Ongaku Cafe (The ’70s): Yamashita Tatsuro – Circus Town (December 1976)

CIRCUS TOWN” is a solid album debut for Yamashita Tatsuro.

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ARTIST: Yamashita Tatsuro

ALBUM: Circus Town

LABEL: BMG

CATALOG #: BVCR-17013

DURATION: 46 minutes

RELEASE DATE: December 25, 1976

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TRACK LISTINGS:

1. CIRCUS TOWN
2. WINDY LADY
3. MINNIE
4. 永遠に
5. LAST STEP
6. CITY WAY
7. 迷い込んだ街と
8. 夏の陽
9. CIRCUS TOWN (Karaoke)
10.  WINDY LADY (Karaoke)

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In 1973, before Yamashita Tatsuro and Ohnuki Taeko became popular and representative of the City Pop music genre, both of them were part of an indie Japanese rock band known as Sugar Babe, which was formed by Yamashita, Ohnuki and Matsumura Kunio. The band would add several musicians from 1973-1976.

At the time, their music and sound was rare for the early ’70s. The band extensively used chord progressions such as major 7th and fractional chords, and also emphasizing on chorus work.

And because their music was so different, they were criticized for their music style, sales were sluggish and it would lead to the band’s breakup in 1976.

And as for Yamashita, he would pursue a solo career, despite him not wanting to, because Sugar Babe broke up, he wanted to keep singing and so going solo was the way to go.

But it was discouraging for Yamashita because people didn’t understand the sound of Sugar Babe and while the music is appreciated a lot today, back in the ’70s, it was too different from what was being offered by Japanese artists/bands at the time.  The music was no doubt ahead of its time.  Yamashita knew that by going solo, he would need to move forward and not be judged musically, so he decided to record his debut album “Circus Town” overseas.

Instead of concentrating on making songs, he entrusted the production and arrangement to a third party and since Yamashita loved American songs, he felt that the sound he wanted and the recording location would have to be in New York.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be easy because recording in New York with talented musicians would be expensive.  But fortunately, Kosugi Ryuzo started his career as a production director at RVC (Kosugi would later become the president of Johnny’s Entertainment in 2003), which was RCA Victor Corporation, who would later become BMG Victor in 1987.

Fortunately for Yamashita, Kosugi wanted to create Japanese rock music at RVC and wanted to sign a contract with Yamashita after Sugar Babe’s breakup.  Yamashita agreed on the condition the music was recorded in New York.  However, because it would be difficult to record the album entirely in New York due to budgetary reasons, Kosugi said he knew many musicians in Los Angeles and if half of the album could be made in Los Angeles, it would be possible.

So for New York, Yamashita got to work with orchestrator, music producer and conductor Charles Calello, known for arranging Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and the Four seasons “Sad Morning”, “Let’s Hang On”, “By By Baby”, “Don’t Do It” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Runaway without tomorrow”.

Calello would produce and arrange the first four tracks and for Yamashita, he got his taste of 70s New York hospitality (New York in the ’70s was a much different New York compared to today) and not only was it a culture shock, he also saw the unfortunate side of racism.

So, the first song “CIRCUS TOWN” was written by Yoshida Minako and composed by Yamashita Tatsuro and is a 16-beat song inspired by New York and features saxophone by Lou Marini, member of Blood Sweat and Tears.

The second track “WINDY LADY” was written and composed by Yamashita Tatsuro and was originally written for Sugar Babe but because there was no opportunity to record the song, he recorded it for “CIRCUS TOWN” and is inspired by Chicago’s “Windy City” title, as Yamashita loved Chicago’s R&B scene.  In fact, Calello said when he heard the demo tape for “WINDY LADY”, told Yamashita, “Your song sounds like Chicago rather than New York”, which made Yamashita happy.  The sax on this song is by George Young of Manhattan Jazz Quintet.

The third track “MINNIE” is a song which Yamashita was hesitant in creating because of the chord progression of jazz and bossa nova.  But he featured the song is a ballad and created in an East Coast style with fractional chords.  Overall, a well-done ballad written and composed by Yamashita.

The four track on the album, “Eien ni” (Eternally) and is written by Yoshida Minako and composed by Yamashita.  The song is a self-cover of the song he wrote for Yoshida Minako for her album “FLAPPER”.

For the next four tracks, the songs were produced in Los Angeles by Jimmi Seiter and John Seiter.  And for Yamashita Tatsuro, this was an awesome experience because he was a big fan of the band Spanky & Our Gang (which John Seiter was a member of).  But when they moved to Los Angeles for recording (they only had one week), Yamashita noticed the equipment was out of date and the sound was not what Yamashita had wanted and was depressed by the sound.  Yamashita thought about going back to Japan, because he couldn’t continue to work with a sound he was not comfortable with.

But when Yamashita was returning to the hotel, he was contacted that they were going to ask Kenny Altman and Jerry Yester to play music for the album.  To propose to Altman to play bass, guitar by John Hobbs and Billy Walker to record the rhythm and sure enough, the remaining four tracks were completed in the remaining two days.

The fifth track on the album is “LAST STEP” and is written by Yoshida Minako and composed by Yamashita Tatsuro.  This song was originally created for the Motown world, while the sixth track “CITY WAY” was a song written in Japan and is written by Yoshida and composted by Yamashita.

The seventh track is “Mayoikonda Machi to” written by Yoshida and composted by Yamashita and a work is about an illusion of the West Coast.

The eighth and original final track is “Natsu no Yo” (Summer Sun) and was a song written with Los Angeles in mind. Featuring piano by John Hobbs and a song written and composed by Yamashita Tatsuro and one of my favorite tracks on the album.

The 2002 remastered version of “CIRCUS TOWN” features the karaoke tracks for “CIRCUS TOWN” and “WINDY LADY”.  The songs were digitally remastered by Yamashita Tatsuro.  The music for the two tracks are magnificent.

The reason for the addition of the two karaoke tracks was because during the recording in New York, Yamashita was asked if he needed a TV track?  TV Track in the US is a karaoke track in Japan and because Yamashita never had to work with television, he said it was unnecessary.  But two were made and was kept at his home for over 20-years and decided to include it on the 2002 remastered version of the album.

While the album “CIRCUS TOWN” debuted at #50 on the Oricon Weekly Album Charts, many city pop fans are discovering his debut album for the first time but also hearing the quality differences of recording in Japan and recording in New York and Los Angeles.

Overall, “CIRCUS TOWN” is a solid album debut for Yamashita Tatsuro.

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