Back to Jun Fukamachi with his first two SSW albums (1971-1972)

The two first albums from this fusioneer star traveller were in fact within the singer-songwriter genre along the lines of solo McCartney (minus guitar) or Elton John (minus the country and blues), or, most similarly, the earlier Ken Narita masterpiece I posted not that long ago.  Though I shall then be brutally honest and declare that Fukamachi as rock/pop singer was simply not as strong altogether, surprisingly, perhaps explaining why he changed lanes into high speed fusion in the mid-70s.

So you can quickly get an impression on your own here's the second track from the 1971 album, notice the acoustic piano plus vocals style, enhanced by some nice fuzzy guitar colors:





Listening to this again it just amazes me what a profound influence Paul McCartney had on pop music.  Note the echoey vocals (a la Wyatt on Soft Machine) in the middle too. The whole album follows along the same lines really, with occasional discrepancies of more bluesy or symphonic (added strings) compositions, some slight jazz touches here and there, definitely no fusion to be found.  Nothing too stand-out-ish though.

The second album sadly continues in the same medi-mediocre vein. On track a2, the standard, very disappointing downgoing A minor chord progression (the Stairway to Heaven / While my Guitar Gently Weeps progression) aided by a nicely arranged string section, is mitigated by a very emotional chorus sung quite beautifully in the centre of this short piece:

Again, move along folks, there's no fusion to be seen here. Not that I mind well-written pop rock, there's been tons of excellent Japanese songwriting in this blog before (Tranzam, the School Band) as I'm sure you'll all agree.

Notice that it wasn't until 1975 that the fusion Saturn V exploded off the launch pad, leading to an almost unbroken decade of masterpieces from "Introducing Jun Fukamachi" to 1985's "Alien" progressive masterpiece.

Someone asked to have those big packages of semi-compleat material shot up into the cybersphere again and I'll do that so you can get everything I have in three, except these 2 albums, and except some more of the missing Fukamachi albums from that glory period which will be coming here very shortly...