Konomi Mori -- Yuugiri Minato（夕霧港）

 

I'm not sure how often it happens during the year, but my family managed to watch a variety special last night featuring some of the star sumo wrestlers and some singers together to perform songs and games. Current ozeki Takayasu（高安）was one of the performers and as you can hear him above, he's no slouch in the karaoke department either. 

The folks here in my household watch examples from both the worlds of sumo and music a lot and we are looking forward to the spring tournament in Osaka starting next week. What I hadn't been aware of, though, was that Takayasu, someone that we are familiar with in the dohyo, has been married to enka singer Konomi Mori（杜このみ）since 2020. Mori is also a singer that we've become familiar with on the usual kayo kyoku shows such as "Uta Con"（うたコン）. I never made the connection, although of course, I know that sumo rikishi and entertainers have gotten married such as former 1970s aidoru Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）and the former Wakashimazu（若嶋津）. 

Mori has been mentioned once on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in Noelle Tham's article on Takashi Hosokawa's（細川たかし）"Bokyo Jonkara" (望郷じょんから) since Mori was a student of the veteran Hosokawa. But I wanted to feature her via her most recent single from July 2024, "Yuugiri Minato" (Port of Evening Mist), a song that she performed on that variety special. Written by Kano Madoka*（円香乃）and composed by Chiaki Oka（岡千秋）, it is a typical enka of love gained and lost with a pier as the site of reflection with a lot of fog rolling in. It reached No. 48 on Oricon.

*I'm not sure whether the above is the proper way to say the lyricist's name. If anyone can confirm or deny this, please let me know.