Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Hachiro Kasuga -- Namida Machi (なみだ町)

Hachiro Kasuga's (春日八郎) voice was often described as a beautiful, resonant or strong high tone, but also sad. The "sad" quality, I've come to realise, is what can put people off his songs. 


I once heard a Michiya Mihashi (三橋美智也) fan say that as much as they tried to like Hachi, they simply couldn't - the more they listened to him, the more depressed they got. Hachi had depressing quality to his voice. Oddly enough, that's exactly how Michi's voice is to me, but that was the first time I'd heard such a critique of Hachi and I found it rather intriguing. And then, I recently got a book "Enka no Tatsujin" (演歌の達人) (2001) by Rinichi Sato (佐藤稟一), and the author described Hachi's style in a similar way, albeit with intense vocabulary that tested my painfully average reading skills to the limit. Sato described Hachi's voice as "bukimi" (不気味… eerie, ominous, unearthly), chilling to the heart, and akin to taking a peek into the depths of despair. The lyrics in his songs all tend to have a hollow loneliness to match those dark vocals. Sato did mean this in a relatively positive way, though.

I certainly agree that Hachi's vocals were often tinted with a shade of melancholy and longing, and they can cast a heavier atmosphere on his already sad songs. But I never felt like I was staring into a pit of despair when his delicate voice hit my ears. When I'm down, his voice, even when relaying some of his most melancholic works, doesn't make me feel worse or like a hollowed-out husk. Rather, it feels like he's sharing the pain and crying with me. That, ironically, makes his songs comforting (to me).

Namida Machi” is the first song in this compilation.

One of those instances where this was felt was when listening to "Namida Machi" (Street/Avenue of Tears). Released in February 1969, I would describe as a pleasant, albeit orthodox (oh, geez, it has come to this*) bluesy Mood Kayo. The mid to late 1960s into the early 1970s was when Mood Kayo, particularly of this sort, was all the rage considering the explosive popularity of the husky-voiced Mori Shinichi (森進一) and Fuji Keiko (藤圭子) and their jazz-inspired numbers. Behind many of these anguish-filled hits like "Onna no Tameiki" (女のためいき) was the composer of "Namida Machi," the renowned Kosho Inomata (猪俣公章). So, it is of no surprise that his composition for Hachi here was of such a style. But unlike the likes of Mori and Fuji, Hachi doesn’t sound angry and upset. His sadness is the quiet sort, which his voice conveys.

The whine of the tenor saxophone creates a rather cold and lonely atmosphere in Inomata’s composition. Accompanying that is a languid rhythm reminiscent of a slow step: you're tired and don't feel like walking, but you still push yourself forward with feet dragging. And then we have Hachi's quiet-sad vocals. To Hachi’s frequent collaborator Hiroshi Yokoi's (横井弘) words, Kasuga relays pain and of a man alone after letting go of his lover; he tries to perk himself up at the local bar district, but to no avail, and instead ends up in the titular “street of tears.” Yet, seen in the last stanza, he still holds on to hope for a better tomorrow. I think Hachi expresses this forlornness to a T, his use of the falsetto only accentuates the mix of emotions, and it almost sounds like the main character is trying to hold back his tears. His vocals are what takes this pretty good... orthodox... Mood Kayo up a notch.

Hachi's songs, are by far, the ones that pull the most emotions out of me, generally through the message of encouragement. But I think "Namida Machi" is the song where there isn't the message of, “You can do it!" from Hachi, but more like "It's okay to be sad and cry sometimes." 

And I really feel that.
 

P.S. Okay, I know I didn't do a proper Hachi article for July, but I did talk about Hachi, his relation to one of the great Showa era composers Yoshi Eguchi (江口夜詩) and one of his covers in the article featuring Akira Matsudaira's (松平晃) "Isoge Horo Basha" (急げ幌馬車)  I shall assume that Hachi is fine with the arrangement.

*For some reason, the King Records staff, particularly lyricist and creative director Ryo Yano (矢野亮) loved using the word "orthodox" (written in katakana) to describe Hachi's songs in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The word used to rile me because of how frequently it was peppered into the singer’s album liner notes. But after being inundated with phrases like “orthodox enka” while working on a project, it’s beginning to enter my own lexicon and I am slightly worried.

7 comments:

  1. Hello, Noelle. Well, I guess considering enka has often been used as a medium to express sadness and despair on a grand level, Kasuga, as the Preeminent Enka Singer, can be treated as a messenger of woe, but "eerie, ominous and unearthly" sounds a bit harsh. Those three adjectives I would probably use for something like the Xenomorph in "Alien". For me, Kasuga has been more of a reassuring hand on my shoulder, sympathizing with my blue times.

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    1. Hi, J-Canuck. I think that's the perfect word to describe Hachi's voice: sympathizing.

      The author of "Enka no Tatsujin" seemed to be trying to show how sadness was conveyed in enka via its stars with high-toned voices, but "bukimi" was certainly not the word I was expecting to see, especially not in relation to Hachi. Indeed, I would've used that word for something along the lines of Xenomorph and centipede, and I can't really think of any singer whose voice I'd describe as such either.

      By the way, are you still accepting drafts for the book chapters? I've been getting new insights lately that I may want to include in my piece. If not, then that's fine.

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    2. Hi, Noelle. Yeah, I think when it comes to enka singers generally, I don't find them eerie or unearthly at all. They've all had their levels of reassurance and empathy during their songs.

      Not a centipede fan, eh? I guess you haven't heard about my famous Gunma Centipede Story. :)

      Haven't heard from Li in the last couple of weeks so at this time, he would still be working on the early chapters. Since yours is in the special section later on, you can send over the revised version of your chapter. Just let me know which paragraphs to look out for.

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    3. Hi, J-Canuck.
      Reassurance and empathy is one sort, then there's the angry and or pained sort that feels like a proxy for the listener's anguish, like Kiyoshi Maekawa or Ikuzo Yoshi. Listening to them kinda feels equivalent to going to those places where you can break plates.

      I believe centipedes are demon millipedes and that they should not exist. But I am curious to hear the Gunma Centipede Story. I have my Freshman Dorm Centipede Story too - I think I may have mentioned it before.

      Roger on the chapter thing. I'll send over the revised one soon.

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    4. Hello, Noelle. Breaking plates, eh? That sounds like a Greek restaurant. Strangely enough, I met up with Larry last Friday with a couple of others at one such place for dinner. No plate breaking but we did get the cheese flambé performance.

      As for the Gunma Centipede Story, I had one of those critters sneak into my futon where I was still sleeping in my Gunma house. It went up my leg and then my torso and proceeded to use my open mouth as a cave.

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    5. Hi, J-Canuck.
      Hope you and Larry had a good meetup, and that cheese flambé performance just sounds wild... And you can flambé cheese...?

      I'm surprised with how much *worse* the GCS was than what I was expecting. My 2am showdown with one of those things somehow pales in comparison, and I'm glad I'm no longer living on the ground floor. But I'm sensing a pattern here: They like to launch their attack at night. Sneaky. Devious. Bukimi.

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    6. Me and insects have a long and storied past. As for the saganaki, yep, it can be flambeed. Strangely enough, the restaurant in the YouTube video below has the same name as the one we went to (although that one is in Chicago), but you can see how the saganaki is served.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzbOZBgWh9I

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Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.