Kyu Sakamoto Sukiyaki DUOPHONIC LP Capitol DT-10349 Minty Vinyl Original Sleeve

$

40

Kyu Sakamoto – Sukiyaki – DUOPHONIC Capitol DT-10349 

Minty Vinyl with Original Paper Sleeve and Excellent Jacket  

also included: "TSUN TSUN BUSHI," "HITORIBOCCHI NO FUTARI," and "GOODBYE, JOE"— three wonderful songs from the [then] current Top Five on the Japanese Hit Parade!

Side One

SUKIYAKI

TSUN TSUN BUSHI

(The Tsun Tsun Song)

HITORIBOCCHI NO FUTARI

(The Lonesome Two)

KYU-CHAN ONDO

(The Kyu-Chan Folk Song March)

MO HITORI NO BOKU

(It's Just Not the Real Me)

GOOD TIMING

Side Two

BOKU NO HOSHI

(My Star)

KIMINANKA KIMINANKA

(I Couldn't Care For You, Not You, Not You!)

KYU-CHAN NO ZUNTATATTA

(The Zuntatatta Song)

HIGE NO UTA

(My First Whisker)

GOODBYE, JOE

ANOKO NO NAMAEWA NANTENKANA

(I Wonder What Her Name Is)

Cover Photo Courtesy Toshiba Musical Industries, Ltd. - Produced in the U.S.A. by DAVE DEXTER, JR.

 from the back cover ... 

"SUKIYAKI" has been selling like chop suey all over the country. Listeners have been eating it up.

The melody is delightful, and the words themselves have the flowing melodiousness of Japanese poetry.

But undoubtedly the best reason for the song's huge success on records is the engaging young man who sings it. He is 22 years old, he sprang up from the industrial city of Kawasaki that lies between Tokyo and Yokohama along Tokyo Bay, and his name is Kyu Sakamoto.

Kyu (pronounced "Q") first sang in a group called the Paradise Kings. But it was after he began to perform alone in Tokyo tea houses where teen-agers gather to drink orange juice and Coca-Cola and listen to music that he attracted the attention of a scout from Japan's Toshiba Records. His first recording made him a star overnight.

In four years Kyu has made eight best-selling albums, 15 hit singles and several motion pictures. His recordings, films and personal appear­ances in Japan are greeted with the enthusiasm reserved in the United States for an Elvis Presley or a Bobby Darin. Young Kyu has proved himself a gifted actor, with natural talents for both comedy and drama — and both these gifts are in abundant evidence in his songs.

"Sukiyaki" was known in Japan as "Ue O Mui Te Aruko" (I Look Up When I Walk). Its fame and popularity spread first to England, where the title "Sukiyaki" seemed more immediately to suggest the song's Japanese flavor and its happy-sounding melody. "Sukiyaki" actually is a melancholy song: I look up when I walk so the tears won't fall... re­membering those happy spring days . . . but tonight I'm all alone. I look up when I walk, counting the stars with tearful eyes . . . remembering those happy summer days ... but tonight I'm all alone. Happiness lies beyond the clouds . . . happiness lies above the sky. I look up when I walk, so the tears won't fall... though my heart is filled with sorrow, for tonight I'm all alone. Sadness hides in the shadow of the stars... sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon. I look up when I walk so the tears won't fall... remembering those happy autumn days... but tonight I'm all alone.

But "Sukiyaki" — or "I Look Up When I Walk" — displays only one side of Kyu Sakamoto's talents. The young singer's comedy gifts turn many of his songs into hilarious frolics. For example, listen to his "Anoko No Namaewa Nantenkana" (I Wonder What Her Name Is). In this song a boy sees a pretty young girl on the street. He says to himself, I wonder what her name is — what a cute figure she has! I'll call to her by whatever names pop into my head and maybe I'll hit the lucky one. Maybe she'll turn around and smile and say "Hello, there!" The boy then shouts happily a series of girls' names — "Hanako-san, Midori-san, Misako-san, Nobuko-san, etc." but the aloof young lady doesn't so much as glance in his direction. He tries again, thinking "What beautiful legs she has! What pretty hair!", but each attempt fails dismally. At last, dazzled to the point of desperation, he boldly accosts her and taps her on the shoulder — only to be totally disillusioned. For his coveted beauty is only a department-store mannequin!

Kyu brings to the song a comedy encyclopedia of emotions: yearning, bashfulness, brashness, hopefulness, wolfishness, indignation and des­peration, that make his rendition a kind of rollicking one-act play. And this is typical of his approach to all twelve songs in the collection, all major hits in Japan: He gives them everything he's got, and he's got plenty.

Matter of fact, on the cover of this album. Kyu is pictured sitting on a box lettered with Japanese characters. Translated they mean "Dyna­mite." And that's exactly what Kyu Sakamoto is!