Stereo Steal Guitar Mood
File this one under ‘Japanese Easy Listening Steel Guitar Exotica’. All the text on this record is in Japanese except for ‘Made In Japan’ on the back cover and ‘Stereo Steal Guitar Mood’ (with the typo) on the record label. Maybe a Japanese reader can tell me the name of the artist or what the cover actually says.
Anyway it appears that somebody at Columbia Japan decided to hire a lap steel guitarist, a ukelele player, a Les Baxter-style percussionist and to record this strange album of lilting Japanese melodies. Some of the tunes are less than memorable but the one i’ve posted below has undeniable echoes of Japanese folk melody, a rhythmic feel that reminds me of that Tiki Lounge/Exotica sound, and the clincher – the lonesome twang of the steel guitar. I can also tell you that the album was priced at 1800 Yen. Other than that…wakarimasen.
Audio clip here.
3 Comments
What a welcome post. I dearly love the lap steel too, or more precisely, lap steel in unlikely settings. This audio clip is so nice. Lovers of lap steel where you least expect it should hunt down my all-time favourite reggae LP, Rasta Communication by Keith Hudson from his NY period on Joint Records. Trax with a bad, opiated floating inertia that easily achieve a haunting. I can’t post because the only copy I ever saw I magnanimously gifted to my brother for a birthday. Straight after that I borrowed it back for a couple of years but when I moved to France he slammed a fist on the coffee table and made me hand it over. There’s another lap steel one I can recommend but damn, the synapses won’t work for me right now to call it to mind. I’ll have a little lie down.
I can’t see what the small text down the bottom says. But all it says in red at the top right is Columbia Records. And in big on the cover is just Stereo Steel Guitar Mood.
Think I saw an album called “Steel Guitar Mood”
by Teddy Ikeda. If that helps….