Tribute to Wes Across Genres PartⅡ

Tribute to Wes Across Genres PartⅡ

Next, I’d like to introduce you to The Spiders, a band that took Japan by storm in the 1960s. They are not just the kings of Group Sounds but are also representative of the dawn of Japanese rock. Their contribution to Japanese rock is immense.

However, amid the decline and transformation of Group Sounds into pop songs, The Spiders released a unique album in October 1968 to commemorate their seventh anniversary and the centennial of the Meiji era. The album, titled “Meiji Centennial, Spiders’ Seventh Year / PHILIPS FS8020,” was a bold attempt at a total concept album, which was rare in Japan at the time. It featured original compositions, with each member singing a track, avoiding monotony and preventing the album from becoming repetitive.

One of the standout tracks is “Blues for Wes,” composed by Katsuo Ōno, which is, of course, a tribute to Wes Montgomery. Although it’s an instrumental, it includes scatting by Monsieur Kamayatsu, making it an exceptionally charming tribute piece.

Given that this tribute song was released just four months after Wes’s passing, it is probably the first Wes tribute track in the world. I’ve heard that this album was released in response to The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Monsieur Kamayatsu’s liner notes reveal that the recording system used at that time was six-channel (incidentally, “Sgt. Pepper’s” was recorded using two four-channel machines). This luxurious recording setup even allocated two channels for strings and one channel solely for the bass, which was quite extravagant for the time.

While this album is out of print, it has been reissued on the CD below, which is also close to being out of print: “Meiji Centennial, Spiders’ Seventh Year + The Spiders Album No.5” / Teichiku TECN-20390

Here’s a bit of a jacket description: The illustration depicts the famous Asakusa 12-story tower, Ryouunkaku, which was a landmark of the Meiji era with its 12 floors and an elevator. Unfortunately, the building collapsed in the Great Kanto Earthquake and was never rebuilt. If you look closely, you can see the faces of The Spiders members parodied in the windows of Ryouunkaku.