Motohiro Hata -- Nagori Yuki（なごり雪）

 

Although Torontonians learn never to say never when it comes to seasonal events such as snow, and yes, snow has fallen here in May, I think that we can all finally breathe some relief and perhaps do things such as change our snow tires back to summer ones. If you are Torontonian and you read this article, knock on wood firmly...just to be on the safe side.😉

Now, this is a song that I heard a few months ago on the "Weather Music" segment of "Weathernews Live" when snow was still all too real a thing in my neck of the woods. "Nagori Yuki" (Winter's-End Snow) has been a favourite of mine when I first heard it by 70s aidoru Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）on the 1982 edition of the Kohaku Utagassen and then heard the most famous 1975 cover version by folk singer Iruka（イルカ）. The original version was by folk band Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）and placed on their 1974 4th album, "Sankai Tate no Uta"（三階建ての詩...Three-Floor Poem). 

The "Weather Music" segment had singer-songwriter Motohiro Hata（秦基博）perform his own take on "Nagori Yuki" and it still retains that wistful and woodsy flavour of the 1970s versions. There is nothing over-the-top here...it's Hata and his guitar for the most part, and that is all that is needed to send the emotion out to people. Hata's version was a track on an extra CD that was only available in the first pressings of his October 2010 3rd album "Documentary" which hit No. 3 on Oricon.

MAO -- Hikikomori no Mainichi（ひきこもりの毎日）

 

Welcome to Hump Day! Indeed, Wednesdays can be rather blah but over here at least, considering that we had a very waterlogged April, I'm happy that May has come in blazingly sunny and not too cold either. 

A few years ago, I was once jokingly accused by a relative on whether I had become a hikikomori (a shut-in). I didn't counter too forcefully since, yes I admitted, I never really did go all that much and the pandemic was putting a major curb on person-to-person socialization. Plus, my room often appeared as if a mini-tornado had ripped through the place. But as it is in 2024, outside of the odd invitation to lunch, a movie or dinner, I'm usually as snug as a bug on a rug staying within the neighbourhood and writing out my two articles a day at least on "Kayo Kyoku Plus".

Recently, I came across this short and sweet video by singer-songwriter MAO,（眞魚）aka Tomoe Kurohata, a self-described outlaw and nerd. Titled "Hikikomori no Mainichi" (The Daily Life of a Shut-In), her song came out in the last couple of months, and I had been expecting something akin to technopop. Instead, it's a mix of rap and old soul delivered in a smooth velvety voice while MAO is sticking around in her room. Basically the attitude is "Heck, I'm done with the speeches...I'll be in my futon".

Looking at the video, I confess that MAO has one up on me in her circumstances. She at least seems to have a more modern and comfortable swivel chair than I do.🪑

LanLan Suzuki -- Nakanai zoe（泣かないぞェ）

 

I was doing my usual maintenance of the various articles on KKP recently when I came across the September 2016 article I did for LanLan Suzuki's（鈴木蘭々）EPO-penned bossa nova "Kimi to Boku"（キミとボク）. Now, as it turns out, that had been the one-and-only posting I wrote for this tarento that had once been all over television in the early years of my Tokyo/Chiba stint as an English conversation teacher.

In the crowded world of Japanese entertainment with its tarento, singers, thespians and comedians, Suzuki could stand out on her looks alone. She had that short but thick pile of hair, eyes as big as an anime character's, and a quirky personality. For all of her appearances, she had a brief and perhaps uneventful part of her career as a singer although her penultimate single "Kimi to Boku" is a very pleasant tune for the whole family. I did wonder what she was up to in the last twenty years or so and I'm happy to see that she has her own YouTube channel as is evident above. I also read on her J-Wiki profile that she released her first BEST album last year to commemorate her 35th anniversary in show business.

Well, seeing that I've only had the one Suzuki song represented on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I guess it's time to bring another one of her other songs to the fore. Instead of one of her last singles, I'm bringing aboard her debut single from August 1995, "Nakanai zoe" (Ain't Gonna Cry) which sounds like one cheerfully defiant tune with a hint of Motown written by Suzuki and Shin or Makoto Morizono（森園真）. The composer was none other than the late great Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Not sure whether that "zoe" at the end of the title is a childish suffix or some dialectal affectation but I wouldn't be surprised if Suzuki had said something like that on one of her shows sometime somewhere. "Nakanai zoe" was used as the theme song for a variety show, "Imada Koji no Shibuya-kei Ura Ringo"（今田耕司のシブヤ系うらりんご...Koji Imada's Shibuya-kei Rear Apple[?]）.

As for the romanization of her first name, I've come across either RanRan or LanLan so I gather that the lady has been rather liberal about how her stage name is read. Her real name is Tomoko Suzuki（鈴木智子）, by the way.

Songs in Honour of Showa Day（昭和の日）

 

I failed to mention this yesterday but April 29th is part of the Golden Week holiday season in Japan and it's currently known as Showa Day. It had been celebrated as Emperor Hirohito's (the Showa era emperor) birthday until his death in early 1989 and then it was known as Greenery Day until 2007, when it was given its current name (Greenery Day is now May 4th).

Since there has been some nostalgic attraction for the culture of the Showa era (1926-1989), that's how I've usually seen Showa Day...not so much for the veneration of the late emperor but for what the times and trappings were like for ordinary people in Japan. Apparently, there is a Showa era museum in Aichi Prefecture as you can see above via MEGULOG's video. My particular examples of Showa era culture that regularly pop up in my memories are the old public phones of different sizes and colours, and the old-style kissaten as you can view in Mikki Café & Life below. Personally, my Showa era café will always be Café Renoir, the long-running franchise.

But of course, this being a kayo kyoku blog, I wanted to give my own contribution to Showa Day in terms of culture by providing some of the old songs. I'd wondered if I could find some sort of Top 5 list regarding memorable kayo kyoku but really couldn't find anything, so I've decided to come up with my own list of six songs representing each decade from the 1930s to the 1980s (sorry, couldn't remember anything from the 1920s). There wasn't any great research or all-night brain wracking for these songs...they just popped into my head and together they can perhaps show how music changed during the Showa era. So, without further ado...

(1936) Ichiro Fujiyama -- Tokyo Rhapsody（東京ラプソディ）

(1949) Hibari Misora -- Kanashiki Kuchibue （悲しき口笛）

(1959) Frank Nagai & Kazuko Matsuo -- Tokyo Nightclub （東京ナイトクラブ）

(1968)  The Tigers -- Hana no Kubi Kazari (花の首飾り）

(1976)  Momoe Yamaguchi -- Yokosuka Story （横須賀ストーリー）

(1983) Anzen Chitai -- Wine-Red no Kokoro （ワインレッドの心）

Perhaps you have your own list over the decades of personal favourites over the Showa era.

Ikuzo Yoshi -- Venezia Monogatari（ヴェネツィア物語）

 

As I mentioned in my previous article on Masako Oka's（岡雅子） "Yume Zaiku"（夢細工）, Japan has entered its annual Golden Week holidays and so has its television programming. So, this morning, instead of the usual hour-long NHK "News Watch 9", we only got an abbreviated version of the news for half an hour and then for the next hour, we were able to watch a new hour-long episode of "Sekai wa Hoshiimono ni Afureteru"（世界はほしいモノにあるふれてる...This World is Filled With Wants）, the program specializing on the voyages and adventures of Japanese buyers looking for innovative products to place in their stores back home. 

"Seka Hoshi" did have a regular spot on either Tuesday or Wednesday but it's now been coming out as the occasional special. I've enjoyed the series as something calming to watch so I was able to lap up the latest trip by co-host Ryota Suzuki（鈴木亮平）as he enjoyed the sights, sounds and food of Italy including the magical city of Venice. I confess that I've never had much of a desire to travel but after seeing the images of the shops, canals and restaurants in the Italian city, some spark of interest welled up within me about this particular place.

Well, I figured that there must be a kayo kyoku about Venice somewhere since Shinichi Mori（森進一）was able to get a hit out of his 1982 song "Fuyu no Riviera"（冬のリヴィエラ）. And sure enough, it didn't take much of a search to discover that another enka veteran, Ikuzo Yoshi（吉幾三）, came up with his own tribute to Venice, "Venezia Monogatari" (Venice Story). A track from his February 2015 album "Ai Arigato"（愛・ありがとう...Love, Thank You）, Yoshi wrote and composed this love-drenched tale of romance within the City of Canals. With the instrumentation and rhythm involved, I have categorized it as a New Adult Music piece (somewhere between enka and pop) but there was still something...probably Yoshi's vocals...that still pulled the song strongly back to the enka side.

Masako Oka -- Yume Zaiku（夢細工）/Masako Oka & Noriko Ishiwatari -- Mako to Nonko no Gokigen Ikaga 1-2-3（マコとノンコのごきげんいかが1・2・3）

 

Happy Monday! It's just the start of another regular work week here in the Greater Toronto Area although we will be getting our first major holiday weekend for the summer season in a few weeks with Victoria Day. It is the beginning of the Golden Week holidays in Japan, though, and as a result, it feels that way in my household, partially because Jme has gone onto holiday programming with the regular shows going on GW hiatus.

Well, whichever side of the International Date Line you are on, let's proceed with this week's crop of kayo kyoku/J-Pop delights with a fairly unusual single. Masako Oka（岡雅子）doesn't have a particularly long J-Wiki file but she is a seiyuu, singer and radio personality although there is no discography listed there for her music. However, there is at least one of her singles up on YouTube titled "Yume Zaiku" (Dream Work) which was released in August 1981. Written by Man Kuroki（くろき漫）, composed by Koji Shiba（柴公二）and arranged by Tadashige Matsui（松井忠重）, it's a very polished piece of down-home City Pop with a touch of bossa nova, reminiscent of Keiko Maruyama's（丸山圭子）classic "Douzo Kono Mama" (どうぞこのまま）from several years back, and the cover of the single revealing an intentionally foggy photo of the singer giving that thousand-yard gaze seals the deal. 

Now, the unusual part happens with a flip of the 45". The B-side is "Mako to Nonko no Gokigen Ikaga 1-2-3" (Mako and Nonko's How Are You 1-2-3) is a wholly different animal as Oka and Noriko Ishiwatari（石渡のり子）, another radio personality, make their tongue-in-cheek debut as rappers, some months following Blondie's "Rapture". Listening to it, I can't really take this song too seriously compared to the straightforward "Yume Zaiku". But it was indeed Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）of Yellow Magic Orchestra at the time behind its composition with Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and the comedy group Snakeman Show behind the weird lyrics. In fact, I'd say that the melody and at least some of the words sound rather familiar to me as I suspect that Snakeman Show may have done a cover of their own work.

Maybe one clue as to how Oka and Ishiwatari got together was the observation that both of them had their time as hosts on different nights for the April 1976-September 1977 TBS radio late-night show "Five Sweet Cats"（5スイート・キャッツ）. 

Wakako Maruyama -- Kokoro no Niji（心の虹）

Good Free Photos

 

At first, when I heard this July 1932 record, "Kokoro no Niji" (The Rainbow of My Heart) by singer Wakako Maruyama（丸山和歌子）, I thought it was the legendary Masao Koga（古賀政男）behind its composition. My impression came by because of that particular guitar plucking in the intro, but the music was actually created by Shigeru Tamura（田村しげる）with lyrics by Koichi Hamano（浜野耕一）.

Maruyama, who was born in the Kanda district of Tokyo in 1905, was known for her especially high soprano, and that's certainly made clear in "Kokoro no Niji", a song about a woman pining for that special someone one night under the moon glowing through her bedroom window. Also because of that Koga reference, I was also left wondering whether "Kokoro no Niji" could be seen as an enka tune although the traditional genre only began retroactively from the 1950s and 1960s, but I can gather that at the time, it was more than likely treated as a kayo kyoku.

The singer started her career on the stage in 1931, but then moved to the recording booth before moving back to the stage again in 1937. According to a music writer's accounts from Maruyama's family, she was killed during the Tokyo air bombings in 1945. However, some 74 years later in 2019, a CD collection of 23 of her songs was released titled "Naicha Ikenai Maruyama Wakako no Heya 1931-1936"（泣いちゃいけない 丸山和歌子の部屋 1931-1936...You Mustn't Cry ~ Wakako Maruyama's Room）.