A few months ago, I got into a correspondence with a commenter on the blog about the late chanson singer Megumi Satsu（ 薩 めぐみ）which resulted in kindly receiving a lot of samples of her work. My friend was also kind enough to send me an album titled "Sombre Dimanche" or as it is called in Japanese "Kurai Nichiyobi" (Gloomy Sunday). The CD consists of different takes by Japanese artists on this song which was first published in 1933 by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress. There are some great rock versions, an operatic version and a couple of spoken-word covers by the aforementioned Satsu and Mari Natsuki（夏木マリ）.
There is an article on Wikipedia about this song which has also garnered an unfortunate urban myth (and I emphasize, it is a myth) and secondary title as "The Hungarian Suicide Song". Seress had originally written the ballad to illustrate the horrors of war but later on the poet László Jávor added his own lyrics to the song in which the protagonist wanted to kill himself after his lover had died. Its reputation spread worldwide in 1941 after the legendary Billie Holiday released her version.
However some years before that, there was a Japanese version by the late Noriko Awaya（淡谷のり子）, the Queen of Blues, titled as "Kurai Nichiyobi" which came out in 1936. Personally, there was probably no one better suited to sing this than Awaya since according to her biography, she went through some tough times as a young girl, and as someone who used to see her only on variety specials spitting a lot of venom on various topics, I thought she had kept a lot of bitterness throughout the decades.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
I also came across "Kurai Nichiyobi" as performed by blues singer Eiichi Arai（新井英一）and was struck by the rasping power of his voice. Born in 1950 in Fukuoka as a Korean-Japanese citizen, his love for the blues was born while he was working as a teenager on an American base in Iwakuni City, Yamaguchi Prefecture. In 1995, he won a Japan Music Award for his debut album "Chon-ha e no Michi~48-ban"（清河への道～48番...The 48 Verses of the Road to Chong-ha）.
Once again personally speaking, I don't find "Kurai Nichiyobi" particularly depressing at all; just beautifully sad.
According to the wiki entry for Hiromi Iwasaki, Hiromi was one of those whom Awaya rated. I don't know what the source for that is, but then the source for the actress Hiromi Iwasaki being named after the singer and Akina Nakamori attempting a Hiromi song in an earlier Star Tanjo contest recently surfaced, so maybe I'll find the Awaya source some time.
ReplyDeleteHello, Jim.
DeleteBy chance, what did Ms. Awaya say about young Hiromi? I'm using the title for the singer, lest her ghost decides to rip a couple of orifices out of me. :)
I'm not quite sure. I was browsing 岩崎宏美 videos as usual today, with a few more cropping up because it's the anniversary of her debut, and one of the videos was an older one with a load of comments, one of which listed some names I'd never seen before who rated her highly. Looking up those names, I was particularly intrigued by Noriko Awaya, who was apparently quite the rebel in her early days (when it was considered treasonous to be so), and who had acerbic words for some people whom I'd have considered holy cows of Japanese music. But I saw more than one site mention that Awaya had good words for Hiromi, though what they were they didn't specify (that I've found).
ReplyDeleteI've found this. I don't know if it's a direct quote.
「今の若手はロクな歌手がいない。岩崎宏美ちゃんは上手だけど」
How does that translate?
Yes, Awaya was notorious for not holding back on the acid talk for singers or genres, for that matter. She famously despised enka, for instance. No one was sacred in her eyes.
DeleteAs for the Japanese expression, it probably is a direct quote. It comes across as "Today's young people don't have any singers who rock although Hiromi Iwasaki is good." 「ロク」is probably 「ロック」which would be treated as "rock" or "lock".
Coming from Awaya, that's probably high praise!
From a recent article.
ReplyDeleteさらに、’80年代に「最近の若い人は基礎がなっていない。歌手ではなく“カス”だ」と一刀両断してきたシャンソン歌手の淡谷のり子や、著書で大半の歌手を猛烈に批判した指揮者のダン池田からも、若いころから“例外的にうまい歌手”だと認められている。また、’20年に放送されたバラエティー番組『林修のニッポンドリル』（フジテレビ系）では、絶対音感を持つボイストレーナー100人が厳選した“本当に歌がうまい国宝級歌姫ランキング”で7位に入り、還暦を越えた現役歌手の中で最高位をマークするなど、実力と実績が伴う数少ない存在なのだ。そんな正統派の歌手である宏美だが、本人のキャラクターはまさに竹を割ったようにサバサバとしている。…
https://woman.excite.co.jp/article/lifestyle/rid_JPrime_19806/pid_2.html
Yep, I can see that she got a good pile of praise from otherwise acid-tongued folks like Awaya and Ikeda, but I'm wondering what those last words are about. "Her character is just like breaking a bamboo." Was that a criticism that she was too brittle or was she being compared to the beautiful Princess Kaguya who was found within that shining stalk of bamboo? Of course, I'm hoping that it's the latter.
DeleteWhat are they saying around the 9:30 mark?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lP6JJUFcKg
Hi, Jim. Ms. Awaya is just saying that she likes Rumiko Koyanagi and Hiromi Iwasaki but she can't really understand all those younger types jumping around and trying to sing. She thought that they were rather sad, actually. To be honest, though, she said it more nicely than I had expected.
ReplyDelete