Last week on "Kayo Concert", actor/singer Kanji Ishimaru（石丸幹二）gave this dramatic rendition of a song that I had never heard...or at least do not remember hearing...under the title of "Yuki ga Furu" (Snow Falls). It was originally sung by Salvatore Adamo who also wrote and composed the ballad in 1963. "Tombe La Neige" (the original title) became a huge hit for the singer-songwriter, who is known as Belgium's most successful musician, all over the planet in countries including Spain, France, Latin America and Japan.
I'm not surprised that "Yuki ga Furu" became a hit as well in Japan since the song has that certain shibui quality which envisages a fellow walking totally alone in the midst of heavy snow with only a cigarette in his mouth to keep him company...couldn't get more Mood Kayo than that. Plus, the original is in French, and I think the ladies were just absolutely ga-ga about Alain Delon at the time.
Sure enough, there would be covers of "Yuki ga Furu". And I figured that the big-voiced fellows would have been happy to give their own contributions to the Japanese version which was given lyrics by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）. Of course, there is the late, great Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）who provided his take on the classic as his 4th single in October 1971 accompanied by a saxophone. The song reached No. 68 on Oricon. Adamo's delivery, by the way, reminded me a lot of another leather-lunged singer, Shigeru Matsuzaki（松崎しげる）.
And here is Adamo singing the original French version.
I came across Kiyohiko Osakis,’ version in my quest of international music. Songs popular in other countries that I never heard. I immediately fell in love with it. I just now learned of other European versions .
ReplyDeleteHello there and thanks for your comments. You are one of many over the years that I've been doing the blog where people all over the world have been discovering kayo kyoku and marveling about it. Hope you keep on finding some more great old songs from the Showa era.
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