Hosono House is the debut solo studio album by Japanese musician Haruomi Hosono. Released on May 25, 1973, the album was released after the break up of Hosono's former band, Happy End.
Background and recording Hosono recorded House in his residence of Amerikamura, an American-styled neighborhood located in the city of Sayama. The album was recorded for five hours every afternoon in a large bedroom with a 16-track mixing console in his living room. The instruments were recorded unprocessed from the amplifiers in a small room, leading to the album's unique sound.
Besides Hosono, this album also features performances by the group "Caramel Mama" (featuring Hosono's fellow Happy End member Shigeru Suzuki). Hosono wanted to emulate The Band's Music from Big Pink and James Taylor's One Man Dog. With this album, recording equipment technology had evolved enough for domestic recordings of good quality to be feasible, and going to the center of the city to reach a recording studio was somewhat inconvenient.
Track listing
Personnel Haruomi Hosono – Bass, Guitar, Flat Mandolin, Vocal, Melodica, Thumb piano (on "Party"), Piano (on "Party"), Horn (Wind and Brass) Arrangements, Production, Sony TC-9400 Masataka Matsutoya – Piano, Fender Rhodes, Accordion Shigeru Suzuki – Electric guitar Tatsuo Hayashi – Drums, Percussion Hiroki Komazawa – Steel guitar Kinji Yoshino – Horn Arrangements, Engineering, Re-Mix Engineering Masaki Nomura – Engineering Production Shinzo Ishiura, WIND CORPORATION – Management Ritsu Kamimura – Transportation Misako Hosono – Cooking Mitsunori Miura (for BELLWOOD RECORDS) – Executive Production Masahiro Nogami – Photography WORK SHOP MU!! – Art Direction VERANSKY MIKKO MOKKO MINAKO, YAMAZAKI & Neighbour Foods – Special Thanks CITY MUSIC CORPORATION – Publishing ALFA MUSIC – Publishing for "Owari no Kisetsu" SHINKO MUSIC – Publishing for "Aiaigasa" Reissue staff Mitsunori Miura – Supervision Ēji Ogura – Auxiliary Supervision Masakazu Kitanaka – Liner Notes Junichi Yamada – Liner Notes Editing Hiroyuki Tsuji – Remastering Engineering Approach – Design Junichi Yamashita – Design Coordination Katsumi Miyata & Jōwa Honda – A&R
Popular culture Harry Styles explained how he came up with the title for his 2022 album Harry's House: "The album is named after Haruomi Hosono, he had an album in the '70s called Hosono's House, and I spent that chunk in Japan; I heard that record and I was like 'I love that.[...] It'd be really fun to make a record called Harry's House'."
See also 1973 in Japanese music
References