lunchbox of songs / Yoshiko Hanzaki
"An album packed with songs with various taste. The contents are seven songs, and one more song as extra helping. Each song is substantial like main dish, having taste with variety. Bon appetit to your heart's content!"I suppose it's not irrelevant to describe her that she is like a synonym for a proverb that persistence pays off.For seventeen years until Yoshiko made a release of her first major-label album in 2017, she kept on writing songs while she worked at a bakery as a live-in worker.She has kept on performance mainly at shopping malls, so she is often described as a shopping mall diva.She has met various people at those places and touched various people's lives.That's why her songs touch the heartstrings of people -such as "Sakura -sotsugyou dekinakatta kimie" (cherry -dear friend who couldn't graduate-), a song about a schoolgirl recalling a deceased friend at graduation season in spring, and "Inaho" (ears of rice), a mashup with "Amazing Grace".Some of her songs are realistic, such as "Obentoubakono uta" (a song of lunchbox) -a story of a mother who prepare packed lunch for children every day, and her latest song "Hahae" (to my mother).According to self-introduction note on Yoshiko's official website, she worked at the bakery six days a week and wrote songs in her spare time, living on bread left unsold.Even during long obscurity, somehow she absolutely trusted in herself and her music.Putting aside how she could gain opportunity to perform at shopping malls,She kept working on music and live performance individually without belonging to agencies.As a result, more and more listeners felt sympathy with not only Yoshiko's songs but also her own way of life, and she gradually won favorable coverage in the media, until a front man of a national band in our country praised her as Japanese Anita Baker.Shikao Suga, a male rock singer, once said that when he changed his career from a company employee and made his debut at age 31 in 1997, he was told that his debut was improbably late.Unfortunately, there are still moss-headed men who appraise women that the younger, the more superior.Needless to say, real music fans don't have such code of value,But at the same time, I imagine that her songs could cause a stir in such shallow frivolous sense of value in our country, and she might be a pioneer in our country by carrying out her own way of life.One of her dreams is that her songs are placed on school textbook of music.(Translation: Unable-to-think-up-handle)April 5, 2017 Crown Record CRCP-40505Who is 400,000th visitor!?◇:Ready to place translation if asked