Hatsumi Shibata : The Forgotten Pioneer // Artist Deep Dive

I've been listening to City Pop for a long time. I've fallen into the rabbit hole what feels like eons ago and it's too late for me. Now, all I can do is drag people in with me. And I've tried, I've written a whole ass blog post about City Pop as a whole, but it's not enough.

It's not. enough.

Maybe you've noticed it's been a while, and it has, I thought one post would be enough, but the world is a trash fire and there's nothing left but the deranged nostalgia of a time I've never lived in. So I've decided to commit to more City Pop blog posts, as fan, trying to make fans out of you all. And this time I want to put specific artists to the forefront, because I really feel like I haven't been fair to some of them on that first post.

And what better place to start than Hatsumi Shibata? I will NEVER stop talking about Singer Lady. Never.

Because, again, I feel I haven't been fair to her. I've only talked about her twice, and in passing. And that's a crime. So before the police comes knocking down my door, I'm going to try to save myself.

There's one thing I don't totally agree with in the Rolling Stones article I shared with you previously. In that article, it's said that 1976 Shigeru Suzuki's Lady Pink Panther, covered the bridge between the 'before' and 'after' the kicking into gears of City Pop. And while that's not entirely wrong -many big names having their first important City Pop album come out in 1976, such as Tatsuro Yamashita's Circus Town or Taeko Ohnuki's Grey Skies- saying it like that feels like City Pop was almost inexistant before that. They do talk about the uber-famous Haruomi Hosono, almost citing him as the only one we owe the trend's explosion to.

But that feels like a complete disregard for all of what was going on between 1971, when Kazemachi Roman came out, and 1976, for that 'actual start of City Pop.'

By 1974, Junko Ohashi and Yuji Ohno were already having big albums on the shelves, and alongside them, the too often forgotten Hatsumi Shibata.

"Hatsumi Shibata didn't make Aikagi for you bitches to just forget about her." -- Me, just now

So I've been listening to a lot of Hatsumi Shibata, recently. And I mean a lot, and so did my neighbours. They still haven't asked me to turn it down so I guess they must like too. And having my head working on nothing else but Hatsumi Shibata for longer than is recommended, I've been struck down by just how much it feels she's being left out whenever there's discussion surrounding City Pop and its big names.

I joke about Aikagi, her first single, but I'm terribly serious about the fact that she was already representing everything City Pop was going to become in 1974.

But let's take it back for a few, yeah?

Hatsumi Shibata was born in 1952 Tokyo, her father, a jazz pianist by the name of Toru Shibata, made sure she would grow up surrounded by music, music, and more music. This resulted in her, at the ripe age of 9 years old (yes, nine years old) singing for the officer's club in the local US military's camp. That seems crazy to me, I hope I'm not the only one.

But regularly singing on a scene in front of crowds of adults at such a young age, as traumatic an experience that must have been, made her develop a particular ease on stage. And that ease oozes from every side of her career. Aikagi came out in 1974, and just one year later, she was publishing her first recorded live performance. And I don't mean a small performance with a small group of musicians, no, no, no, I mean a bloody Live Entertainment Special pushed by Columbia Records, in front of a huge crowd and accompanied by an army of musicians. A trend she'll repeat for three more albums later on, in 1976, 1978 and 1979.

And it's really in those live performances that you can hear the absolute glee she had in singing. I'm usually not a fan of live performances, but those L.E.S. are something else, something, well, special. Especially the first three, they're among the best live performances I've ever heard, and I will most definitely link them below. If you're unsure of where to start for Hatsumi Shibata, start there.

And Hatsumi Shibata, before being a recording-type artist, is a live performer, through and through. At the height of her career, she was crossing the Pacific regularly, being active both in Japan and the United States as a jazz vocalist, sometimes attaining over 100 gigs a year.

But she didn't shy away from recording either, having a tight relationship with Columbia Records and occasionally publishing multiple LPs a year. Her first album, Singer Lady, coming out in 1975, was arranged by the legendary jazz artist Yuji Ohno. It seems random, but you'll see this phrase becoming a real trend once I'll have more Artist Deep Dives. She also became a rather regular participant in the Japanese TV show Sound Inn "S", often coming on and singing live.

Her records production does come to an almost sudden halt after 1985, only then releasing the occasional single or compilation, but seeing how prolific she was, it's fair to assume she wanted to turn towards live performance rather than recording. It seems she stayed quite active on the jazz scene after that date, although no more recording was made of her numerous concerts.

Since 1974, Hatsumi Shibata have been pumping out City Pop classics, ranging from jazz to disco, often venturing into soul, r&b, and sometimes even the occasional latin music. She could go full out on big vocal performances, or sing with a softness and sensuality rivaling Leon Haywood. Some of her covers, like Stevie Wonder's Another Star, are just out of this world and deserve a good listening to.

1974?

And here's the twist, friends.

What if I told you 1974 was indeed Hatsumi Shibata's debut, but Hatsumi Shibata the artist, not Hatsumi Shibata the person. What if I told you that in 1968, a young 15 years old Kanna Hatsumi was publishing one of the bangest of tunes to ever come out of Japan in the 60's? What is I told you that this Kanna Hatsumi, so popular that she'd sing for a famous commercial at the time, would grow up to own her name, Hatsumi Shibata?

If I told you all of that, it would be nothing but the truth.

So we have Hatsumi Shibata, pioneering City Pop and Hosono's work while not even being legally able to drink, and you're telling me everyone went up and forgot about her? No, no, no, that's no good. I genuinely never see her name in any City Pop compilation, except for that one (1) playlist by My Analog Journal, is no one talking about her?

Fine, I'll do it myself.

All jokes aside, Hatsumi Shibata is a wonderful, wonderful artist, and a ton of her songs are just fantastic. But I haven't been completely honest, because Hatsumi Shibata, unfortunately, was an amazing artist. Tragically, at the terrifyingly young age of 57, she passed away in a heart attack, in 2010.

You know, most of them are still here. Tatsuro Yamashita, Kimiko Kasai, Mariya Takeuchi, Mai Yamane...

And I feel so lucky to find out about City Pop while all these figureheads are still with us, talking, walking, singing, making us happy. And I feel it's my bane to get really really excited about an artist, only to then be devastated once I learn they passed away so recently. Manu Dibango, Nujabes, Hatsumi Shibata, the tragedy about all of them is that life simply took them away from us. And I feel like it's fair to say that we were robbed.

There's a sadness, now, when I hear her sing her live performances. Not from her, but from me. I keep hearing that glee, that absolute, immovable joy of being alive, and I feel like the world is missing out on that jubilation. Most of her performances will never be recorded, but the ones that were are, again, absolutely worth a listening to.

Her first performance was at the very beginning of her recording career as Hatsumi Shibata. It's filled with covers that are just out of this world, Get it On being one of the biggest, most amazing concert openings I've ever heard. And you wouldn't believe it, but she sings Aikagi in spanish, because why the hell not. It's also extremely precious to hear her sing at full volume, being an absolute jazz queen that nothing in this world could stop, before hearing her shy little voice when she speaks from her heart.

Her second performance is also her longest, a lot of the songs come from her first performance, but being already more installed in the music industry, a lot more of her own songs are featured here. She's also a lot more confident, and you can just hear it when she talks, we're getting some queen shit out of that live, let me tell you.

But her third performance is something special. Firstly, there's the most incredible version of her Another Love cover near the end of the album, which is already great on its own. But before that, during the cover of I Left My Heart in San Francisco, there's the kind of joking around that can only be found in live performances, and hearing her scatting playfully with her musicians is just something wonderful, precious, unrivaled, and I love it.

And you won't believe her fourth performance, as it opens with an enormous KISS MEDLEY. YES. KISS THE BAND. And is followed a bit later with a just as enormous DONNA SUMMER MEDLEY. YES. THE VOULEZ-VOUS-COUCHER-AVEC-MOI-CE-SOIR DONNA SUMMER. My brain just can't process it.

And if you ever decide to click on those links, I want you to imagine something for me. I want you to imagine what it would have felt like to not only hear that inimitable glee in her voice, but to also see it on her face.

And of course, it wouldn't be my god damn blog without some shitty YouTube playlists. You got me.

I've compiled what I think to be the best of the Hastumi Shibata's records. Keep in mind that, being a lot more underground than she has any right to be, a lot is missing here. If you like her work, don't hesitate to dig through her albums to find more from her!

And without further ado, I present to you, The Hatsumi Shibata Experience.

That's all for me folks. I want to specify that a lot of the information I found here is from what I could glean from Japanese sites, so some of it could be wrong due to mistranslations or down right misinformation. If an error occurs, or if something you deem important is missing from this Artist Deep Dive, please, feel free to come talk to me on Twitter, I will be glad to add or correct anything shown here!

I'll just remind you all that I'm nothing more than a love-struck fan on a free blog website, so I'm sorry for the typos and other complications resulting in the lack of any editorial talent.

But I mean who cares as long as you liked it, right?

See you around!

DINA