KANENOBU, SACHIKO - Misora

Originally reissued in 2006 by Chapter Music, this is the 1972 debut album by Sachiko Kanenobu, an artist generally acknowledged as the first Japanese woman to release an album of her own songwriting. Its a near-perfect folk masterpiece, alternating full-bodied arrangements (produced by Harry Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Happy End) with Sachikos lonesome guitar and pure, soaring vocals. Discovered as a precocious 18 year-old in Osaka, Sachiko was signed in 1968 to Japans first real independent record label, URC (Underground Record Club), who changed Japans musical landscape irrevocably in the late 60s and early 70s with artists like Happy End, Folk Crusaders and Kenji Endo. Sachiko was the only female artist on this era-defining label. But just a few months before Misora (roughly translated as Beautiful Sky") was released, Sachiko left Japan and secretly emigrated to America to marry music critic Paul Williams (Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone). She did not record again for almost a de