Yuki Saori was born 安田章子 (Yasuda Akiko). Together with her older sister 安田祥子 (Yasuda Sachiko) they released a series of children songs. Then in 1965 Akiko went solo but because of her deeply cemented children songs background she only had minimal success with the more mature audience. It was not until 1969 she got her big break with the song 夜明けのスキャット (Yoake no Scat).
Originally written as a jingle for the TBS radio program 夜のバラード (Yoru no Ballad), 夜明けのスキャット was released as a single after lyrics was added to it. Eventually it went to number one in ORICON chart and sold over 1.09 million copies, becoming the best selling single in 1969 Japan. It also hold the record of shortest lyrics for a number one song in ORICON history.
Billed as the first ever スキャット (scat) hit in Japan (日本初のスキャット・ヒット!!), the scat here refers to the style of singing often found in Jazz music where improvised wordless vocables or nonsense syllables being rapidly and repeatedly sung over the music. While it is true that the lyrics of 夜明けのスキャット contains a rather long segment of meaningless words but I doubt many people will consider this as scat singing. Nevertheless it is still a very melodic tune.
After the success of 夜明けのスキャット, Saori spent a few years in the early 70s as one of the top selling artists where she scored another number one hit 手紙(Tegami). However, from 1982 onward the Yasuda sisters once again get back together in the children songs business but with more classical flavor. Here is their haunting rendition of the classic Okinawa folk song 花~すべての人の心に花を~(Hana~Subete no Hito no Kokoro ni Hana wo~) , accompanied with a beautiful piano concerto.
1 comment:
Interesting and inspiring indeed! You may consider write a series of entries under the title 日本歌星話滄桑 :)
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