Yup, today is indeed the day of the total solar eclipse and as I am writing this, it is proceeding to get darker although here in Toronto, we will only be getting just 70% of totality. To be honest, I'm not all that enthused about something that I have seen on TV often enough and if I did see directly, I would go blind. But, I still thought I needed to get that out of the way.
In the past several months, I've written about the deaths of a few kayo songwriters but this time, I will be paying tribute to someone from Old Hollywood. Jerry Lewis passed away yesterday morning at the ripe old age of 91. Back when the United States had plenty of comedy duos on stage and in the movies, I was born early enough to remember folks like Hope & Crosby, Abbott & Costello, Meara & Stiller, etc.
Then, there was Martin & Lewis. I saw Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as the younger version of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Hope and Lewis were the doltish halves of their respective teams but while the former was known for his glib tongue, Jerry Lewis was Jim Carrey before Jim Carrey. He was all about the physical funny: gangly extremities and rubber face. My brother and I always threatened to laugh up our insides like sea cucumbers watching Jerry. In fact, the above video is a scene from "Money From Home" (1957) which is the one scene that defined the comedian for me.
Shimura has been around forever now and I think he's greatly toned down his stuff due to age but today I found a song that he covered back in the heyday of "Hachi-ji da yo!". With the elongated title of "Shimura Ken no Zen'in Shuugo Higashimurayama Ondo" (Ken Shimura's "Everyone Assemble" Higashimurayama Ondo) , this was his cover of "Higashimurayama Ondo", a traditional march that was first created by Chuuji Tsuchiya(土屋忠司)and Junichi Hosokawa(細川潤一)for the city of Higashimurayama in Metropolitan Tokyo back in 1963.
To give credit where credit is due, though, here is the original version. A number of singers have covered it over the years. J-Wiki has mentioned veteran singer Michiya Mihashi(三橋美智也)and minyo singer Fumiko Shitaya(下谷二三子), and here they are performing "Higashimurayama Ondo" together.
And to wrap it all up, at Higashimurayama Station, a brief snippet of the song is used to signal the train's impending departure.
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