J-Canuck's Reps for Showa Kayo（昭和歌謡）

via Wikimedia Commons

As I noted in my previous article, due to Wednesday the 29th being Showa Day in Japan (and thus the official start to Golden Week), NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）devoted a good chunk of its broadcast tonight to some of the Showa Era kayo kyoku which I was plenty grateful about. After all, this is what we're all here for when it comes to this blog. 

I recollect that I may have done something in the past to commemorate Showa Day via an Author's Picks but I decided to still go ahead with another try at a list. Initially, I'd thought about bringing over some of a list of most popular Showa Era karaoke songs but when I realized that most of those songs originated in the years 1985 to 1987, I jettisoned that idea for being a little too centralized, time-wise. Then, after some more thought, I blurted out "Oh, what the heck!". I'll just let my memories pick out one song that immediately comes to mind when I think of a certain decade or period within Showa (1926-1989) and let the chips fall where they may. 

The list below only consists of five songs...yes, very inadequate (I've left out City Pop and Group Sounds, for instance) but take this as an opportunity for folks to chime in with their representative kayo choices. Anyways, anything that would seem adequate would probably force me to make a new blog. Plus, Labels would throw a major tantrum at me. Still, allow me to mention the Blue Comets' "Blue Chateau"（ブルー・シャトウ）from 1967 and Miki Matsubara's（松原みき）"Mayonaka no Door" （真夜中のドアー）from 1979.

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

(Postwar/1950s) Frank Nagai -- Yurakucho de Aimashou (有楽町で逢いましょう）

(1960s) Hibari Misora -- Kanashii Sake （悲しい酒）

(1970s) Pink Lady -- UFO

(1980s) Yellow Magic Orchestra -- Rydeen (雷電）

Kaori Mizumori -- Koi no Owari no Nagoya ni Hitori（恋の終わりの名古屋にひとり）

 

I've been to Nagoya a few times and despite all the flak and indifference toward this major city in Japan, I think it's a perfectly nice metropolis to visit. Nagoyans and, on a larger scale, residents of Aichi Prefecture really bring the goods at wedding parties. Plus, the area is famous for all sorts of dishes that have been categorized as B-class. Ten-musu（天むす）in particular is one of my favourites. Just imagine...the combination of shrimp tempura and rice ball. Culinary match made in heaven ranking alongside peanut butter and chocolate to form Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! By the way, thank you Japanese Cooking 101!

As with a lot of other television programming, "Uta Con"（うたコン）is going on Golden Week hiatus but it still gave us one more episode. Since Wednesday is the beginning of the whole mess of national holidays in Japan with the first one being Showa Day, the NHK kayo kyoku show devoted a lot of its time to the Showa Era hits which was great.

Near the end, we got the usual new stuff from the guests. Enka singer and go-touchi song master Kaori Mizumori（水森かおり）came up with her latest single last month. "Koi no Owari no Nagoya ni Hitori" (Alone in Nagoya After the Love is Gone) is one song that makes it very nakedly plain that it's the typical number about recovering after heartbreak in the city of ten-musu. Written by Takashi Taka（たかたかし）and composed by Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）, it's quite upbeat and reassuring though and the ever-smiling Mizumori is more than happy to be the happy guide through the city in the music video.

Shogo Hamada -- Kayaku no You ni（火薬のように）/Momoe Yamaguchi -- Ai no Twilight Time（愛のTWILIGHT TIME）

 

It was less than a week ago when I posted up "Tokyo Songs" which of course would have to include Shogo Hamada's（浜田省吾）"Tokyo"（東京）, a not-so-positive but probably more realistic account of what life in the big city could be like at the time. Maybe it was released as a counterpoint to Kenji Sawada's（沢田研二）hit "TOKIO" which was also out there in the same year.

Well, I was curious then to hear what the B-side of Hamada's "Tokyo" was like, so I came across "Kayaku no You ni" (Like Gunpowder). With that title, I had been expecting something quite hard rock and explosive, but it's actually quite the cordial rock n' roll story about a couple of high school buddies who choose to skip class and hop onto the motorcycle and hit the beach to play music and scope out the ladies. Ahhh...life in 1980 Japan...or maybe even 2026 Japan, I don't know.🤷 Hamada was behind words and music with Kimio Mizutani（水谷公生）arranging everything.

Time for a crazy coda for this article. As I was looking over the information on "Kayaku no You ni" on J-Wiki, I found out that the song was actually Hamada's own self-cover of a track that he'd provided aidoru Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）all the way back in August 1977 when her 12th studio album "Golden Flight" was released. It was titled "Ai no Twilight Time" (Twilight Time for Love) at the time, had different lyrics about lost love by Akira Ito（伊藤アキラ）, and though Hiroshi Kato's（加藤ヒロシ）arrangement kept things in rock, it had more of a honky-tonk style with a bit more in the production. "Golden Flight" hit No. 3 on Oricon. Always fascinating to hear a new Momoe tune and this one is no different.

bird -- Bitter Sweet Friday

 

Happy Monday! And perhaps that goes especially for the Japanese since the Golden Week holidays are right around the corner. It'll be interesting to see where a lot of folks will be headed this year. When I was living in Japan, I basically treated each GW as a staycation because I appreciated an empty Tokyo even more.

"Bitter Sweet Friday" might sound more appropriate for the day when we handle the urban contemporary material on KKP, but it's been in the backlog long enough. A track from bird's May 2011 7th album "New Basic", this one sounds anything but bittersweet. If anything, it sounds quite hopeful along that arrangement that brings to mind the Motown sound and Stevie Wonder. The singer was the lyricist here while Yoshito Tanaka（田中義人）took care of the zesty melody.

spaghetti vabune! -- Favorite Song

By Paolo Piscolla from Wikimedia Commons

I do have a love for pasta, especially spaghetti. I grew up on Bolognese made by my mother but then in Japan, I realized that the Japanese absolutely adore pasta of all kinds and so that's how I discovered other types such as Pepperoncino, Carbonara and Napolitan (which actually doesn't come from Naples but is a purely Japanese type).

Of course, it's not as wonderful as actually eating the stuff itself, but I also indulge in watching the many pasta-making videos on YouTube such as this one by Preppy Kitchen for his take on Carbonara. His way of cooking actually makes the sauce look less intimidating to create...since I have some PTSD from making something that involved raw eggs from long ago. 

Once again, my preamble ramble leads us to a group called spaghetti vabune! which I discovered by happenstance a few weeks earlier. When I posted an article on the technopop unit Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, I found out that their "Kitchen Shock" hadn't come from their own discography but it actually belonged to a December 2004 compilation album titled "Contemode V.A. 2".

Well, I looked through the rest of the tracks and saw some other dynamic-sounding acts there and tried looking up the titles. And spaghetti vabune! was one of them. According to their website, the group began life in 2001 and perhaps currently consists of vocalist/guitarist Keiji Tokuda, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Chihiro Yoshii, guitarist Takayoshi Umeno, drummer Naoya Shimai and bassist Shuhei Kinukawa. Their J-Wiki article has them categorized as a unit into indies pop, jangle pop, Shibuya-kei and alternative rock. 

spaghetti vabune!'s contribution to "Contemode V.A. 2" is "Favorite Song (contemode bossa mix)" which does have plenty of Brazilian swagger to the extent that I was wondering whether it should have been called "contemode samba mix" instead. But no complaints here. It makes for some fun and summery listening. I did wonder whether there was an original version of "Favorite Song" and the answer was Yes! The much shorter guitar pop original does appear on the band's April 2003 album "summer vacation, sunset vehicle". Incidentally, the bossa mix was created by Yasutaka Nakata（中田ヤスタカ）.

Akari Uchida -- Ukiyo-e no Machi（浮世絵の街）

By Gen'o Yoshida via Wikimedia Commons

 

I actually heard this on the most recent episode of NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）and found it intriguing enough for me to investigate its source.

Singer-actress Akari Uchida（内田あかり）was born Kuniko Ogata（大形久仁子）in Osaka just after the end of World War II and her career had begun in 1967 under her birth name. She scored a quick big hit due to a collaboration with the Mood Kayo group Mahina Stars（和田弘とマヒナスターズ）in 1968 for the song "Watashitte Dame na Onna ne"（私って駄目な女ね...I'm a Bad Woman）, but her solo career of eleven singles going into 1970 didn't yield any good results for her.

Then in 1973, under the wing of producer Masatoshi Sakai（酒井政利）, she took on the stage name of Akari Uchida and released her debut single, "Ukiyo-e no Machi" (Ukiyo-e Town) in August. Written by Masao Ishizaka（石坂まさを）and composed/arranged by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）, this atmospheric enka-and-kayo mix seems to have that extra infusion of truly exotic "wafu" through the delicate strains of the koto, and then with Uchida's floating vocals, it feels like a couple taking a very leisurely stroll through a ukiyo-e painting. 

No idea how it did on Oricon but "Ukiyo-e no Machi" sold 700,000 records so I can only assume that it was a huge hit. Apparently, the outfit that she wore for her live performances cost a whopping 1.2 million yen or over four thousand US dollars according to the 1973 exchange rate. Strangely enough, she apparently didn't get that invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen but a movie based on or inspired by "Ukiyo-e no Machi" titled "Lost Love: Abura Jigoku"（ロスト・ラブ あぶら地獄...Lost Love: Oil Hell） was produced in 1974 with Uchida herself starring in it. It was produced by Nikkatsu, which had a hand in the roman porno industry, so considering part of the title, my pervy little mind suddenly had some distinct thoughts but it was actually and basically a dramatization of Uchida's own heartbreak story.

Since then, Uchida has had a long career in singing and acting up to 2019.

Koshi Inaba -- Touch（タッチ）

From TorontoGuy79 of Wikimedia Commons

 

Millions of people watched the most recent edition of the World Baseball Classic last month. What I hadn't known was that while I was in Japan, the 2009 edition had at least some of its games played in Toronto's Rogers Centre...although I still prefer to call it the old name of Skydome.

What I also didn't know? Japan Netflix's own broadcast of the WBC this year had one eye boggling and mind-blowing campaign song. Imagine Koshi Inaba（稲葉浩志）of the kickass duo B'z doing a cover of Yoshimi Iwasaki's（岩崎良美）most famous song "Touch"? Well, we don't have to imagine it. It actually got recorded and then released as a single on March 6th. Perhaps a lot of people and their What Ifs were finally satisfied. Written by Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and composed by Hiroaki Serizawa（芹沢廣明）, the original guitar riff is back but instead of the ol' rock n' roll from Iwasaki's original, this "Touch" has got Inaba's arrangement touch for that B'z vibe.