Most likely over the next several months, there will be box collections of the works of lyricist Rokusuke Ei coming out in the major music stores. I just found out this morning that Ei had passed away last week at the age of 83. So the Creator article this time will be as much a tribute to the man as it will be a look at his songs.
Rokusuke Ei was born in 1933 in the district of Moto-Asakusa, Tokyo, and along with his title of lyricist, he was also a radio personality, an essayist and a tarento although according to the NHK report on his death, he far preferred being behind a radio mike over being in front of a TV camera. In fact, his J-Wiki article mentioned that he truly loved the medium of radio; one piece of information stated that after high school, he and a group of friends got together to buy various parts in Akihabara to create their own crystal radio set. The leader of that group just happened to be the late actor Kiyoshi Atsumi(渥美清)who would gain his own legend through his famous character of Tora-san.
The Ei/Nakamura duo had more success into the 1960s with another kayo standard, "Konnichiwa Akachan"(こんにちは赤ちゃん)from 1963 sung by Michiyo Azusa(梓みちよ). As I mentioned in the article for that song, Ei wrote the words for Nakamura as a present of sorts in celebration of the upcoming birth of Nakamura's child.
I'm uncertain whether Ei kept to a fixed theme when it came to writing lyrics for songs but just from looking back on some of these kayo here, I would guess that the lyricist liked to reflect specifically on the Japanese heart whether it dealt with the simple pleasures of soaking in a hot spring or keeping that smile up even during the most heartbreaking of times.
I may have heard it on that NHK report and I definitely did read it in the J-Wiki article but Ei stopped being a lyricist for the most part after 1969. According to that article, he had apparently been afraid that once anything got onto television, it would simply get trendy for that fact and perhaps not for the quality of the song itself. But the main reason was that Ei wanted to put his priorities on having Nakamura and Izumi more as friends than also as collaborating colleagues in the music industry. Perhaps he didn't like the stresses of songwriting wearing on their mutual friendships, and besides, it seems as if Ei had a lot of other interests to pursue to keep him happy. I'm not a religious man but I hope that Ei has now reunited with his old friends, Nakamura and Izumi (who also passed away in 1992) to talk about the old days. Meanwhile, I'm sure that there will be people here, famous or not, who will converse on and sing those nostalgic tunes at karaoke or the bars.
I'll leave you with a rendition of another Ei classic also from 1963, "Miagetegoran Yoru no Hoshi wo"(見上げてごらん夜の星を), originally sung by Kyu Sakamoto.
Hi J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice tribute to one of the prominent figures in 60's music. I knew him best for Duke Aces' "Nihon no Uta Series", and for being the 6 in the "6-8-9" golden, hit-spawning trio (Rokusuke, Hachidai, Kyu).
I read about Ei's passing just yesterday on the Oricon website. While it was sad to see him go, I guess it would've happened sooner or later as he looked very frail already a couple of years back.
I didn't know Ei was a radio personality though, but come to think of it, when I watched videos of him talking about the various songs he had wrote with Nakamura (from the 90's I think), he did seem to have a radio voice.
Hi Noelle.
DeleteFrom what I saw on the report, Ei was suffering from Parkinson's for some time although recent footage had him looking fairly well considering his symptoms. He really did love being on radio. If I heard the reporter correctly, his radio show lasted around 40 years!
Poor Ei. He lived a rather long life though, despite the Parkinson's and Cancer. And dang, 40 years, that's a really long lasting radio show.
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