[Song Review #199] "Hohoemi-aeru" by Yū Hayami
Hi. Today's song is "Hohoemi-aeru" (We can smile at each other) by "Yū Hayami".
This light & smiling nice Pop song was first released in 1992 as the title song of the 28th single record of "Yū Hayami". It might fit for a balmy spring morning like today.
The performer "Yū Hayami" is a popular singer, TV character, and used to be an idol star, and expecting to celebrate 40 years anniversary of her debut in the next year.
If you like, please listen.
Links to the music shops, offering song samples, are located on the bottom of this page.
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Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Hohoemi-aeru |
|---|---|
| Artist | Yū Hayami |
| Album Title | |
| Catalog Number | UPCY-6664 |
| Track No. | Disk2 - Track13 |
| Duration | 4:03 |
| Released | 2012 |
| Publisher | |
| Lyricist | |
| Composer | |
| Arranger |
About the creators
Tomoko Ikenaga Lyricist
"Tomoko Ikenaga" is the lyricist of this song.
As long as we've checked, her name appears as a lyricist only on 2 songs released as commercial products.
The quality of the lyrics is certainly at the professional level. So, "Ikenaga" is possibly an alias, or a pen name of other lyricist.
Or else, there are other reasons.
Then, we have found almost no information about her so far, and would like to update if we find any in the future.
Tsukasa Composer
"Tsukasa" (Tsukasa Fujita) is a composer, arranger, lyricist, singer-songwriter, and a drummer active since 1987.
Please do not confuse him with another "Tsukasa", who is also a musician, but a violinist, and a woman.
Short bio.
According to wikipedia, "Tsukasa" seems that he started his music activity as an amateur in the late '70s.
He actively competed in prestigious music contests like "Yamaha Pop-con", or "Eastwest" as a member of an amateur band, and achieved excellent results.
After a while, "Tsukasa" formed his band "TRY-X", and (perhaps) started as a professional musician.
In the mid '80s, the band "TRY-X" broke up, and "Tsukasa" started a new career as a composer.
Sought-after
Since then, "Tsukasa" has written hundreds of songs to more than a hundred of various singers in the popular music scene.
You can check the list of the singers in the wikipedia page of "Tsukasa", but if pick up some names of them,
- Maho Suzuri
- Hideaki Takizawa
- Fumina Hisamatsu
- Yōko Minamino
- Hey! Say! JUMP
- Miho Morikawa
- Go Morita
- Arashi
- V6
- Hitomi Shimatani
- Idoling!!!
- Kanako Wada
etc.
Like this way, "Tsukasa" has been a popular music creator, and still actively writing variety of melodies for various artists in the popular music scene.
-
(Ref: casaomni.moon.bindcloud.jp,
about)🇯🇵
Etsuko Yamakawa Arranger
"Etsuko Yamakawa" is a composer, arranger, keyboardist, vocalist, music producer, former member of a legendary Pop duo, "Tōhoku Shin-kan-sen", and a current member of an acoustic duo, "Etsu et Mari".
She is one of the most popular, and prominent professional composer and arranger in the Japanese popular music scene, who has written more than one thousand songs for more than a hundred singers.
"Yamakawa" has written many particularly for young female idol stars, and they are all well made light, mellow, and elegant melodies.
So, some fans call her music "Luxury Kayō-kyoku" (Luxury Pops) with respect and love.
short bio.
Like many other professional musicians debuted from the '70s to the '80s, "Etsuko Yamakawa" also started her serious-minded approach to the music by entering "Yamaha Popular Song Contest".
After some time, the details are not clear though, "Etsuko Yamakawa" got a part time job at Yamaha, and began to work as a support staff of an administration office of "Popular Song Contest".
"Yamakawa" was working as an assistant arranger at the Pop-con office, but the office also asked her to work for the backing band of a rising pop singer "Junko Yagami" as a keyboardist & backing chorus. Since "Yamaha" was putting their energy to promote "Junko Yagami", and therefore they definitely needed a powerful backing band for her at that time.
This secondment actually became a useful training for "Yamakawa" to be a professional musician. And also in this backing band, she came to know a talented musician "Hiroshi Narumi", who became a fellow member of her band, "Tōhoku Shin-kan-sen" later.
"Tōhoku Shin-kan-sen"
"Yamakawa" & "Narumi" hit it off well with each other, and teamed up their new Pop group, "Tōhoku Shin-kan-sen" in 1981, to perform stylish, and mellow line of Pops they were pursuing.
In 1982, a Pop group, "Tōhoku Shin-kan-sen" released their 1st (and only) album, "THRU TRAFFIC".
In spite of its amazing progressiveness, and sound quality, the album could not caused a phenomenon at that time. Maybe it was a little too ahead of times.
(As a proof, their album "THRU TRAFFIC" has been applauded as a mile stone of Japanese light & mellow, now a days.)
The band quietly faded away, since "Yamakawa" & "Narumi" both became busy as a professional musician.
And "Yamakawa" began to focus more on working as a professional composer, and arranger.
Award winning
"Yamakawa" wrote pretty good melodies, or arranged songs very nicely for various musicians, especially for young female idol stars, like "Agnes Chan"、"Hiromi Iwasaki"、"Yoshimi Iwasaki"、"Maiko Okamoto"、"O-nyanko Club" etc, in the '80s.
Among them, "Yamakawa" put her extra energy to "Maiko Okamoto", or "Marina Watanabe", and contributed to make their albums more stylish.
"Yamakawa" quickly become popular as an arranger & composer, and began to be asked to compose music for even more singers.
In 1986, "Yamakawa" arranged a Pop song, "100% Danjo Kosai" (100% in a relatio ship), which was released as a new single CD of a top idol star "Kyōko Koizumi".
This song became fair hit, since it reached number 2 in the charts at its peak, but not a stunning super hit.
But the committee of Japan Record Awards highly praised an excellent song arrangement of this song. And gave "the 28th Best Arranger Award" to "Etsuko Yamakawa".
"Yamakawa" became the first female winner of the "Best Arranger Award", in the history of Japan Record Awards.
"Yamakawa" completely established her name as an arranger by receiving this prestigious award.
Since then, she has been one the most preferred, and busiest arranger in Japanese popular music scene.
Recent
"Etsuko Yamakawa", who is already one of the most acclaimed musician, is still spending busy days as a popular composer & arranger.
Seemingly in 2020, "Yamakawa" participated in the recording of the young singers, like, "Ryōta Kaizō", "Sachi Tainaka", "Yufu Terashima" or "Ensemble Conoha". Or, collaborated with experienced artists like "Yukako Niizuma", "Yama-Dai-Kon", "Minako Yoshida", or "Ran Itoh" (ex-Candies).
The day "Yamakawa" can retire might not come...
-
(Ref: etsu-style.tv,
profile)🇯🇵
Video clip
Lastly, we would like to introduce a nice mellow ballad titled "Tenki-Ame" (Sun shower), selected from a super Pop singer "Hiromi Iwasaki"'s 25th studio album "Happiness", released in 2004.
"Etsu Yamakawa" is participated in this song as an arranger.
If you like, please listen.
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Copyright notice on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Light & smiling
This is a light, mellow, and lyric Pop song in comfortable middle speed.
Active use of synthesizers
It might be a rare example in "Etsuko Yamakawa"'s song arrangement works. But, she actively utilized synthesizers as major components of the sound.
We haven't seen the list of musicians on this song, so this is only a guess.
But from what we have listened, the strings, brass section, and the sound of pizzicato are possibly generated by the synthesizers.
And, the grand harp, electric guitar, percussions, (glockenspiel, tambourine), drums, and bass, are likely played by humans.
This active use of synthesizers seems to be creating an interesting atmosphere. The sounds of the strings, or horns are not really natural, but we feel they are adding a unique airiness, which is different from the sound of real instruments.
It actually, is contributing to create a joyful & elegant feeling of this ensemble, and making the fresh, cheerful, and lively vocal of "Yū Hayami" more attractive.
Good work.
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
Yū HayamiBilingual idol star
"Yū Hayami" is a singer, TV character, actor, and radio personality active since 1982.
"Hayami" has been very popular since she was debuted as an idol star in 1982 at the age of 16. And still a familiar face on various TV variety shows.
She is also known for her fluent English, because she was grown up in Guam and Hawaii from 3 years old to 14.
By taking advantage of her English skills, she had been appearing on TV often, as a lecturer for English education programs for kids.
Yū Hayami debuted in 1982 with a single, "Isoide hatsukoi!" (Hurry up! My first love). Since then, 30 singles, and 14 original, 2 live, and 15 best albums have been released until now.
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Yū Hayami)
Early times & debut
"Yū Hayami" was born to a Jazz singer father and fashion model mother in Japan in the mid '60s.
Because of the business circumstances, her family moved to Guam (US) when she was 3 years old, and it got "Yū Hayami" to start a new life in English speaking environment.
"Hayami"'s family then moved to Hawaii, and "Hayami" continued life as an ordinary American school girl.
When "Hayami" was 14 years old, she was suddenly scouted by a Japanese entertainment agency at a department store in "Hawaii".
After some discussion, "Hayami"'s family allowed her to move to Japan alone in 1980, and start lessons for debut as an idol star.
And after nearly 2 years of training period, "Yū Hayami" finally debuted as an idols star "Yū Hayami" by releasing her debut single, "Isoide hatsukoi!" (Hurry up! My first love) in April 1982.
Summer Colored NANCY
"Hayami" constantly released a new single record in almost every 3 months. (It sounds quite frequent, but it was just about average for the idol stars at that time.)
Every time "Hayami" released a new song, she gradually, but steadily gained popularity.
In April 1983, "Hayami" released a new song "Natsuiro-no Nancy" (Summer Colored NANCY) as her 5th single record.
This very bright, sunny, cheerful, and lively Pop-song was also meant to be used as a advertising jingle for Coca cola.
So, once it began to be on-aired, it quickly became hugely popular, and came to be a smash hit.
Thanks to the hit of "Summer Colored NANCY", "Yū Hayami" was invited by NHK, a national broadcaster, to perform in a prestigious year end special music program, "Kōhaku Uta-gassen" as a performer.
By this success, "Yū Hayami" established her name as one of the top idol stars.
Actually in our impression, "Yū Hayami"'s "Summer Colored NANCY", which was written by a legendary composer "Kyōhei Tsutsumi", is one of the best summer song performed by idol stars.
There might be more than a hundred of songs in that category, but such bright, happy, and high quality idol pop song designed for summer is rare.
So for "Hayami", it was perhaps a fateful encounter. (Track.2 on Album "Dear" (1983))
Flourish 1982-batch of idol stars
The idol stars debuted in 1982 are often called as members of "Hana-no 1982-nen gumi" (Flourish, or brilliant, or outstanding fellow idol stars debuted in 1982).
Since all the idol stars in this group showed excellent performances in that period of time, and left strong impressions on their fans.
In addition, quite a few of them are still active in entertainment business, and frequently appearing on TV, or other medias as celebrities.
Some names of the members are, for example, "Hidemi Ishikawa", "Shibu-gaki-tai", "Hiroko Mita", "Chiemi Hori", "Iyo Matsumoto", Kyōko Koizumi, "Akina Nakamori", "Sawako Kitahara, and of course, "Yū Hayami".
Each of the above members successfully established their own unique positions in idol pops scene at that time, and some are still active.
So, all of them were not just capable, but the dense of the talents might further cultivated their brilliances.
Lecturer & TV character
"Yū Hayami" is known by her ability to speak multiple languages, in other words, she is fluent in English & Japanese, and also manipulate French effectively according to wikipedia.
Not only that, but she is a pretty bright woman, and able to return smart responses quickly whenever she talks in TV variety shows.
Thanks to her such talent, "Hayami" was often selected for a lecturer for TV English education programs for kids, when she was young.
Now, it seems that she has "graduated" from that role, but still frequently appearing on TV as a cast member, commentator, or presenter.
Recent
"Yū Hayami" is just active, and seems to have been spending busy days.
In 2016, she released a new album "Delicacy of Love" for the first time in 21 years.
From this album, a Pop-song titled "Boogie-woogie Love Train" was selected as a theme song for SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) campaign by UN in Japan, and gorgeous promotion video, which we are introducing later, was created.
And in 2018, her 35th Anniversary album, "Celebration 〜from YU to you〜 " (CD+DVD) was released to congratulate her long serving.
-
(Ref: keepsmiling.co.jp,
profile)🇯🇵
Video clip
Finally, we would like to introduce a music clip of "Yū Hayami"'s modern & funky dance Pop, "Koi no Boogie Woogie Train" (Boogie-Woogie Love Train), which was released in 2016 as a song for her 18th album (or 4th mini album) "Delicacy of Love".
It might be a lucky for this song, but in the same year (2016), "UNIC Tokyo" (United Nations Information Center Tokyo), a Tokyo branch of a department of UN, selected this song as a theme music for a promotion campaign of "SDGs" (the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals).
Thanks to the initiative taken by "UNIC Tokyo", a new project to produce an exclusive special promotion video was started.
Many of the most influential celebrities, listed in here, were gathered, and show their excellent performances.
Stylish & fabulous wardrobes were provided by a popular prêt-à-porter brand "YOHJI YAMAMOTO".
And the video was filmed by a famed photographer, "Leslie Kee" who is primarily known by his beautiful portrait photos of international celebrities, like Madonna, Lady Gaga, or Beyonce.
And the most importantly, "Yū Hayami"'s singing & dancing performance, and costumes are excellent, and greatly contributing for making this video clip an enjoyable one.
✩ Kissing ✩
In the middle part of this video, a few kissing scenes will appear. (including between same-sex couples, naturally.)
So, if you think it is not suit for you for some reason, please just pass up.
Thank you.
The quality of the video is marvelous, and the dancing of the cast is fantastic.
If you like, please listen.
Video clip 2
As a matter of fact, "Yū Hayami"'s "Koi-no Boogie Woogie Train" (Boogie-Woogie Love Train) is a cover, and its original version was performed by a popular Pop-rock singer "Ann Lewis", and released in 1979 in the same title.
The lyricist of this funky disco track is an acclaimed Funk, R&B musician "Minako Yoshida", and she took part in this song as backing chorus.
The composer is a famous Pop music creator "Tatsurō Yamashita", and he participated in this song as a music producer.
Stylish, and funky dance pop like this song might have been a little bit too early for the Japanese music market in the late '70s.
But it became a fair hit, and especially very much welcomed by music enthusiasts.
This songs is still popular among fans, and understood as one of the masterpieces of "Ann Lewis".
The melody and arrangement is a typical "Tatsuro (& Minako)" sound. And the singer of this powerful backing chorus is "Minako Yoshida".
And an unconstrained & smooth vocal of Ann Lewis is much attractive.
If you like, please listen this one as well.
Music Samples
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books.rakuten.co.jp
Amazon JP (No sample)
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | ほほ笑みあえる(Hohoemi-aeru) |
|---|---|
| Artist | 早見優(Yū Hayami) |
| Album Title | Thank YU - 30th Anniversary Single Best |
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