I had actually wanted to do this article earlier, but then I felt that I should save it for today. After all, it is a special day... ... No, it's not my birthday.
Anyway, let me introduce to you 'Awazu ni Aishite' ('Love when we meet' ?), the Hiroshi Uchiyamada & Cool Five (内山田洋とクール・ファイブ) hit that seemed to - or always - constantly be overshadowed by its golden predecessor, 'Nagasaki wa kyomo ame datta' (長崎は今日も雨だった).
Released on the 5th of December 1969, the Mood Kayo group's 3rd single actually had some similarities to their debut song in terms of music, especially the first instance you hear that saxophone part in the beginning. And I'm quite sure it's because it was composed by the same guy who did the 'Nagasaki' song, Masao Saiki (彩木雅夫). As for the lyrics, they were done by the late Kouhan Kawauchi (川内康範).
But despite some similarities, it sounds a lot more cheerful than the 'Nagasaki' song which sounded really lonely (intended). However, I'm not sure if 'Awazu ni Aishite' is actually a cheerful song since with most Enka and Mood Kayo songs, happy/happier tune may not equal to happy meaning.
The song did well and was the only Cool Five single to place 1st on the Oricon charts and stayed there for 3 weeks (last 2 weeks of February and 1st week of March) in 1970 selling about 1.2 million copies. Yeah, so it had some time in the limelight. Unfortunately, out of The Cool Five's 11 appearances and Kiyoshi Maekawa's (前川 清) 18 appearances on the Kohaku, the song was never sung at the annual year-end competition. Now that I think of it, I rarely, if ever, see Mae-Kiyo sing this song solo either.
Mae-Kiyo's wife for a year Keiko Fuji (藤 圭子) and late Jazz and Kayokyoku singer Hiroshi Mizuhara (水原 弘) did their own renditions of this song as well. Video below is Omizu's version, which is slower in pace than the original. I've heard Fuji's version before on YouTube a few months back, but the video got deleted (this is starting to get really annoying), but I'm sure she pulled it off well with that low and husky voice of hers.
Oh wait, I found Fuji's version, its in the link below. And yeah, a little more bluesy than The Cool Five's version in terms of music. Wow, she really had such a husky voice... (Edited)
*Sigh*, according to Mom, my Grandpa used to listen to Mood Kayo-like songs (in Mandarin or Cantonese, that is), and that he liked the Chinese version of 'Awazu ni Aishite' quite a bit. Liked. It has been 10 years. He would be 77 or 78 this year today, September 17. You know, would... ...
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| Hmm, Maekawa looks quite cute... ... What? |
First off, let me give my respects to your grandfather. I'm sure he would be quite happy to know that you've also been appreciating the music that he had been listening to.
ReplyDelete"Awazu ni Aishite" sounds like a classic Cool Five song with Maekawa's earnest delivery and the "Wah wah wah" of the Five. It would have made for some fine music to back up a night in the Golden Gai in Shinjuku way back then.
I also hear you about the deletion of YouTube videos. My other job for the blog is janitorial maintenance of a sort. I go through the blog and search for any articles that have had their videos dropped and see if I can find any replacements. I've had to revert some articles back to "Draft" since there were no more examples of their music on the Net (so far, only a few of the Enka articles have been affected thus far).
I came across this song YouTube on Sunday & I listen to it a few times each day. I just think it's great. I love the saxophone 🎷 sound.
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