Wednesday, March 09, 2011

JOHN O'BANION - Satomi Hakken-Den (1983)

JOHN O'BANION Satomi Hakken-Den Legend Of Eight Samurai 1983
Requested by kissmar, enjoy mate...

John O'Banion (RIP) was one of the smoothest voices in Westcoast AOR history. His '81 self titled album and 'Danger' ('82) are true gems and still sound fresh today thanks to the production-wise and songwriting abilities by the industry monsters Joey Carbone & Richie Zito.


One of the '82 singles went to No. 24 on the Billboard magazine, then O'Banion, Zito & Carbone were invited to go to Japan for a five-city concert tour and to compete in the Tokyo Music Festival. They won the grand prize as best performance and best arranger awards.

When Carbone returned to America, feels some kind of magnet pulling him back towards Japan, so asked to his music publisher find a place into a Japanese project.
He offered to him, Zito & O'Banion as a working combo, the soundtrack for the Kadokawa movie "Satomi Hakken Den".
Known in the west as "Legend of Eight Samurai", the film was the number one Japanese film on the domestic market in 1984, earning ¥ 2.3 billion, and the theme song (a ballad translated "I Don't Want This Night To End") the first O'Banion / Carbone big hit in Japan.
The other song composed (with Richie Zito) to the movie, "White Light", is a very nice commercial poppy AOR tune full of magic.

The trio put together both songs and the rest of the material they've been working, on what become the third John O'Banion solo album: "Satomi Hakken Den: [Legend Of Eight Samurai soundtrack]", disc also known as "White Light", only released in Japan.
The track "Body Heat" sounds like a work-out gym song so popular those years, "Turn Out The Light" is filled with orchestral keyboards and electronic drums (a very action-movie-like tune), same with "She Dreams Of You". I love this kind of stuff.
"We Can't Go On" and "She Dreams Of You" are more poppy (the latter sounding as a 'Flashdance' left off), on "Techno Pheliac" they go pretty techno indeed, a very synth based track, while "I Need Love" and specially the beautiful "We Can Dream" are in the style of earlier O'Banion material.

The disc was released on vinyl ('83), and there's only a very limited 1000 copies edition on CD, Japan only.
This is a rip at maximum quality, including artwork, from that very rare CD.
A beautiful bunch of songs.
Highly Recommended


01 - Hakkenshi's Theme (White Light)
02 - Body Heat
03 - Turn Out The Light
04 - We Can't Go On
05 - She's The One
06 - Satomi Hakken-Den (I Don't Want This Night To End)
07 - She Dreams Of You
08 - I Need Love
09 - Techno Pheliac
10 - We Can Dream


John O'Banion: Vocals
Richie Zito: Guitars, Bass, Programming
Joey Carbone: Keyboards, Syths, Programming
John Pierce: Bass
Carlos Vega: Drums
... and various unlisted musicians

Produced & Arranged by
Joey Carbone and Richie Zito


Thanks troynew!

5 Comments:

troynew said...

I take it this is the rip I posted on EOTW a few years ago? :-)
(Still amazed a fellow collector friend of mine didn't snap it up for himself when he found the CD for me at the Utrecht record fair. He didn't own a copy either.)

KISSMAR said...

Gracias Sr jaja!! muy dificil,lo tenia averiado y mal sonido

Saludos

Camelblue said...

@ troynew:
Yeap, completely forgot that... let me credit you on the post.
A friend gave me the artwork (Jap original as yours) not the bootleg posted by me @ your EOTW thread.

Anonymous said...

Might be rare, but this one sure wasn't his best. Like this first two a lot better.

Anonymous said...

Only 1000 copies on CD? May I ask about your source for this info? THX.