Haruomi Hosono 50th Anniversary Exhibition: 1974 – 1978
楽園の音楽 Music of Paradise
After the intensive creative experiments, Happy End came to an end in 1973. As the band was already talking about parting ways in 1972, Hosono had already started preparing for his first solo album “Hosono House” in 1973. “Hosono House” was innovative in many ways, and one of them was the fact that it was probably the first album in Japan that was fully recorded at home studio – Hosono converted his house in Sayama, Saitama to a studio by stacking necessary equipment. Musicians joined to make the album were the members of his new band Caramel Mama, which later evolved to become Tin Pan Alley: Shigeru Suzuki (G. Vo.), Masataka Matsutoya (Key), Hiroshi Sato (Key) and Tatsuo Hayashi (Dr.) Hosono re-did the entire album in 2019 and released it as “Hochono House.”
According to Hosono, Tin Pan Alley was a group of top-notch (studio) musicians, rather than a band that surrounded a singer. It was the format he deliberately chose as he still wasn’t 100% comfortable with writing and singing his own songs: he needed time to focus on playing, rather than singing, and playing live in front of audience, or back other singers. Tin Pan Alley played for many established singers including Yumi Matsutoya, Taeko Onuki and Minako Yoshida.
As Hosono named Sly and the Family Stone as one of the major influences during the Tin Pan Alley era, he liked playing with funky flavors. (By the way, Hosono named his band “Tin Pan Alley” as he was really into the music during that era, such as George Gershwin. His interests in music was so broad and included both old to new.)
In the meantime, he also started working on his solo work and produced three albums – “トロピカル・ダンディ (Tropical Dandy) in 1975, “泰安洋行 (Bon Voyage) in 1976, and “はらいそ (Paradiso) in 1978, which later became called “Tropical Trilogy.” He recalls that the idea of “tropical” was rather a wisecrack. He got inspiration from a stereotypical/caricatural view of Asians or Japanese by Hollywood movies and TV shows (“Japanese Farewell Song” by Martin Denny, for example), and used it satirically or cynically. His sense of dark, self-depreciating sense of humor played a role.
Maybe the unreal-ness of the exotic music (or exotica) like Martin Denny helped him escape from the seriousness of the reality, or all the intense experiences that culminated as the disbanding of Happy End. For Hosono, exotica was the music that did not belong to the real world. He felt that such music could be elevated to go beyond real – something virtual, imaginary and fantasy. In that sense, maybe “tropical” wasn’t about the actual tropical regions on Earth, but the parallel world in which his alter ego (like Harry Hosono) existed and traveled freely.
“I ended up making something really weird. I mean, they may not sound weird today, but back then people had no idea what they were. I had no idea what kind of people would listen to them.”
“Bon Voyage” Album jacket. Many top-notch musicians participated: Shigeru Suzuki (G), Tatsuo Hayashi (Dr.), Akiko Yano (Key), Hiroshi Sato (Key), Toru Okada (Per), Eiichi Otaki, Tatsuro Yamashita, Chu Kosaka, Taeko Onuki Makoto Kubota…
