Goodnight Baby by The King Tones: Sharing Music I Like

(Sharing Music I Like)

The King Tones - Goodnight Baby (Japanese Doowop)

This is yet another song I discovered when I was working my way through the yearly billboard charts for Japanese oldies.

Like a lot of these old songs, what initially caught my attention is how dated the music is.  Just listen to that old Doowop sound.  I mean, they do not make music like this anymore, am I right?

I really like old retro sounding stuff.  I hear this song, and I can imagine early 1960s Japan: teenagers cruising around in old cars, drinking soda down at the drug store, the juke box, the whole thing!  It's all wrapped up just in that one song.  The song can be like a little time machine.

I put this song on the mixed tapes that I used to drive around with, and I listened to it many times over.

And the more I listened to it, the more I got caught up in its melody.  It's not just some cheesy retro song.  I mean, it is a cheesy retro song, but it's also just a really catchy tune.

I didn't realize until just now (while writing this post) that this song was actually considered retro even at the time it was recorded.  According to the description on the video linked above:

The King Tones are a four-member Japanese music group that has been active since February 1960. While having representative songs such as "Good Night Baby" and "Kurai Minatono Blues", they sang songs from the late 1950s to the early 1960s and have maintained the chorus style of Doo Wop since the group's formation. They also cover many Western music such as songs by The Righteous Brothers and Otis Redding and The Platters' "Smoke Get's In Your Eyes" and "Only You".

In 1968 they signed an exclusive contract with Japan Gramophone (later Polydor Records) and made a major debut with "Good Night Baby," released in May of the same year. It was a big hit from the end of the year to the spring of the following year. In 1969 Atco Records picked it up for distribution in the USA.

The group members were Sumio Kasho, Yutaka Kawashima, Masato Uchida, Kunihiko Narita and Susumu Ishii.

Huh, so I guess this group was like the Japanese version of  "Sha Na Na".  I never knew that until just now.

I mean, it's true that I did get these songs from the CD collections of the yearly billboard charts.  But once I found the songs that I liked, I then put them onto mixed tapes which I listened to while driving around.  And sometimes I would misremember that year that I got each song from.

P.S.

I completely embarrassed myself by attempting to sing this song at Karaoke one night.  This was back in the days when I was trying out Japanese songs at Karaoke.  When I selected this song, I had in my mind the beginning of the song, which was nice and slow and simple, and completely forgot about all the high notes in the middle of the song.  Completely forgot about them, that is, until I was in the middle of the song, and then attempted to do those notes anyway, and my voice just cracked, and it was awful.

My Japanese friends just nodded, and commented that the song was utainikui--difficult to sing.