Episode 38: The Tigers (part 3 of 3)
It’s been a long time coming but please enjoy part 3 of 3 of my history of The Tigers, Japan’s first real rock superstars and idol group! Just dive right in or listen to part 1 or part 2 first.
I also have a review up of the film referenced in the episode: Hi! London
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Welcome to Filmi Girl’s Idol Cast! Hit it!
Our opening song today is a fan favorite, or at least it’s a favorite of this fan, a cover of the Herman’s Hermits song “Henry the 8th” performed by, yes, the Tigers in concert on January 24, 1971, with Pi on vocals and Julie on drums.
And just before I pick up the story again I think it’s important to mention here that Kishibe Shiro, who will feature prominently in this episode, passed away on August 28, 2020 at the age of 71. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
When we left off at the end of episode 2 it was March of 1969 and the Tigers guitarist Toppo--after months of trying to leave the band only to be talked into staying--had finally just pulled a runner, walking out of a recording session as if to go on a break and simply not returning. This left Julie, lead vocals, Sally, bass, Pi, drums, and Taro, second guitar, to pick up the pieces. Somewhere amid the anger, hurt feelings, and worry over responsibilities and contracts, the decision was made to simply slot a new member in to take over for Toppo. They had five stage costumes, ergo they needed five members.
And in a very telling move, the Tigers didn’t go out and get another guitarist nor did they go through Watanabe Productions to get a new member who was aiming for a show business career. Instead they put in an emergency call to America, where Sally’s brother Shiro was working, and asked him to come back to Tokyo. The new Tigers member would be the quiet, familiar, and sweet natured Shiro who couldn’t play an instrument or sing and had no desire to be on stage but who loved his brother and who still believed in the Tigers.
It was the beginning of the end.
As Pi would later say about Toppo leaving the group, it was like a spell had been broken. Despite his growing unhappiness Pi had been holding on to the dream that the five of them had brought from Kyoto, that they would be the best band in the world together. When Toppo left, he took that dream with him and Pi slowly began to allow himself to think about what it was that he wanted to do. What was it that would make him happy?
But first, let’s find out what happened to Toppo. Where did he go? Well, he went to his Chianti family, the loose collection of regulars who orbited around Tan Tan, the Chianti proprietress. Over the years Toppo had struck up a close friendship with Tan Tan and although Tan Tan didn’t want the Tigers to break up--don’t forget that not only had she provided numerous stage costumes for them but was also friendly with the other members, the difficult Toppo--Katsumi now--had a special place in her heart. Katsumi hid out with one of Tan Tan’s acquaintances for a few days while she talked some sense into him, eventually getting him to phone Watanabe Misa and make arrangements to formally leave the band… and to get his passport back from the company.
A few days later, Katsumi was on his way to Europe--to London, then Paris--to spend some time under the care of Tan Tan’s friends there.
Meanwhile on March 14, 1969, Shiro arrived at Haneda Airport, looking for all the world like just a regular guy. He had long shaggy hair and was wearing jeans. He was not prepared for the crowd of reporters and bickering Tigers fans who greeted him. Standing awkwardly to one side, waiting for his brother to come pick him up, listening to fans loudly complain that he didn’t look anything like an idol, I don’t think any of us would have blamed Shiro if he had stepped right back on that plane and flown off again.
Shiro was immediately whisked off to get cleaned up. His long shaggy hippie dippie hair was trimmed and neatened. His regular guy clothes were replaced with Watanabe Misa-approved duds. As a late comer and as someone who couldn’t play an instrument, Shiro received only ⅔ the salary of the other members but he received the full force of the Tigers entertainment treadmill.
On March 15, Shiro appeared at a press conference announcing his joining the group.
On March 16, he was filming for a Meiji chocolate advertisement.
On March 19, he appeared on television for the first time.
Shiro’s singing voice was a gentle tenor and while he wasn’t a complete one-to-one swap with Toppo--nobody could match the emotional power of Toppo’s voice--the range was close enough that Shiro could be trusted with harmonies and, eventually, to sing lead on Toppo’s songs like Hana no Kubikazari. But what was he supposed to do on stage? At first he was given tamborine to shake but Julie soon complained that the sound was annoying, so they took it away and it was replaced with a tambourine that didn’t make any noise.
And while Katsumi was jetting off to Europe and Shiro was shaking his noiseless tamborine in his new haircut trying his best to fit into idol life, Pi was having a mini crisis of his own. He’d fallen in love with a French girl who he’d met dancing at Pash Club in Roppongi. She hadn’t known him as “the Tigers’ Pi”, to her, he was just a cute guy and Pi found that--found her--irresistible. The two fell head over heels in love and Pi even began learning French. It was simply bad timing for Pi that just around the time that Katsumi went AWOL, his French lady friend had to return to France. And with the band in crisis, he could not go with her.
For the first time Pi--Hitomi Minoru--really understood the straight jacket of idol life, what he had to give up in order to remain in the spotlight, and he was heartbroken.
On April 21, 1969, the Tigers final single with Toppo was released, “美しき愛の掟” or The Beautiful Symbol of love. The single was advertised as Toppo’s final single and he featured with the group on the cover dressed in their white hippie suits hidden in shadow, in some unsubtle foreshadowing, Julie alone was bathed in light. The lyrics were again by author Nakanishi Rei but the music this time was from producer/songwriter jazz enthusiast and member of the Chianti Family, Murai Kunihiko--who, for trivia lovers, is the father of music video director Hiro Murai who did Childish Gambino’s “Welcome to America” among others. The single rocks much harder than any of their previous releases, hinting perhaps at Murai’s move in the 1970s to producing more experimental acts like Yellow Magic Orchestra. The angry, crunchy guitar dropping riffs through the whole song, Sally’s bass roaming wildly underneath, the ghostly chorus of voices on the bridge, the chaos of the sound as it builds, distortion growing. And check this out. Everything cuts out. Organ. Build up build up…
It’s a fantastic rock song and actually sounds a lot like what later “Super Group” PYG would end up doing later. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Despite the promotional push and the crackling power contained in the song, the single only got to number four on the chart. “You still like the Tigers??” girls began to say.
Meanwhile, Pi was also planning his disappearance for when their obligations ended in May. He hadn’t forgotten his lady friend in France. Pi went as far as getting his passport back from Watanabe Productions but Taro and Sally caught wind of his plan and went to his apartment to confront him. As Pi told it later, they asked him to hold off until September. Until they could properly disband the group. It was the first time the possibility had really been floated. The group sounds bubble was beginning to deflate and rock was on the way out. Could they continue as the Tigers even if they wanted to? “Hana no Kubikazari/Ginga no Romance” was the 5th biggest selling single of 1968 and other Group Sounds bands like the Tempters and the Darts filled out the rankings below them. But 1969? The highest charting Group Sounds song would be the Tigers melancholy “Aoi Tori,” which I discussed in the last episode, at number 26. And in 1970? The chart would be dominated by enka singer Fuji Keiko. Group Sounds was over.
The next two Tigers singles released that summer of 1969, the solemn “Nageki” and the sugary “Smile For Me” were both back door demos for a Julie solo career. Both songs were the type of orchestral, emotional, vocal driven pop that would explode in the 1970s when male solo idols like Saijo Hideki and yes, spoiler alert, one Mr. Sawada Kenji aka Julie reigned supreme.
“Smile For Me” was written by the Bee Gees’ Barry and Maurice Gibb and sounds exactly like it was written by Barry and Maurice Gibb for the Bee Gees. With the lyrics all in English, it was a test balloon for Julie in the Western market as well. It was even recorded in June of 1969, in London, when the Tigers moved camp to the swingingest city in Europe in order to network and film their third and final movie, Hi London. And It’s worth remembering that at this point Shiro would have been in the group less than 3 months. Barely enough time to unpack his suitcase from America before jetting off again halfway across the globe.
Hi London isn’t a great work of art but it is an incredible time capsule of this era and in that respect I find it utterly fascinating. The plot, such as it is, goes like this. The Tigers are trapped by fame, boxed in by fans and can’t even take a dump in peace. An early scene has Pi wistfully listening to a baseball game on the radio as they travel from one venue to another. The Tigers are visited by a demon who offers them a deal. He can freeze time and give them freedom but if they don’t return before the clock runs out, he gets to keep their souls. It’s a deal the Tigers are willing to take and at least half of the first part of the film is spent in montage of the Tigers wandering around the greater Tokyo area free from crowds with giant smiles on their faces. The second half introduces our old friend Kumi Kaori as a young woman searching for the music her late composer father left behind in London. Although it’s not made explicit, Kaori was also trapped by the Tigers fandom. She had suffered a great deal of stress and anxiety from jealous Tigers fans who had hounded her constantly because of her perceived closeness with the group. Kaori appears sparingly in the film and it would be her last. Despite her charm and talent, she would leave show business not long after it was released.
While in Europe, Pi took the opportunity to go visit his Eveyln in France and while he was there he spent some time with his old friend Katsumi, who was living his best life not wearing prince costumes, taking long walks without being stalked by fans, sketching in cafes without being told to do it more idol-like by management, and eating his fill of jambon beurre. But the battles between Toppo and Julie were far from over and as Julie was in London, gearing up to record and release a solo record. Katsumi was doing the same in Paris. Everything he hadn’t been allowed to do when he was in the Tigers he was going to do now.
Pi must have been tempted to stay in France but he dutifully returned with the rest of the Tigers to Japan holding on to the promise given to him by Sally and Taro. But September came and went and the Tigers did not disband.
The mood of the band curdled even further as it came out that Julie was now making 10 grand to Shiro’s 4… and to the rest of the Tigers’ 6.
Pi decided he would take one year to save up everything he could and then… it would be over. He gave himself a budget of 500 yen a day with the rest squirreled away in savings.
Katsumi also returned to Japan, after snagging a plum role in the very first Japanese production of Hair, which was being produced by his Chianti buddy, Tan Tan’s step son, Kawazoe Shourou. The play ran in Tokyo at the Touyou Hall 東横劇場 from December 5, 1969 to February 25, 1970, and as you know, I love outfit descriptions, so I will tell you that Katsumi’s style upon his return is described as a “hippie style” which means, in this case, white trousers and a snakeskin vest, accessorized with a bracelet from Damascus, which I am guessing was metal and very shiny. Groovy.
Now Hair, as I said in the last episode, 50+ years after it came out seems extremely campy and extremely dated. In large part, this is because the counterculture from which Hair grew out of, has won the culture wars. When our biggest CEOs are shaggy haired and wearing blue jeans and students at elite universities are tattooed and rainbow haired, a song like, well, “Hair” about demonstrating your inner rebelliousness through styling seems ridiculous, but at the time, the reaction to the “long hairs” was hostile. The dominant culture at the time was a lot more formal and rigid regarding appearance. Men were harassed by the police or called gay or women for having long hair. The musical pushed at all of the boundaries of mainstream culture and included positive depictions of things like marijuana, homosexuality, and inter-racial relationships that we see as normal now but at the time were considered extremely provocative.
The story of Hair is that of a young man from the countryside, Claude, who is in New York City for the first time to serve out his draft notice. This was Katsumi’s role. Claude is at something of a loss with what to do with himself and falls in with a bunch of hippies and *spoiler alert* at the end of the play he ends up going off to war and is killed. It’s essentially a big excuse for a revue of some great rock songs and discussions about freedom, man, and how society is like, boxing you in, man, and making your choices for you. Who’s to say what the proper length of your hairs should be. I mean they grow from your head, man, your head, isn’t that like freaky-deaky? Not all the elements translated well from the American context but enough of the underlying messages connected that the play was something of a cultural phenomenon when it finally premiered.
But Katsumi’s embrace of the flower children didn’t mean he was done with the music business and as summer turned to fall, Katsumi once again began popping up in magazines like Teen Look to talk about his new post-Tigers life. The tension was palpable in Tigers fandom. “Don’t call him Toppo,” girls scolded each other. “He’s Katsumi now.” And then in December of 1969, Katsumi and Julie went head-to-head again as their solo albums fought in the charts. Katsumi with his Paris 69 and Julie with, what else, the self-titled Julie.
Julie, released December 15, 1969, is a smooth, polished record in line with the singles released over the summer, a lot of swelling strings and soft melodies with lyrics again by Zuzu and music by Murai Kunihiko, his last work with the Tigers team. Julie was setting himself apart from both the princely teen dream image and the more hippie-dippie rock image that the Tigers had been experimenting with and positioning himself as something of a crooner of romantic ballads. Somebody mothers and daughters alike could enjoy. And just to hammer home that Julie was becoming bigger than the Tigers, the lead single for the album, “君を許す” (Kimi wo urusu; I forgive you), released December 1, 1969, was released as a Tigers single, backed by “Love Love Love”, a song that takes the Beatles 1967 Summer of Love anthem “All You Need is Love” and raises both the grooviness and schmaltz by about approximately one thousand percent, plus a slide guitar.
Love Love Love
Love is the limit
Love Love Love
Love is everything
Katsumi’s Paris 69, released December 20, 1969, now out of print, difficult to find, and completely written out of the canon, is a folk-rock gem waiting to be re-discovered, very much in line with Katsumi’s work with the Tigers in the Human Renaissance days I covered in the previous episode. Katsumi himself wrote much of the lyrics and some of the music on Paris 69 but he also included a very charming cover of classic French garage-rock band Le Coeur’s “Bye-Bye City”… in English.
The lead single for the album was the solemn 花の世界 or Flower World, with lyrics by Katsumi and music by our old friend Murai Kunihiko. 花の世界 fits right into the peace, love, and understanding themes that Katsumi had soaked up in his travels and in his embodiment of Claude in Hair. “Until the day comes when we create our flower world, let’s hold hands and move forward together.” The melody rises gently with the hopeful sentiment and builds to a small crest before sinking again back into the present. It’s a gentle, delicate song and plays to Katsumi’s biggest strength as a vocalist-his ability to emote.
Julie’s self-titled album made it to number two on the album chart, selling over 150,000 copies that first week ranking in just behind super popular enka singer Mori Shinichi. Not bad for a teen idol. And Katsumi? Well, just after Hair closed in Tokyo in February 1970 and before the Osaka run of the play was going to start he and his Chianti buddy, Hair producer Kawazoe, were arrested for marijuana possession. And just like that both Hair and Katsumi’s teen idol career were officially over. While nowhere near as drastic or devastating as the Korean Marijuana Wave of arrests, this incident also seemed to be something of a warning to the cosmopolitan arts scene in Tokyo. Just because hippies smoke weed in London and Los Angeles doesn’t mean it will fly in Tokyo. It was the final nail in the coffin of the GS-era and the end of mainstream rock’n’roll for some time.
In the Tigers biography, at this point in the story, the author goes on a little detour into Katsumi’s persona and his relationship with the fans and who am I to argue with his framing. Katsumi is quoted as saying, (and here I’ll translate) “Honestly speaking, back in the Tigers era, there was a side of me who made fun of the fans. I thought they were all posers doing cheap, girls' hobbies, and that they didn’t understand anything beyond a pretty surface. I took them for granted. However, when I returned home, I read every single fan letter and they weren’t even a little bit pandering. For example, they said things like, ‘When you make yourself understood through your music, I’ll believe in you.’ I couldn’t say a word. I had completely misunderstood them.”
Even though Katsumi was no longer with the Tigers, his former bandmates also came under suspicion of marijuana use, which they were understandably resentful about, as did the rest of the Chianti crowd, with lyricist Yasui Kazumi aka ZuZu also being arrested.
Katsumi spent most of the year reflecting on himself and his career and, apparently, being chaperoned by his mother who came to visit her troublesome son in Tokyo 3-4 times a month. And then on September 26, 1970, on a rainy evening at the Hibiya Park Open Air Concert Hall in Tokyo, Katsumi made his return. Saying, “I’m so unbelievably grateful for the more than 2000 fans who have gathered here in the rain that it’s making me cry but since the Tigers members were not able to come, I can’t erase my sadness.” There were downsides to going solo, too. Like not having four friends at your back when the shit hits the fan.
And as for the rest of the Tigers, they had made the decision to disband. For real this time. No take backs. They couldn’t just add a new drummer. They’d tried carrying on after Katsumi left but the magic was gone. If Pi left, the group was over. They originally wanted to disband in September--just around the time Katsumi was having his Comeback Concert--but the company head convinced them to make it January 1971. The end was finally in sight. As Julie later said, when they were at their peak he just assumed they were going to carry on this way forever and then… they weren’t. Julie’s star was on the rise as the Group Sounds scene was crumbling all around them. The Tigers, Japan’s first real idol group, had gone as far as they could go.
But before they all parted ways, the Tigers would give their fans one final gift.
As fate would have it, the group who began with the Beatles, would also end with the Beatles. Just around the time that the Tigers were discussing disbandment in spring of 1970, Paul McCartney announced that he was no longer working with the Beatles and immediately afterwards he released his first solo album, a sweet, somewhat understated--well as understated as Paul McCartney ever got--album recorded his home studio and just called McCartney. The drama around the Beatles break-up is a story that has been told many, many, many times in English. (So many times) and I won’t go into it here except to say that the Beatles decision to release a final good-bye album (yes, I know, it’s complicated) was one that resonated with the Tigers, as well. And on July 1, 1970, they released 素晴らしい旅行 (Wonderful Journey) which was backed with 散りゆく青春 (Falling Youth). The music for both songs was written by the great kayoukyoku songwriter Yamagami Micho, with Julie writing the lyrics for 素晴らしい旅行 and Taro writing the lyrics for 散りゆく青春. The single reached number 15 on the Oricon Charts, selling 134 thousand copies.
散りゆく青春 is a somber chamber-pop song, complete with harpsichord and a medieval sounding chorus anchored by Sally’s deep bass. The lyrics are equally somber, speaking of the end of a romance, and an inevitable parting of the ways. Two paths that diverge.
素晴らしい旅行, on the other hand, is a saucy throwback blues song punctuated with a honking bari sax and propelled forward with a roving bass line, the kind of song Julie, back when he was just Sawada, would have really sunk his teeth into up on stage at Namba Ichiban in Osaka. The lyrics are an invitation to join Julie on a new journey, a wonderful trip, destination unknown. The blazing arrangement was done by somebody we haven’t been introduced to yet: the Spiders’ Inoue Takayuki aka Inoyan. I talked about the Spiders in the previous episodes and here they come again. The Spiders had also seen the death knells of Group Sounds in their dwindling audiences through the summer of 1969 and like the Tigers were spending 1970 in the process of disbanding and setting up their solo careers. The mercurial Monsieur just flat out quit. Boyishly handsome lead singer Sakai Masaaki aka Macha-aki meanwhile landed his first drama role in a long-running morning soap opera Jikan Desu Yo. Inoue Takayuki, from Kobe, a port city fairly close to the Tigers own Kyoto, just wanted to keep playing guitar. And he would.
On August 22, the Tigers held their Tigers Sounds in Coliseum concert, which would later be released as a live recording in February 1971. The first half of the set is all rock covers anchored by the garage rock trio of Pi, Sally, and Taro with Julie taking center stage for the second half ending with the bombastic, utterly devastating “Love Love Love”. Tearing up with emotion during the breakdown as he tells the fans he’ll hold onto this feeling, as the five of them walk their separate paths.
On December 7, the Tigers announced to the media that they were going to disband. Sally emphasized that there were no hard feelings between them and he and Julie would be forming a new band with, yes, the Spiders Inoyan along with another friend you may remember from the previous episode, the Tempters Hagiwara Kenichi aka Shou-ken aka Julie’s rival for hottest guy in Japan and a few other ex-Group Sounders. Taro and Shiro would also be forming bands of their own and remaining in show business and Pi? All he had to say was, “I’m quitting.”
On December 15, the Tigers released their final studio album 自由と憧れと友情 Freedom, Hope, and Friendship. It’s a bittersweet album and out of all the Tigers albums, it’s the one I find myself returning to again and again. The album opens with 出発のほかに何がある (What is there after departure) a folky song written by Taro and which opens with this devastating bit of narration from Sawada：
若者の魂には 戦場がある
A young person’s soul is a battlefield
たたかいがあり 血がながれている
With fighting, blood flows
若者は知らない それがどうしてなのか
Young people don’t know why it is this way
知るために 彼は友をもとめるのだ
In order to know they gather comrades
そこにはすばらしい出会いがある
In this way, wonderful meetings occur
すばらしい出会いが。。。。
Wonderful meetings
それを知るために 若者たちは
In order to know, young people
旅に出なければと思う
Must set out on a journey, I believe.
心に決めるのはつらいけれど
It can be painful to make the decision but
出発のとき 若者たちは元気に歌った
When they set off, the young people sing joyfully...
And the album closes with the equally devastating 誓いの明日 or Promise for the Future, with lyrics (again) by the great Yamagami Micho with music and arrangement by Kuni Kawachi of Fukuoka-based Group Sounds band The Happenings Four. Kuni Kawachi has a wonderfully off-kilter sense of melody, jumping lightly from note to note and a quick plug here for his 1972 solo album 僕の声が聞こえるかい Can You Hear My Voice another long out of print album that deserves to be remastered and reissued.
The song opens with this whimsical recorder solo and just builds and builds until the ending which then trails off as if the Tigers couldn’t bear to be parted from us. Guitar lingering until the very end. 明日に向かって 僕らも行くのさ Facing tomorrow, we’re headed that way too.
And then on January 24, 1971, the Tigers held their final concert, The Tigers Beautiful Concert, at the Budokan in Tokyo. “Ten Thousand Fans Cried” screamed the headlines the day after. And they weren’t wrong and luckily for us, now, in the future, the concert was filmed for television and broadcast on Fuji Television on January 30, 1971, and it lives on now in bootleg versions which means you can really experience the catharsis and heavy emotion for yourself. The girls sobbing in the audience; the members holding back tears on stage.
And when it was over, Pi got on a train to Kyoto and didn’t speak to his old school friends or even touch a drum kit for forty years.
On April 10, 1971, Julie and Sally’s new super group PYG released their first single. 花・太陽・雨 Flower, Sun, Rain, with lyrics by Sally and music by ex-Spider Inoue Takayuki who had worked with the Tigers just a few months earlier. The song is an anthem, the opening salvo of the 1970s and what would be called New Rock. Light years away from the frenetic garage rock and cheeky lyrics of the 60s, this new rock sound was meant to be experienced on quality hi-fi equipment sitting on a bean bag chair and gazing at the liner notes. 花・太陽・雨 is a slow, thoughtful ballad. No theatrics or virtuoso playing despite the talent for both contained in the group. Anchored on a slow pulsing four-four beat, with lyrics speaking to the simple joys of life, it’s a palate cleanser from the go-go prince costumes and chocolate advertisements they’d all left behind them in the 1960s.
PYG was ultimately too unwieldy a group to stay together and quickly morphed into Julie’s backing band, with ex-Tempter and former chocolate box rival Shou-Ken dropping out of the music business all together for a few years. The remnants of PYG rebranded as the Inoue Takayuki band, who would accompany Julie well into the 1970s. Sally’s bass steady as ever under Sawada’s blazing hot stage presence.
Julie’s solo career is worthy of at least one episode just on it’s own. The highlights of the highlights only give a taste of how hugely popular he was through the 1970s and 80s. His gorgeous second solo album Julie II was recorded at famous Abbey Road studios in London and sounds like heaven itself etched the grooves in the vinyl. It cemented his place in the pop star hierarchy. No longer a teeny bopper icon, although still ranked in as one of the Hottest Guys in Japan for years to come, Julie and the Inoue Takayuki band were it. They were in the lineup for the ambitious 1974 One Step Festival, the largest outdoor festival in Japan at the time, alongside artists like… Yoko Ono. He appeared on the prestigious NHK New Year’s Eve show Kouhaku Utagassen almost twenty times from 1972 to 1994, with and without the Inoue Takayuki band. Julie had number one hit after number one hit. His 1977 meta-lyrical mega hit 勝手にしやがれ (I’ll do things my own way) was one of the biggest songs of the decade, swept every award that year, and is still a go-to song for karaoke and for cover versions with Takarazuka Top Star Makaze Suzuho even singing it live on national television in 2017 on the year end FNS Kayousai. Julie is a pop culture institution. He stayed on top of every trend from 50s retro (“Stripper,” “Darling”) to electronic (“Tokio”) and made them his own. Even as the 80s turned to the 90s and our Jewel Julie was no longer ranking in on the hottest guy in Japan lists, he kept singing and performing and continues to this day through scandal, low sales, and more. Sawada Kenji was and is A Star.
He even dabbled in acting and non-Japanese speaking fans can check out his work in the classic and super homoerotic film (and importantly widely available and subtitled in English) Mishima based on the life and death of author Mishima Yukio who… well, just google him.
Sally, now known by his real name, Kishibe Ittoku, made his acting debut in 1975 in a minor role in a television drama starring Sawada. And it turns out that Kishibe was a natural on the screen. One thing led to another and Kishibe has been steadily working as an actor ever since, starring in dramas and films to this day. His filmography on Wikipedia stretches long, long past his discography. Non-Japanese speaking fans can check out his work in the film Thirteen Assassins, which is widely available with English subtitles and I believe 2006’s Hula Girls is also fairly accessible with English subtitles.
Taro and Shiro were both active in the music business for a time, although neither really had the drive or temperament to be the frontman of a group. Shiro notably worked with the Iwasawa brothers, also known as folk duo Bread and Butter, for a short time, releasing the very charming “Wild Horse” in 1971, written by one of the Iwasawas and arranged by my guy Kuni Kawachi.
Katsumi has also worked steadily as a solo act since the 1970s and although his record sales and songs never quite reached the popularity and heights that his old rival Sawada achieved he remains beloved by his devoted fan base.
And the Tigers? Ironically it is the most un-Tigers of all the Tigers songs, the haunting “Hana no Kubikazari”, which people remember most fondly today. It’s been covered and covered again over the years, to include an absolutely delightful 1980 English language cover by ex-Bay City Rollers front man Leslie McKeown.
Before I leave you with a final song from the Tigers, I think it’s important to highlight one thing about the Tigers story. What struck me while I was reading and researching the Tigers is just how deeply their careers and their art were impacted by women. Something that I’ve said before--the foundation to understanding male idol groups--is that male idol groups cater to women’s tastes in a way that western boy bands don’t. And it was striking to see this borne out in the Tigers biography. Women’s tastes are baked into the genre, at least in Japan. The Tigers would not have been the Tigers without the initial push given by the outspoken president of the Osaka Chapter of the Beatles fan club or the heavy influence of talent Agent Watanabe Misa, Chianti hostess Kawazoe Kajiko aka Tan Tan, and lyricist Yasui Kazumi aka Zuzu. These three women, all in their 30s-40s at the time, had a huge impact on the Tigers’ sound, style, and career trajectory. Could a man have tapped into teenage girls’ deepest desires the way these women did? I don’t think so. The artistic decisions these women made, their tastes, live on in teen idol groups in Japan today. For better or worse, there would be no “Cinderella Girl” from King & Prince in 2018 without Sawada Kenji crooning Shuubi my love to a space princess in 1967.
And on that note, I’ll play us out with a song from Sally and Shiro’s underrated 1970 album Tora70619, this is どうにかなるさwritten by Monsieur Kamayatsu.