Haruo Minami/Linda Yamamoto -- Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa (世界の国からこんにちは）

My memories of the late Haruo Minami（三波春夫） were primarily of him in his sleek yukata on NHK, primarily via some of his 31 appearances on the Kohaku Utagassen. He usually came on stage and approached the audience with a beatific expression on his face and his arms outstretched in front of him as if in supplication. And perhaps that's not surprising since his credo had always been "O-kyakusama wa kamisama desu"(お客様は神様です。....The audience is a god.), i.e. the customer is always right. 

Minami was an enka singer who had come from a rokyoku (浪曲....Japanese narrative singing) background. However, I've known him best as the singer behind the welcoming "Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa"(世界の国からこんにちは....Hello from the Nations of the World), the official theme song for the Osaka Expo in 1970. The song had actually been introduced and released in 1967, with actress Sayuri Yoshinaga（吉永小百合） singing it at the press conference. It had also been covered by a number of singers including Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九） and Linda Yamamoto（山本リンダ）. With all of the singers, the song managed to sell over 3 million copies of which a good chunk was due to Minami's rendition which I've heard a number of times over the years. The song was written by poet Yoko Shimada（島田陽子）and composed by Hachidai Nakamura（中村八大）, the man behind the making of "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (上を向いて歩こう）, i.e. the Sukiyaki song.