Akiko Wada -- Ano Kane wo Narasu no wa Anata （あの鐘を鳴らすのはあなた）

Akiko Wada（和田アキ子）is arguably the lone female power on Japanese TV, up against heavyweights such as Beat Takeshi. Physically and conversationally, she makes quite the presence on the small screen. She has strong opinions which she doesn't hesitate to make loud and clear on her own Sunday morning show, and for the Japanese anyways, her 174 cm (5'8") stature, often has her as the tallest and most imposing person on the stage. She's an actress, a TV personality and commercial pitchperson.

However, she's also known as "The Queen of Japanese R&B", although fans of Misia and AI may take some umbrage at that label as applied to her. Maybe it's better to say that she is the Empress Dowager of old-style Japanese R&B. The music world is where she started when the founder of Hori Productions, one of the big talent agencies in Japan, scouted Wada back in the late 60s. Wada was born in 1950 in Osaka. She is of Korean ancestry and was born as Kim Bok-Ja（金福子） before also taking on the name of Fukuko Kaneumi（金海福子）. When she entered the geinokai (show business) and took on Japanese citizenship, she changed her name to Akiko Wada.

Her 11th single, "Ano Kane wo Narasu no wa Anata"(You are the One who Rings That Bell), was released in March 1972. It is a song of hope with a hint of gospel. In the Oricon rankings, it didn't do as well initially as some of her previous hits (it peaked at No. 53), but it has become one of Wada's trademark songs. In fact, she has sung it so often on the year-end Kohaku Utagassen that it could almost be used as the unofficial theme. The song was written by Yu Aku（阿久悠） and composed by Koichi Morita（森田公一） who has composed tunes for Pink Lady and Agnes Chan among other stars.

I was never a huge fan of Akiko Wada but her association with R&B aside (she's reportedly a huge fan of Ray Charles), I've always thought that she still has that link with nostalgic 70s kayo kyoku.　By the way, the images in the video above are from the affected prefectures right after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

This is Wada doing a duet of her standard with the lead singer of Hound Dog, Kohei Otomo（大友康平 ）.