Tag Archives: Iwasaki Hiromi

Henkka’s New Music Discoveries

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I love music, and I’m always—constantly—looking for new stuff to listen to.

Pretty much my favorite activity in life is to sit down in a dark room, pour myself a drink, put on some headphones, and listen to new music in search of gems I haven’t heard before. This is something I’ve been doing quite consistently since my early teens. (Well, the drinks may have come a little bit later.)

In any case, here are a few recent “fruits of my labor.”

These findings are from the past year or so. I’ve listed each song, in no particular order, with its musical genre and year of release. Feel free to grab a drink and listen along if you’d like.

Young Gun Silver Fox
“Lenny”
2018 | YACHT ROCK

I discovered these guys a while ago when I came across a collaboration they’d done with the amazing Rod Temperton. (On a side note, I would list Rod Temperton’s Heatwave among my favorite bands of all time.) They’ve released four albums so far, and each one consists of this sort of very friendly, sunny-sounding yacht rock. Awesome stuff.

By the way, I learned from an interview of theirs that the band name Young Gun Silver Fox is derived from its two members. One of them is a young gun, while the other is a silver fox.

Pretty academic stuff, I know. Really makes you think.

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Iwasaki Hiromi “Tsutsumi Kyohei Singles & Favorites” Interview (2021)

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Here is a recently published interview with Iwasaki Hiromi. A celebrated singer with a career spanning over 45 years, among her many accomplishments there is one that is especially relevant to this post: of all the artists that legendary songwriter Tsutsumi Kyohei ever wrote for, she went on to receive the largest amount of his compositions. Especially through the mid-70s to the early 80s, these two made some amazing music together.

If you want to know more about Tsutsumi Kyohei, please see this profile and interview that I translated a short while ago. But now, here’s Iwasaki Hiromi.

(Note: this translation omits the final four questions of the interview as they were more about Iwasaki’s plans for the upcoming months and not about Tsutsumi.)

Interview & text: Hamaguchi Hideki (Japanese text: one, two, three)
English translation: Henkka
Iwasaki Hiromi on the web: website, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube

Note: You can buy Tsutsumi Kyohei Singles & Favorites from CDJapan.

Hit After Hit as the Embodiment of “Kyohei Disco”
Iwasaki Hiromi in the 1970s

Iwasaki Hiromi made her entrance to the world of entertainment through audition program “Star Tanjou!” (Nippon TV) on 25 April 1975. Her debut single, “Duet,” was written by Aku Yu and composed by Tsutsumi Kyohei. Going on to release numerous hits as she became one of the representative pop singers of Japan, Iwasaki celebrated her 45th anniversary in the industry last year.

However, in October of that same year, she received the news that Tsutsumi, her former mentor, had passed away. A year later on 20 October, Iwasaki is releasing a two-disc anthology of songs written for her by Tsutsumi. In this interview we asked her about her relationship with this extraordinary hit maker, and about her thoughts in regards to the works they produced together.

In the first part of this long, three-part interview, we will be giving you stories from the 1970s when Iwasaki Hiromi first met Tsutsumi Kyohei.

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