Ryo Kagawa -- Kyokun I（教訓I）

 

Recently, a comment that I received under Toshiki Kadomatsu's（角松敏生）"1975" mentioned singer-songwriter Ryo Kagawa（加川良）. This is a name that I had heard before and the commenter also noted that Kagawa had been involved in some City Pop. With my interest piqued, I started looking him up.

Well, I read that Kagawa was more of a folk singer-songwriter who was born in Shiga Prefecture in the Kansai region, and part of his claim to fame was his debut single "Kyokun I" (Lesson One) from July 1971. It's a gently delivered country folk tune created by the singer along with lyricist Ryo Ueno（上野瞭）. However, it has also been described as one of the more highly critical anti-war songs with Kagawa singing that he would prefer to be one of the surviving idiots rather than the honoured dead. His file at Wikipedia gives more of his political stance which includes references to "Kyokun I".

Kagawa was influenced by singers such as Nobuyasu Okabayashi（岡林信康）and was an influence himself on singers like Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi（長渕剛）. The singer passed away in April 2017 at the age of 69 due to acute myelomonocytic leukemia.