Sunday 6 April 2008

Carmen Maki

Hey! Just a quick post to introduce the charms of Japan's Carmen Maki, with a fanastic folk effort from the early stage of her career and before things got a bit more, em....., heavy! Born in 1951, her career has lasted from the mid-60's to the present day. I nabbed the longer version of this song from YouTube before it dissapeared - phew! If anyone can reccomend any similar artists (female of course!) from Japan I would be more than a happy chappy!





6 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh wow.
even though i don't understand a word of japanese, that song still sounds amazing. :D

Anonymous said...

Betsy & Chris were an American folk duo who sang in Japanese, and were very popular in that country in the '60s. Their hit "Shiroi iro wa koibito no iro" is an absolute stunner and this video of them performing it is brilliant too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr0vw0c-_W8

cinnamonK said...

Hey! - Heads up on the info on Betsy and Chris - beautiful song and girls!

Anonymous said...

…nice. Maybe you like morita doji. http://citiesonflamewithrockandroll.blogspot.com/2007/06/morita-doji-boy.html

Anthony Dolphin said...

Carmen Maki still plays reguarly in Japan and is still in fine voice. The Japanese compilation 'Best & Cult' is a good place to start for her pre-Oz folkish sides.

For more great Japanese female artists, I can unreservedly recommend: Maki Asakawa (Nico without the laughs), Ito Yukari (string-drenched 60s teen ballads), Sachiko Kanenobu (wintry folk), Hana Ari (lush 60s pop), Sadistic Mika Band (Roxy-esque shiny 70s power pop), Mina (Francoise Hardy style baroque 60s folk pop), The Peanuts (60s girl group), Yoko Nagisa (decadent, blood cabaret), Jon The Dog (indescribable - but I tried to describe her here: http://www.geocities.com/santasprees/ccjon.html)

Anonymous said...

Hi!I just saw Carmen in concert last week in Japan...she (honestly) can sings just as good now...very nice woman...signed a few things and we talked about San Francisco and all that too....good time...thanks for your blog :)

Jonathan