The Sixty Years of Rock and Japan (5) America or Britain? Japanese or English?
'Illusion' which didn't last long
Rock had developed musically, rapidly, experimentally for the last three years in 60's, and finally demanded even revolution of a change of the society. It seemed that the ideal completed at Woodstock Festival from August 15 to 17 in 69. However it disappeared in vain. On August 9th right before then, Charles Manson, the founder of a cult group supported enthusiastically by a part of hippies then, had his believers kill Sharon Tate of an actress cruelly. And in December, when The Rolling Stones played 'Sympathy for the Devil' at Altamont Free Concert in California, Hells Angels,who served security guards there, killed a black young man by a knife.
And a very severe earthquake hit. In April,70, The Beatles split. The independent action of members like John Lennon's anti-war movement or George Harrison's commitment to Indian Music and social activities raged for some time, but Paul McCartney, who longed for the continuation of the band the most, withdrew from it and finished it. And in six months from September,70, three charisma who symbolized 'Summer of Love' like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison of The Doors died for alcohol or drug one after another. Their death symbolized 'Freedom' or ' Resistance' accompanied with some prices.
And in Japan, stating with ' 10 yen Concert' at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall, rock or folk festivals became active after Woodstock luckily, but at The third Folk Jamboree in August, 71, both performers and audience complained about the order of appearance, and some audience got angry with that the promoter had some TV stations shoot the concert,said ' It's commercialism !', burst into the stage. As a result of it, the concert was stopped after then. It seems that there were some activists among those who burst into the stage. This case also reminded people of Japanese student movement that declined for infighting before to oppose to the power.
Hurt hippies and American rock which returned to nature
Influenced by this movement of the society, a tendency where rock divided into two types was seen in both the world and Japan.
First, in western music, the tendency that rock divided into American rock and British rock clearly was born. Certainly there were many contradictions about it and it was inexpedient that you distinguish music by their nationalities, but according to images people had really then, American rock was like folk, blues, country, gospel based on American traditional music, and British rock was like big sound, big scale,and long rock that shined at rock concerts held in arenas usually then, like hard rock or progressive rock.
The historical background of American rock then was like hippies failed in 'The movement of love and peace' and secluded in some countries to live pastoral lives. The message of 'I will help you when you're in trouble' in both 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' by Simon & Garfunkel and 'You've Got a Friend' written by Carol King and sang by James Taylor gained a glory of award some main awards of Grammy Award, and made big hits in the world including Japan. It reflected this image of hurt hippies.
As an example of artists which got enormous popularity for this sound, first you can give Crosby, Stills ＆ Nash (CS&N), by David Crosby, the former member of The Byrds, Stephen Stills ,the former member of Buffalo Springfield, Graham Nash, the former member of The Hollies, which debuted at Woodstock gloriously. Sometimes they became Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young added Neil Young, a colleague of Stills's band and already debuted as a solo artist, and it meant that the band added the anger against the society expressed by rough guitar sounds to the beautiful harmony and pastoral sounds, and their band sounds increased its diversity.
And Joni Mitchell was also the face of this period. She was a genius who had a close relationship with James Taylor and CSNY, and innovated music with her pictorial lyrics and irregular tuning. The activity of her, the above - mentioned Carol King, and Carly Simon got to be a strong motivation for the rise of Japanese female singer songwriters.
And The inquiring mind for the roots of blues rock in UK had many popular musicians in UK go to American south, and they became to be interested in America for it. The Rolling Stones released several masterpieces in their career through this process, and singers like Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Van Morrison made a string of hits with highly rootsy and soulful songs. And Leon Russell, a session pianist in America, drew attention for his solo works in associate with these artists. Moreover the southern rock scene having Duane Allman at the top was found by the British rock party for he played guitar in 'Layla' of Derek and the Dominos made by Eric Clapton when he visited America.
And in Japan, 'New Music Magazine' was very useful for understanding of this American Rock. This magazine was established by a music critic, Nakamura Toyo in spring, 69, inspired by rock which evolved artistically in both of sounds and lyrics in the later 60's. He was a specialist on jazz or Latin Music, so the magazine had a big range of music originally, and at the same time he had been a worker on folk music since the middle of 60's, so it became to have s strong air of roots music necessarily.
Taking an example of blues rock, Nakamura thought 'We never have it just a fashion' and stuck to his position of telling blues from its roots fundamentally. He aimed at understanding music fundamentally. This position of him led Japanese music fans to take time understanding musically mellow bands like The Band, which absorbed in country and gospel and had charismatic popularity in America, but hadn't spread to Japan.
Heroes of hard rock who colored the period.
On the other hand, speaking of the hero who represented British rock, Led Zeppelin, which robbed the title of the most popular rock band in the world of The Beatles, was the most popular in Japan too. They had the hardest destructive force, and at the same time, they could quote folk and blues flexibly and do the experiments of rhythm with detailed arrangement. So they had enormous supports beyond the range of hard rock. It's said that the ensemble by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham is the best one ever in rock history until now. However they're highly rated for their music now, but they were known for tremendous sprees off stage proper to rockers then like Bonham cut a hanging scroll by a Japanese sword in the hotel when they came to Japan in 71 and 72. And it lowered their evaluation especially by critical media in the west.
Grand Funk Railroad Live in Japan- Heartbreaker
And in the case of Japan, Deep Purple was as popular as Led Zeppelin. Ritchie Blackmore's sorrowful, strong, high speed guitar play highly influenced by baroque music was agreeable to Japanese who like minor key melody originally. Looking back to it, it was a kind of unusual thing, but their songs were broadcast on Japanese radio stations aggressively. 'Live in Japan' , a live album which recorded their concert in Japan in 72, rose up fifth on Billboard album chart and impressed the name of Japan in the form of reimport. And Uriah Heep and UFO were very popular especially in Japan too for the same reason. Ten Years After and Free, which were from blues rock, were very popular in Japan too. And in fact Japanese hard rock fans supported American bands to some extent, for example, Grand Funk Railroad (GFR), Alice Cooper, Mountain were very popular, especially GFR was as popular as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin for a while, their concert at Korakuen stadium in 71 in hard rain was legendized.
Then hard rock bands tended to use 'evil' as their design. It reminded people of Charles Manson or Altamont tragedy, but it had a sense of antithesis against hippies from British bands. It means that most of hard rock bands then belonged to the working class and they didn't sympathize with naive idealism of American hippies who were from the wealth. However Japanese couldn't understand that background enough, so Black Sabbath wasn't so popular in Japan though they were as popular as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin in the west then.
Progressive rock which stimulated Japanese intellectual curiosity
Pink Floyd Atomheartmother Live
On the other hand, in progressive rock, Pink Floyd of the representative of psychedelic rock in London became charisma with the innovative spirit and experimentation of their sounds though they suffer damage from losing the leader, Syd Barrett because of his mental and physical disorders. In 1970 'Atom Heart Mother' ranked first in UK, and in Japan they got the second most popularity next to their mother country early. It was because Japanese owned skillful tactics like they launched out a B-side song of a single in 68 'Julia Dream' for radio and succeeded in it, and their concert at Hakone Aphrodite in August,71, an unusually large-scale rock conscert for Japan that drew audience totaling fourty thousand people, was legendized.
After then Pink Floyd became a world - wide band for 'The Dark Side of the Moon' in 73 in which Roger Waters' literary and dignified concept and David Gilmour's songwriting was shown became a miraculous long seller, and it had lasted until 'The Wall' in 79. However they didn't come to Japan at that peak unfortunately, they were replaced by Emerson, Lake & Palmer or Yes in the popularity of progressive rock in Japan. Then pushed by the momentum of 'New Music Magazine', a western music magazine of long standing, 'Music Life' had to take a serious line, but they run some articles to direct a spotlight on gorgeous star players for it and Keith Emerson of ELP, Steve Howe, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman of Yes, got popularity then. Especially ELP won Led Zeppelin in the popularity poll on the magazine and ranked first once. And Jethro Tull and The Moody Blues gained certain level of recognitions though they weren't so gorgeous as the other bands and incomparably less popular than in the west.
Progressive rock succeeded in obtaining the other genre music fans who had never been interested in rock because it absorbed in jazz and classical music. Especially in Japan, it's said that children who learned pianos or electronic organs welcomed it. And progressive rock had non-English-speaking world, Europe ,where rock hadn't spread then because they didn't have the roots of black music, accept rock naturally at last. Japanese progressive rock fans sympathized with it and it caused their mania spirits to spread in European countries.
Japanese or English?
Rock divided into two streams not only among western music fans, but also among Japanese rock or folk artists. There was a problem whether rock should have been done in Japanese or in English.
Okabayashi Nobuyasu & Happy End - What We Hope for
Those who belonged to 'The Japanese party' were folk artists, especially URC ,which descended from Kansai folk, was, so to speak, the head temple of its sect. And one of the most striking artists was Happy End. They were from Tokyo, but became a big issue for they had served the back band on Okabayashi's stage since they joined in his second album. People compared it with that Bob Dylan with The Band as his back band became rock in 1966. Happy End was characterized by its psychedelic band sounds in California in the late 60's like Moby Grape or Buffalo Springfield ,which was known to those in the know and Matsumoto Takashi's original lyrics ,where the ordinary life in the city was sung in 'desu masu' style. It was completely different from the world 'to fall head over heels in love' of the conventional Kayokyoku and the anti‐establishment folk songs then.
Then most of Japanese rock bands were influenced by British rock and they aimed at catching up the world in playing technique, The Mops or the other talented GS bands led the scene. GS bands declined because of the decline in the quality of bands from the mass production of inferior bands and the change of social conditions that the criticism like 'music by promoters' was accepted easily. So only talented people remained there. And among them several super bands were born like Food Brain, Strawberry Path, Flied Egg, Speed, Glue & Shinki , session style bands made by several members of The Golden Cups or The Power House, Narumo Shigeru, a guitarist who went to see Woodstock, Tsunoda Hiro from jazz, and PYG made by several members of the leading popular GS bands like The Tigers, The Spiders, The Tempters .
And Flower Travellin' Band, which was made up of Flowers and produced by Uchida Yuya sang in English because they thought Japanese language didn't get into the rhythm of rock well and aimed at advancing to the international market. Instead of it, they took in the scale and rhythm of Japanese traditional music and aimed at making their originality. They were active based on Canada and gained a certain level of recognition. Uchida said 'Japanese should sing in English in order to do rock in the world' and argued it with 'The Japanese party', and it was unfolded in the round-table talk with Happy End and Otaki Eiichi on the October number in 1970 of 'Shinjuku Play Map' and in the round-table talk with Otaki, Matsumoto etc. on the May number in 1971 of 'New Music Magazine'. The beginning of it was that the Japanese party including Happy End occupied top in the album of the year best 10 of Japanese rock on New Music Magazine in 1970, but the English party's order was lower than them.
Looking back to this argument from the view point now, it seems that only Uchida went around in circles, members of Happy End were very calm and most of the other participants in those round-table talks were favorable to them. Otherwise considering the situation of young people then who had many things to talk, it seemed to be natural that those who chose to sing in Japanese became majority. Actually the English party remains in a part of hard rock, but it became not to be seen in Japanese bands.
However in reality it's talented GS bands or 'the English party' that were chosen when western music manias dug up Japanese past music and make any compilation albums now. In fact, 'Jap Rock Sampler' ,which made the cover of Flower Travellin' Band, was published in 2007 in UK, and it devoted three hundred pages to that Japanese rock. On the other hand, as for the Japanese party, Happy End's 'Kaze wo Atumete' was used in Sofia Coppola's 'Lost in Translation' in 2003 and it became known better, but it's never heard that they were dug up overseas.
Looking at it from the view point now, the thought ' Japanese can't get into the rhythm of rock' is a kind of racist and it kills the possibility of rock in so many kinds of languages. But English is necessary for advancing overseas in order to have listeners understand lyrics. It's not the problem of rhythm. And it's undeniable that the passivity against singing in English is one of big reason for there're very a few Japanese artists who succeeded in the world though Japan has a decent long history of rock. And I have to admit its revolutionariness and big influence, and there is a climate like that in a part, but it's impossible to ignore the streams of history until then and attribute all the accomplishment to start rock in Japanese to Happy End.
At last the representative artists in the argument didn't succeed in commerce, even Happy End split in 1973. Yoshida Takuro rose for his performance at Folk Jamboree was highly acclaimed at a stretch. Yoshida transferred to CBS Sony and Izumita Shigeru and Furuido bacame the face of Elec. On the other hand many artists transfered from URC to major labels. In folk, songs called 'Yojouhan Folk' like young people who failed in the student movement live plainly with lovers in tenements tended to make hits, it might be a kind of Japanese development in later years of hippies in America whose dreams were broken.
Gorgeous glam rock appeared
On the other hand a sign of changing was shown in British rock around 1972. It was the rise of glam rock, and its hero was T Rex. Marc Bolan was called 'be disguised as a woman' for his gorgeous makeup and clothes with many spangles, and his rock 'n' roll mainly consisted of highly distorted short guitar riffs became a big moovement in both UK and Japan. It was called 'Trexstacy'.
Zunou Keisatsu - Blood Blood Blood
In Japan, Bolan was regarded as an idol at first and his short rock was defamed as 'skill shortage' by the hard rock party and the progressive rock party, but Zunou Keisatu, which formed guitar & percussion influenced by Tyrannosaurus Rex of the antecedent band, and Murahachibu ,which had gorgeous makeup, sympathized with him and appeared. However they sang on the theme of more dangerous things than T Rex and caused fusses at rock events. It was a Japanese-like thing.
On the other hand the man who appeared against T Rex was David Bowie. Drawing attentions by the character of Ziggy Stardust on the theme of ' an alien who flied down to the earth with time limit', Bowie led the rock mode after then with the dangerous and artistic presence characterized by 'phantasmagoria'. He influenced Japan too and the character '出火吐暴威 (Chinese character for David Bowie)' on the costume designed by Yamamoto Kansai , which he took when he had a concert in 1973, would have a big meaning for Japanese rock ten and more years after then.
