Eri Ohno -- Skyfire

TGIF! Wow, haven't used that expression in a long time. I remember that the restaurant TGIF did make its way to Tokyo long ago. I went to a few branches of the American franchise in Shibuya and Shinagawa with students-turned-friends and the menu was hit-and-miss OK. That one time in the Shinagawa branch, though, didn't turn out too well, though. The spareribs we got were charcoal-hard and even Fred Flintstone would have been aghast at how they turned out.

Anyways, it is indeed Friday night as I write this so it's time for a funky City Pop tune. And my browsings managed to discover this song by Eri Ohno（大野えり）, "Skyfire". Man, does it cook! If Quincy Jones at that time had heard this, he could have invited her to perform on that Michael Jackson album without Michael Jackson, "The Dude". The bass seems to have gotten a good share of praise according to the comments on YouTube, and for the record, the bassist was Yoshifumi Okajima（岡嶋善文）. I've mentioned this for a number of City Pop numbers on the blog, but this would definitely sound mighty fine on a car radio bombing down a Tokyo highway. Ohno might be identified as a jazz singer but I think she did just as well on the R&B circuit.

"Skyfire" was a track on Ohno's 4th album from 1981, "Good Question". In fact, it was also the debut album for the band Good Question which was Ohno's own unit formed the year before. The band's guitarist Koji Sakuyama（作山功二）and Francis G. Eddy created the song. Good Question, though, broke up in 1988.