Shinichi Mori/Keiko Fuji -- Sakariba Blues （盛り場ブルース）

I hadn't seen veteran enka singer Shinichi Mori（森進一）in quite some time so I was glad that he did show up on the annual "Omoide no Melody"（思い出のメロディー...Melody of Memories）broadcast about a couple of weeks ago. I was a bit worried about his health.

Had a craving of sorts for some of that old-fashioned Mood Kayo from a time when I was still toddling around in my diapers so I went with what was probably his 7th single from December 1967, "Sakariba Blues".

When I first saw the term, I had no idea what sakariba meant. And at the relevant J-Wiki article for the song, there was a fairly comprehensive list of these sakariba areas in 7 major Japanese cities. Several of them were already known to me and so when I punched the term into jisho.org, I found out that it was another expression for "entertainment district".

In any case, Mori namedrops the whole lot of these places while he's crooning away. I know the Tokyo ones: Ginza, Akasaka, Roppongi, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro. "Sakariba Blues", despite the relatively fast pace of the ballad, is very much a blues song since the singer relates the hard-luck story of a woman, presumably a hostess working in one of those areas or even a frequent customer there, who is grieving at the loss of a relationship. There is probably no lonelier situation than crying in your beer while everyone else is living it up around you.

Although this was about a year before the Oricon rankings came in, "Sakariba Blues" did well enough so that there was a movie adaptation with the same title (with the English title of "Blue Neon"). According to the J-Wiki article, it was the second such adaptation following "Yanagase Blues"（柳ヶ瀬ブルース）the year before, and so the movie has been labeled as the second movie in the "Yoru no Kayo Series"（夜の歌謡シリーズ...The Night Kayo Series）. Mori even has third billing as an actor. Come to think of it, I have never seen the man in a movie or TV drama.

Saburo Fuji（藤三郎）and Chiaki Murakami（村上千秋）wrote the lyrics while Miyoshi Jo（城美好）composed the song. There was also a cover version by none other than the Queen of Kayo Blues herself, Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）although I couldn't find out when this cover came out. "Sakariba Blues" may have been made for Mori but with Fuji doing her version, I couldn't have asked for anyone better to handle the concept of loss deep down in the hard-bitten streets of Tokyo or any other city.