Naoki Sanada -- Ni-Yon-Roku (246)

 

There didn't seem to be a theme for the latest episode of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）a couple of nights ago, but I did pick up on at least a couple of songs during the broadcast.

Wherever you are reading this, I'm not sure whether you have parts of your national highways taking on different street names. Over here in Toronto, our main north-south route known as Yonge St. becomes Highway 11 outside of the city limits and just goes all the way north for hundreds of kilometres. In Tokyo, there's a similar if far shorter route that begins as Aoyama Street near the Diet Building and extends through the entertainment district of Shibuya and then becomes National Route 246 as it goes into Kanagawa Prefecture and finally ends in the city of Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture after a little over 125 kilometres. Walking through Shibuya all the time way back when, I must have put my footsteps onto Aoyama Street/Route 246 a fair number of times myself.

It seems my Naoki Sanada（真田ナオキ）entries are coming in on an annual basis. Last year, I put up his "Yoe Nee yo!"（酔えねぇよ！）, but for this year at least, it's his latest single from May, "Ni-Yon-Roku", which was written and composed by his teacher, singer-songwriter Ikuzo Yoshi（吉幾三）. With this one, Sanada sings about inviting that lucky lady for a night out in his car painting the town red in Tokyo and then heading even further west. As usual, Sanada brings his lusty vocal brio which matches how Yoshi usually tackled his own tunes back in the day.

Although Sanada has been branded as an enka singer and certainly, I've labeled some of this other tunes as enka, I have to say that "Ni-Yon-Roku" is just too brassy and downtown party-hearty for that label. Perhaps I can categorize it as a very modern Mood Kayo or a New Adult Music tune.