Sayuri Ishikawa -- Hi no Kuni e（火の国へ）

Came home from lunch earlier today. A bunch of us including the anime buddy got together at my favourite izakaya Kingyo for a winter get-together. When I did get home, the TV was set to an NHK program of kayo kyoku programming, and there were some pretty nice new songs that I got a chance to hear.

One was Sayuri Ishikawa's（石川さゆり）"Hi no Kuni e" (To The Land of Fire), the enka singer's 19th single released in July 1978 and created by lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Takashi Miki（三木たかし）, the same dynamic duo behind Ishikawa's trademark song of "Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki"（津軽海峡冬景色）, her 14th single which had been released a little over 18 months previously in 1977.

"Hi no Kuni e" has the same situation of a woman trying to forget her lost love through travel. However, unlike "Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki", the destination isn't the Tsugaru Strait in northern Japan, but more the other end, namely Kumamoto Prefecture in the south which just happens to be where Ishikawa hails from. There's even a shoutout to the active volcano, Mt. Aso, which is one place that I did visit in the summer of 1991, and yeah, Kumamoto is blistering hot, especially when dragging a suitcase behind you.

This particular entry by Ishikawa peaked at No. 36 on the Oricon weeklies, not nearly as high as "Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki" did with its No. 6 ranking, but I think that there is also plenty of drama and brio in Miki's music. In fact, I would say that the kayo has that feeling of both an enka and a Mood Kayo, especially the latter due to those strong horns. Kinda surprised that it didn't score as highly as its more famous songmate, but then again, "Hi no Kuni e" did get Ishikawa her 2nd invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1978 to follow up from her debut performance with "Tsugaru" the year before.