During last week's NHK-broadcast special charity concert in Shizuoka Prefecture, I did hear a lovely bluesy ballad called "Kimi Mate Domo" which was originally sung by Aiko Hirano(平野愛子)in 1948. Written and composed by Tatsuzo Azuma(東辰三), it was a torch song about pining for that special someone who would probably never come or come back. The original recorded version has that old-fashioned stateliness.
The big surprise for me is that actress Saki Takaoka(高岡早紀)has given her own sultry take on the song with the added English title "I'm Waiting For You". When I first knew her, it was as the buxom tarento on the variety show circuit, and Marcos V. has written about one of her early tunes as an aidoru, "Nemurenu Mori no Bishoujo"(眠れぬ森の美女)from 1988.
But it's been many since that song. And in 2013, she performed "Kimi Mate Domo" as the ending theme for one of her movies from that year, "Monster" where she played a woman who had undergone serious plastic surgery to escape from a horrific childhood of being bullied due to her facial deformities. I'm actually quite impressed with her vocals here. The song itself was a track on her album of standards, "Sings-Bedtime Stories" from October 2014.
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