Eiichi Ohtaki (1948-2013) was a towering musical figure in Post-WW2 Japanese music. One of his foremost strengths was his ability to ingeniously unify a multitude of musical and non-musical influences into a captivating and cohesive whole. Many of his musical achievements were seemingly impelled by his natural ease and resolve to manifest, express and share his own envisioned artistic world. In addition, his overall passion for music was second to none. Inspired by his surname which means “Big Waterfall,” he established his Niagara label to release his own music along with the music of counterparts like Taeko Onuki and Tatsuro Yamashita, who both would go on to renown in the Japanese mainstream during the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Collectively, their releases have gone on to be considered the core recordings of what is now known retroactively as City Pop. This music has been at its heights of popularity this decade as it has found a worldwide audience thanks to streaming.
Ohtaki himself has been called many things: Super Producer, the Japanese Phil Spector, and the Pioneer of City Pop. Unlike Phil Spector, the more you learn about Ohtaki, the better you like him as a person and artist. As a producer and composer, he deserves to be considered in the same visionary musical realms as Brian Wilson, Gregorio Paniagua (Spain), Sohail Rana (Pakistan) and Joe Meek. In fact, he's the most Beach Boys and ‘50s & ‘60s-influenced musician of the so-called City Pop musicians as some City Pop has a little too much Miami Vice Soundtrack-ish gleam on it for my ears. Some of Ohtaki’s notable productions include Celia Paul’s Yume De Aetara from 1977 and 1981’s Kaze Tachinu by Seiko Matsuda, which both shine with their ‘60s leaning production styles. Another aspect of Ohtaki’s immense talents was his ability to compose instantly catchy songs and create art on demand. In similar fashion to Roger Nichols in the United States, Ohtaki was commissioned to compose catchy commercial jingles (known as CM songs in Japan) for iconic Japanese products like the Sony Digital Handycam, Maxim Instant Coffee, Suntory Lemon, and Mitsuya Cider. Further, I can envision Haruki Murakami writing to this music as the Waseda University alumni seemingly share a similar pop culture aesthetic that encompasses a love for baseball, real & imagined travel and a deep knowledge of Western music, all which informs and inspires their respective art forms.
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| Tokyo City Pop in the record store wilds of Osaka |
Arrivals & Departures One can jump into Ohtaki’s catalog at any point and discover if it’s not immersive, it is intriguing at the least. Some of his ‘70s material could be pastiche-almost to the point of a Zappa-esque mishmash where he combines elements of doo wop and the Beatles in one song and generally works depending on one’s mood. He was indeed a musical omnivore as he incorporated, assembled and arranged elements of Okinawan folk music, Gershwin, exotica, Roy Wood’s Wizzard as well as Caribbean and New Orleans rhythms besides the aforementioned ‘50s & ‘60s pop influences. By the early 80s, he was able to transition from the idiosyncratic sound of his own private musical jukebox in his head, which can be a wonderful and whimsical place, and breakthrough to a more wide-open, boundless and universal sound. By evoking and expressing the feelings of departures, new experiences and returning home filled with newfound insights and inspiration, he found a memorable sound that had the most widespread appeal in Japan. His most highly-regarded and commercially successful release also happened to be his most fully-realized. A Long Vacation lives up to its hype as a Japanese masterwork and I consider it one of the best conceptual albums ever released. The album’s opening song “You Are a Natural Color/Kimiwa Tennenshoku” is even used as a departure song on the East Japan Railway (JR East). By connecting the Brill Building to City Pop with his own Wall of Sound, he suddenly became a Japanese hit maker in the process.
NIAGARA CONCERT '83 LIVE JAM 1983/7/24 Seibu Lions Stadium At the time of this concert, Ohtaki was riding the momentum of A Long Vacation (1981) and preparing for his subsequent successful 1984 follow-up Each Time. In this period between his two most popular releases, he also recorded two albums consisting entirely of orchestrated renditions of his compositions under the name the Niagara Fall Of Sound Orchestral. While these instrumental albums, Niagara Song Book & Niagara Song Book 2, are good as airplane boarding music, they are not great because their overall production comes across as a little too clinical, which is generally not typical of Ohtaki’s studio recordings. Things are rectified in the live setting as this album features both the Niagara Fall Of Sound Orchestral and Eiichi Ohtaki himself. Both musical acts were accompanied by the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra for the concert. The live version of the Niagara Fall of Sound Orchestral transverses somewhere in the vicinity of the Hollyridge Strings, the Surf Symphony, the Beach Boys’ Stack-o-Tracks & The Smile Sessions and Song Cycle by Van Dyke Parks. “Water Color” in particular sounds like the Pet Sounds instrumental “Let’s Go Away for Awhile” converging with some soft-focus lounge pop found on a ‘60s film score.
The cheerful “Like a Blue Sky” presents a lovely and sweeping melody perhaps inspired by “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Navy Blue” by Diane Renay. “In the Canary Islands” seemingly foreshadows Van Dyke Parks & Brian Wilson’s Orange Crate Art collaboration from 1995. These instrumental songs come across as alive and dimensional as the stellar recording captures the music moving through the open air of Seibu Lions Stadium on a joyous July night almost 40 years ago.
Ohtaki then steps to the forefront to offer “Detective Story” from A Long Vacation which could be described as the Zombies’ “Leave Me Be” meets “Hurt So Bad” by Little Anthony and the Imperials suffused with Bacharachian inflections. “Just A Little Gentle'' channels “Cara Mia” by Jay and the Americans, while revealing Ohtaki’s knowledge that Brian Wilson based “Surfer Girl” on “When You Wish Upon a Star.” Another song from A Long Vacation, “Karen in Love” more than hints at “Where Have You Been All My Life” written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and recorded by Arthur Alexander and the Searchers. Next, “Funx4” starts off new wavey before becoming just playfully fun. The abundant and sweeping Spectorian melodies of “You Are a Natural Color/Kimiwa Tennenshoku” cascade down from the musical heavens as the concert reaches its pinnacle. Ohtaki’s signature number offers melodies that will keep swirling in your head for a week. As a consummate musician with excellent intonation, Ohtaki performs all of these songs with apparent ease on what would be his final live performance. The Niagara Fall of Sound Orchestral returns to properly close the musical evening on a lush note that was fortunately recorded for posterity.
Ohtaki’s small musical enterprise has gone on to become an entire City Pop empire in Japan. By integrating some of the best aspects of Eastern and Western music, he settled on a sound all his own which was integral in the eventual rise of the City Pop movement. This sound would go on to inspire the High Llamas’ Sean O’ Hagan, Shibuya-kei along with contemporary Japanese groups & producers operating along similar wavelengths. These highly influential sounds are still continuing to ascend and radiate both in Japan and around the world.
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