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Hypnotic & meditative sounds from Touching Bass' Alex Rita.
''In the Western world, improvisation is a failure; you do it when something goes wrong. But when black people improvise it's a form of mastery.'' albacollective.com Art by Christopher Fodera
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八神 純子, June Stanley (Yagami Junko, born January 5, 1958) is a popular Japanese recording artist from the 1970s. Some of her best-known works are Mizuiro No Ame and Omoide ha Utsukushisugite. She currently resides in Moorpark, California, with her husband, her son Noah, and her daughter Emma.
She has released 25 albums, including 6 live concert albums, and is a notable figure in Japanese music of the 1970s and 1980s. Yagami participated in the 8th Yamaha Popular Song Contest (Popcon) held on October 13, 1974, and won the Outstanding Song Award for "Everyone on a Rainy Day". At the same tournament, "Time of Happiness" was also nominated and selected as a prize-winning song. Yagami was the only one who was nominated for two songs in the same tournament and won a prize at the same time after the final round was held at Tsumagoi. After that, she participated in the 5th World Popular Song Festival with "Junko's Dream" and advanced to the finals.
On December 10, 1974, she made her pre-debut on the AARD-VARK label of Canyon Records with the single "Rainy Day Hitotsugoto". The following year, on 10 February 1975, the second single "Happy Time" was also released. She also participated in the 9th Popcon held in May 1975 and won the Excellent Song Award for "To the Land of Happiness". She also participated in the 6th World Popular Song Festival with "Hand in Hand" and won for the second consecutive year. Yagami says she was invited by a foreign artist who participated in the World Popular Song Festival and decided to take on the challenge of overseas music festivals and contests.
In 1976, when she was in her third year of high school, she participated in the 17th Chilean Music Festival (Festival de Viña, the largest music festival in South America held in Vina del Mar, Chile), singing "I Shall Forget" in Japanese clothes with the orchestra in the background and she won 6th place. After graduating from high school, she went on to the path of music, and from 1976 before her professional debut to 1980 after her debut, she appeared with Takashi Kawamura on the band program "Dede and Junko's Music Trip" provided by Reiyukai on Nippon Cultural Broadcasting.
On January 5, 1978, on her 20th birthday, she made her full-scale debut as a professional singer with the single "思い出は美しすぎて" from Discomate Records. This song was the 25th highest on the Oricon chart and was a hit with sales of 120,000 copies. On June 25 of the same year, the debut album "思い出は美しすぎて" was released and became a hit at the 5th place on the Oricon chart.
Then, on May 5, the same year, the single "さよならの言葉" was released. This song was a cover of the song by Kayoko Ono, who won the 13th Popcon Grand Prix held in 1977. The album "Memories are too beautiful" also covers Ono's song "It's capricious." However, it was unpleasant for Yagami that the single became a cover instead of her own composition. Reflecting on this situation, the sales result was only 67th on the Oricon chart and sales of 19 thousand copies, despite the hit of the previous work.
Due to sluggish sales of the single "さよならの言葉", Yagami was forced to consider retiring as a singer. When she was at a loss to make the next song, she suddenly got an idea at the pedestrian bridge in Harajuku, Tokyo, and composed "みずいろの雨". Yagami said, "'みずいろの雨' was written with the voice of Hiromi Iwasaki in mind, and the previous single didn't sell as expected, so I was thinking of retiring as a singer and becoming a writer." However, she said, "I tried to sing it myself and it was very well received and recorded."
When "みずいろの雨" was released as a single on September 5, the same year, the number of requests began to increase mainly for cable broadcasting and radio programs, and the ranking of the Oricon chart also rose, and it started broadcasting on TBS in January 1978. By appearing in the "Spotlight of the Week" corner, which introduces the hot songs of the music program "The Best Ten," she gained popularity throughout the country. Yagami said, "I made a big break overnight." The single "みずいろの雨" was the second highest on the Oricon chart and became a big hit with sales of 600,000 copies. In December of the same year, she won the "Lion Listeners Grand Prix FM Tokyo Best Newcomer Award" for this song.
The following year, on April 5, 1979, she released her second album, "I'm a Real Face", and won the 1st place on the Oricon chart. In the same year, she made a series of single hits such as "Memory Screen" and "Polar Star".
Yagami traveled to Los Angeles, USA for 54 days from April 1980, and stayed with an ordinary family. After returning to Japan, the single "パープルタウン 〜You Oughta Know By Now〜" released on July 21 of the same year became the second highest on the Oricon chart and became a big hit with sales of 600,000 copies. This song is a powerful song of the streets of New York based on the experience of staying in the United States, and was used as a CM image song for JALPAK's "I LOVE NEW YORK" Campaign.
In 1983, with Brooks Arthur as the producer, she produced and released the all-English album "I WANNA MAKE A HIT WIT-CHOO" in the United States. However, she was not satisfied with the workmanship and felt her limits in expressing herself in English, but one day she dreamed of moving overseas to be able to enjoy music and movies in English. Due to such a change of mind, she left the Yamaha Music Foundation, which she had belonged to since her debut, at the end of the album "FULL MOON" released on 5 December of the same year.
Since then, the release of singles and albums ceased in the 2000s, and the activity has been almost suspended. However, in Japan, the best album continued to sell during that time, and in 2002, "Junko Yagami CD-BOX" and in 2009, "Junko Yagami 1974-1986 SINGLES plus" and CD-BOX were released twice. In 2010, she appeared on "Memories of Memories" broadcast on August 21 and "SONGS" (both NHK General TV) broadcast at a later date, and sang on a Japanese TV program for the first time in a while. There was a growing demand from fans for a return. Yagami later said that she had thought "I've done it all" until then, but the appearance of the program and its response gave birth to the desire to sing in Japan again. In 2022, Yagami was inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame.
八神 純子, June Stanley (Yagami Junko, born January 5, 1958) is a popular Japanese recording artist from the 1970s. Some of her best-known works are Mizuiro No Ame and Omoide ha Utsukushisugite. She currently resides in Moorpark, California, with her husband, her son Noah, and her daughter Emma.
She has released 25 albums, including 6 live concert albums, and is a notable figure in Japanese music of the 1970s and 1980s. Yagami participated in the 8th Yamaha Popular Song Contest (Popcon) held on October 13, 1974, and won the Outstanding Song Award for "Everyone on a Rainy Day". At the same tournament, "Time of Happiness" was also nominated and selected as a prize-winning song. Yagami was the only one who was nominated for two songs in the same tournament and won a prize at the same time after the final round was held at Tsumagoi. After that, she participated in the 5th World Popular Song Festival with "Junko's Dream" and advanced to the finals.
On December 10, 1974, she made her pre-debut on the AARD-VARK label of Canyon Records with the single "Rainy Day Hitotsugoto". The following year, on 10 February 1975, the second single "Happy Time" was also released. She also participated in the 9th Popcon held in May 1975 and won the Excellent Song Award for "To the Land of Happiness". She also participated in the 6th World Popular Song Festival with "Hand in Hand" and won for the second consecutive year. Yagami says she was invited by a foreign artist who participated in the World Popular Song Festival and decided to take on the challenge of overseas music festivals and contests.
In 1976, when she was in her third year of high school, she participated in the 17th Chilean Music Festival (Festival de Viña, the largest music festival in South America held in Vina del Mar, Chile), singing "I Shall Forget" in Japanese clothes with the orchestra in the background and she won 6th place. After graduating from high school, she went on to the path of music, and from 1976 before her professional debut to 1980 after her debut, she appeared with Takashi Kawamura on the band program "Dede and Junko's Music Trip" provided by Reiyukai on Nippon Cultural Broadcasting.
On January 5, 1978, on her 20th birthday, she made her full-scale debut as a professional singer with the single "思い出は美しすぎて" from Discomate Records. This song was the 25th highest on the Oricon chart and was a hit with sales of 120,000 copies. On June 25 of the same year, the debut album "思い出は美しすぎて" was released and became a hit at the 5th place on the Oricon chart.
Then, on May 5, the same year, the single "さよならの言葉" was released. This song was a cover of the song by Kayoko Ono, who won the 13th Popcon Grand Prix held in 1977. The album "Memories are too beautiful" also covers Ono's song "It's capricious." However, it was unpleasant for Yagami that the single became a cover instead of her own composition. Reflecting on this situation, the sales result was only 67th on the Oricon chart and sales of 19 thousand copies, despite the hit of the previous work.
Due to sluggish sales of the single "さよならの言葉", Yagami was forced to consider retiring as a singer. When she was at a loss to make the next song, she suddenly got an idea at the pedestrian bridge in Harajuku, Tokyo, and composed "みずいろの雨". Yagami said, "'みずいろの雨' was written with the voice of Hiromi Iwasaki in mind, and the previous single didn't sell as expected, so I was thinking of retiring as a singer and becoming a writer." However, she said, "I tried to sing it myself and it was very well received and recorded."
When "みずいろの雨" was released as a single on September 5, the same year, the number of requests began to increase mainly for cable broadcasting and radio programs, and the ranking of the Oricon chart also rose, and it started broadcasting on TBS in January 1978. By appearing in the "Spotlight of the Week" corner, which introduces the hot songs of the music program "The Best Ten," she gained popularity throughout the country. Yagami said, "I made a big break overnight." The single "みずいろの雨" was the second highest on the Oricon chart and became a big hit with sales of 600,000 copies. In December of the same year, she won the "Lion Listeners Grand Prix FM Tokyo Best Newcomer Award" for this song.
The following year, on April 5, 1979, she released her second album, "I'm a Real Face", and won the 1st place on the Oricon chart. In the same year, she made a series of single hits such as "Memory Screen" and "Polar Star".
Yagami traveled to Los Angeles, USA for 54 days from April 1980, and stayed with an ordinary family. After returning to Japan, the single "パープルタウン 〜You Oughta Know By Now〜" released on July 21 of the same year became the second highest on the Oricon chart and became a big hit with sales of 600,000 copies. This song is a powerful song of the streets of New York based on the experience of staying in the United States, and was used as a CM image song for JALPAK's "I LOVE NEW YORK" Campaign.
In 1983, with Brooks Arthur as the producer, she produced and released the all-English album "I WANNA MAKE A HIT WIT-CHOO" in the United States. However, she was not satisfied with the workmanship and felt her limits in expressing herself in English, but one day she dreamed of moving overseas to be able to enjoy music and movies in English. Due to such a change of mind, she left the Yamaha Music Foundation, which she had belonged to since her debut, at the end of the album "FULL MOON" released on 5 December of the same year.
Since then, the release of singles and albums ceased in the 2000s, and the activity has been almost suspended. However, in Japan, the best album continued to sell during that time, and in 2002, "Junko Yagami CD-BOX" and in 2009, "Junko Yagami 1974-1986 SINGLES plus" and CD-BOX were released twice. In 2010, she appeared on "Memories of Memories" broadcast on August 21 and "SONGS" (both NHK General TV) broadcast at a later date, and sang on a Japanese TV program for the first time in a while. There was a growing demand from fans for a return. Yagami later said that she had thought "I've done it all" until then, but the appearance of the program and its response gave birth to the desire to sing in Japan again. In 2022, Yagami was inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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