It has been (and still is) a very busy period and one of my little personal relaxation/decompression rituals is my Saturday night Blues/Jazz album listening. Continuing with the "exploration" of the Japanese part of my collection, this post is devoted to the 1971 debut album of Carmen Maki, Blues Creation.
Considered (still until these days) a legend in the Japanese Blues Rock Scene, Carmen Maki is fronting here Blues Creation band (who in the same year had also released their Demon & Eleven Children album before disbanding and reforming a few years later as simply The Creation) presenting eight Blues/Rock songs. The material may not be the most original one but what (at least to my ears) makes this album an enjoyable listening is Maki's accent which is stripped of any Asian "exoticism" (something partially owed to her ancestry - her father was American) and the production which is very "contemporary" and makes the songs sound much heavier than expected for an album that was released in 1971. I am not sure if there has been some kind of "remastering" in my copy (I do not own a first or an original press) or this is the result of the Japanese devotion to high-fidelity but it is surprising that this album is not wider known in the Western world (something unusual as Japan together with Korea are the Asian countries that have been mostly influenced by the western pop/rock culture).
A copy of Blues Creation is not hard to find these days and in my opinion is a good recommendation for those who love blues influenced Hard Rock.
