
In the main melody, the electronic piano also joins, and the rich ensemble soundly support the powerful high-pitched voice of Minako Yoshida.
A beautiful saxophone play appears in the bridge, and makes this track more charming.
Gorgeous musicians
The secret (not a secret at all though...) of this incredibly rich, and high-quality sound is the participation of the selected expert musicians.
For example, the player of this gentle Flugelhorn is Randy Brecker. And the Jazzy & stirring saxophone solo was performed by David Sanborn.
Not only them, but all the musicians playing on this track are first class.
The album credit is available from the relevant page of wikipedia. If you like, please have a look.
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
Minako YoshidaThe vanguard of the Japanese Pops & Funk
Minako Yoshida is a singer, lyricist, composer, arranger, and music producer active since 1969.
She is one of the most creative, and influential music artists in the J-pop, and respected as a powerful front runner in the Japanese pop music scene.
As a solo singer, Yoshida debuted in 1973 with a single, "Neko" (A cat). Since then, 14 singles, and 20 original, 3 live, and 12 best albums have been released until now.
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Minako Yoshida)
Early times
Minako Yoshida began to play instrumental at an elementary school.
When she became a senior student at the school, a teacher suggested her to play the Marimba in a school music club.
This maybe the first instrument she played a bit seriously.
In the middle school, she began to play the flute at the school brass band.
But one day, again, she was requested from a teacher to play the Timpani for the contest. Then, she practiced it hard alone.
After finishing a middle school, Yoshida went on to a music high school in 1969 .
Through one of her music peer, she came to know young "Haruomi Hosono", and "Takashi Matsumoto" who boss are the most respected Maestro now a days.
"Hosono" & "Matsumoto" suggested her to write original songs.
By following their ideas, Yoshida wrote few songs.
"Hosono" & "Matsumoto" was amazed by her talent, and began to play music together off and on.
This was probably a beginning of Yoshida's music career.
Debut
In 1970, she recorded her first album, "Tobira no fuyu" (Winter outside the door) backed by Haruomi Hosono's legendary instrumental group, "Caramel Mama".
This album had not become on sale for 3 years, we do no know why though.
But by and by, the record was released in 1973, from "Showboat" label of Trio record.
And in 1975, she released her 2nd studio album, "Minako". And soon after that, its live version "Minako 2" was also became on sale.
Flapper
In 1976, Yoshida released one of her milestone albums, "Flapper".
Brilliant young music artists had participated in the production of this album as songwriters, and musicians, and made this album really special.
Creators like , "Ei-ichi Ohtaki", "Haruomi Hosono", "Akiko Yano", "Hiroshi Satō", "Tatsurō Yamashita", and of course "Minako Yoshida" had written songs for this album.
In addition to the above 6 members,
- Electric Guitar
- Shigeru SuzukiTsunehide Matsuki
- Drums
- Shūichi MurakamiTatsuo Hayashi
- Percussion
- Motoya HamaguchiLarry Sunaga
- Acoustic Guitar
- Chūei Yoshikawa
- Bass
- Kenji Takamizu
- Saxophone
- Masao SuzukiTakeru Muraoka
- Harmonica
- Ryuichiro Senoh
- Trumpet
- Kōji Hatori
- Background Vocals
- Kayoko IshūTaeko Ohnuki
- Section Arrangements, Synthesizers
- Makoto Yano
and etc. had played as backing musicians.
(For full list of musicians, please check with below page at Wikipedia.)
To say the least, this list of musicians looks miraculous for our eyes now.
All the names appearing here are the most revered top musicians in Japanese music scene. But they were all young at that time, that was why the gathering like this was possible.
It is like a jewelry box like album.
If you like, please try this masterpiece once, when you happen to have an opportunity.
Yume-de Aetara
In this album, there was a mainstream type friendly pop song, "Yume-de Aetara". (If I see you in my dream), written by an expert songwriter "Ei-ichi Ohtaki".
The song was actually slightly different from her usual music style, but it was selected, and released as a single record.
The song was accepted well, and became a smash hit.
Since then, it has been covered by more than 80 various artists to date, and embraced as a classic song by everyone.
Tatsurō Yamashita
In the same year 1976, Yoshida formed a band called, "Flyin' Kid Screw" with Tatsurō Yamashita, and others (unknown).
The group was not lasting long (less tha 1 year), but "Yoshida" and "Yamashita" came closer than before, and began to collaborate on the recording of the album of each other.
That close working period was lasted around the end of the '70s.
Next time
We would like to wrap up the article at this point at this time, before it becomes too long.
And we are wishing to resume it on the next post of her song.
Thank you.
-
(Ref: www.la-la-bells.com,
biography)🇯🇵
Video clip
Lastly, here is a music clip of Minako Yoshida's 2008 song, "Sophisticated Lady" from her album "Nowadays" which was produced by collaborating with a super guitarist, "Kazumi Watanabe".
Yoshida & Watanabe have been close in a music community since debut. But we can't remember if they've had a collaboration like this before.
The session of the two masterful musicians is just one word,"gorgeous".
If you like, please listen.
Music Samples
2
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2
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | 頬に夜の灯(Hoho-ni yoru-no hi) |
|---|---|
| Artist | 吉田美奈子(Minako Yoshida) |
| Album Title | LIGHT'N UP |
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