Y2K, 23 and Fred

Sali Oguri "Before We Say Goodnight" from Pink Manhattan (EP 2005, Wuj Productions), the ending theme I wrote for New Yorkers TV show

Before I got a TV show on NHK (Japan), I sang for a year at The Water's Edge restaurant in Long Island City, Queens. As its name depicted, it was a gorgeous restaurant on the waterfront overlooking the New York skyline. I was there just 3 nights a week with a pianist who played there 5 nights a week, who was visually a long-haired hard rock musician but versatile enough to play everything authentically well, from jazz to classical to rock and heavy metal keyboards. My job was to keep up with him, singing everything from jazz standards to rock, and dance music if we were playing an event upstairs in the catering hall where weddings and New Year's Eve parties were held.

I wasn't the kind of singer who performed mostly at clubs and bars. I played at restaurants, private parties and outdoor festivals, and just once at a stadium in Kobe. I was neither cool nor competitive enough to land those jobs. However, I was perfectly happy singing at such a beautiful establishment wearing a long black gown which became both my uniform and signature look, accompanied by piano or a small ensemble, usually an electric guitar, a double or electric bass, and drums, played by men and women in black tuxedos or gowns. By the time drummers started using V-drums on gigs, these kinds of jobs were getting harder to find. I look back and think, wistfully, that I didn't deserve to eat such fancy dinners prepared by a chef while I worked there: fish and asparagus with Hollandaise, and just once, lamb chops some waiters brought to our stage. They treated me exceptionally well, and I had gotten along with the lovely bartender as well; for the short period of time I was there, I lived my best young adult life before I turned 23.

Fred, my husband of over 25 years and a musician, was no novice to the world of clubs and bars, although by the time we met, he was playing catering halls, too. He sang and played The Bitter End, Kenny's Castaways, CBGB and a host of other legendary New York venues as a frontman for his own original music, as well as produced music for major record labels, American and Japanese, traveling to Japan 3 times, long before I started singing the wedding circuit in local bands and through agencies like Steven Scott. We met through music in a roundabout way, but it wasn't until times got rough for me, and I was merely surviving.

The '90s seemed like the golden years until DJs became the go-to for entertainment. Musicians quickly adapted to playing more modern dance music, but the scene became too competitive, and I found myself struggling to pay rent. Thank God I landed a Japanese TV show, even if it meant my singing days would be outnumbered by days on location, speaking in front of a TV camera. I sometimes wonder if I would have lived such a charmed life as singer-turned-host had Bill Clinton not run for president at the time, with his outstanding musical chops displayed before the music-savvy American audience playing a mean saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. The smooth jazz sound of CD101.9 FM had gone national; musicians worked again, waiters became actors, and I gratefully took the jobs that came my way through steadily working musicians like Fred Kimmel, a real New York legend.

Listen now to Fred Kimmel "Spiral" on Broadjam.

Listen now to Fred Kimmel "ICU" on Broadjam.