Japanese Tears

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Track list

Disc 1

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About

From Wikipedia:

Japanese Tears is the third album by guitarist Denny Laine, released shortly before the demise of Paul McCartney’s band Wings, of which Laine was a member. The album was released in 1980.

Background

In January 1980, Wings planned a tour of Japan. However, upon the band’s arrival at the airport in Japan, Paul McCartney was arrested for marijuana possession. The tour was cancelled, and McCartney then decided to release a solo album (McCartney II) instead of touring, putting Wings on hiatus.

Laine decided to work on his own solo project (his third since joining Wings), and he released a single, “Japanese Tears”. It became the title track of his album.

The album also included three previously unreleased Laine compositions—”Send Me The Heart” (co-written by Paul McCartney), “I Would Only Smile”, and “Weep for Love”—that had been recorded by different versions of Wings between 1972 and 1978 with Laine singing lead. In addition, it featured remakes of the Moody Blues’ 1965 hit “Go Now“, which Laine and Wings performed on tour, and a 1967 Laine composition, “Say You Don’t Mind”, that had become a top-20 UK hit in 1972 for Colin Blunstone. Two other songs featured the short-lived Denny Laine Band, which included fellow Wings member Steve Holley on drums, Andy Richards on keyboards and Laine’s wife Jo Jo on backing vocals.

This album has been re-issued several times, under a variety of titles, on an assortment of labels.

Reception

AllMusic gave the album a generally positive retrospective review, calling it “a look at one of rock’s minor league players done well.” They remarked that the album lacks coherency due to the tracks having been both written and recorded during wildly divergent periods of Laine’s career, but found that it nonetheless has “charm”, singling out the title track and “Go Now” as highlights.

From Denny Laine, CultureSonar interview, December 24, 2018:

Q: Your Japanese Tears album expresses muscular vitality and vulnerability. Did it represent where you stood as both an artist and a musician in 1980?

A: Obviously, it was expired with Paul’s bust in Japan. We were getting the experience from the fans who didn’t get to see the tour. The upset. They weren’t angry but upset. They couldn’t get to see the band. I just wrote that as a single song and then it turned into an album. It was the start of me being in the studio of myself, start of a whole new era. It wasn’t my first album, I had Ahh… Laine. But it was me starting a new era. Again, we had to come to do the strings as overdubs. Steve Holley would play things, but I played most of the things myself… Paul and Linda weren’t on the album. Maybe they were on the songs I did with Wings. “Send Me The Heart” I recorded with Paul in Nashville. “Weep for Love” was another song. These were tracks that I can’t remember if they were on this one or another one. These were songs I had from Wings which weren’t used but I had permission to use them which is neither here nor there. But the album started off as a song from the feeling from the fans and turned into an album.

Last updated on October 21, 2022