I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Chieko Baisho/The Peanuts -- Hamabe no Uta （浜辺の歌）
On tonight's episode of "Kayo Concert", the theme was songs from the north country and there were plenty of nice performances. There was even a performance by opera soprano Norie Suzuki（鈴木慶江）who gave a poignant rendition of an old ballad, "Hamabe no Uta" (Song of the Beach). It's a song that has some resonance for me since the instrumental version was often used as the opening and ending themes for my old radio show "Songs of Japan" back in the 1980s.
"Hamabe no Uta" first saw the light of day when Akita Prefecture-born composer, Namezo Narita（成田為三）, created the song in 1916 with Kokei Hayashi（林古渓）providing the lyrics. Considering the date, it has become a classic to be sung by a number of artists, including actress-singer Chieko Baisho（倍賞千恵子）. I don't know when her version came out unfortunately but it is still a wonderfully touching performance.
Here is another rendition by kayo duo The Peanuts.
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