Hamako Watanabe -- Ame no Oranda-zaka（雨のオランダ坂）

Another source of watching the old kayo on NHK along with "Uta Kon"（うたコン）has been "Songs of Japanese Spirit". Unfortunately, I forget what the original Japanese title is of this program on the World Premium service but the English title has always been listed as so. Before TV Japan's programming schedule got turned upside-down because of COVID-19, this particular show was usually featured on Saturdays in the mid-afternoon, and it is even grander than "Uta Kon". It's twice as long as the average "Uta Kon" episode and the stress is on showing the kayo singers performing the old hits instead of the mix of kayo and J-Pop on the other show. And often, the last third of the show is devoted to some sort of stage play being acted out by the performers on the episode with, of course, songs being thrown in, or a segment focusing on the hits surrounding two of the singers.

With "Uta Kon" greatly changed due to the pandemic restrictions, I was happy to find out that "Songs of Japanese Spirit" did pop up at least once since the changes. Obviously, it was a rerun of an episode from 2019 but just to see all those singers appear together onstage to sing their kayo was very reassuring.

There were a few songs that had caught my ear for that episode that I PVR'ed. One was Hamako Watanabe's（渡辺はま子）"Ame no Oranda-zaka" (Rainy Hollander Slope). For some background, Oranda-zaka, which has been called the Dutch Slope or the Hollander Slope, is a scenic sloping street in Nagasaki that was given its name due to the large number of Dutch merchants that had lived in the area in the latter half of the 19th century. During my one time in the city, I only got to see Chinatown and the bay area, so unfortunately I've never had the opportunity to walk on Oranda-zaka.

I have forgotten who performed "Ame no Oranda-zaka" on "Songs of Japanese Spirit", but the original version from January 1947 had been first recorded by Watanabe, a singer who was especially popular from the late 1930s to well into the 1950s. With "Ame no Oranda-zaka", which was written by Kazuo Kikuta（菊田一夫）and composed by Yuuji Koseki（古関裕而）, she related the tale of heartbreak and sorrow of a romance coming to an end on the wet pavement of the titular slope in Nagasaki.

"Ame no Oranda-zaka" was a hit for Watanabe, who would get married and open up a flower shop in her native Yokohama in the same year of 1947 while restarting her career according to her Wikipedia file. This all happened after she had been repatriated back to Japan following detention in a POW camp in China for over a year once the Japanese surrendered.

In the 1950s, Watanabe made a string of appearances in the early years of the Kohaku Utagassen, including the inaugural edition on NHK Radio in 1951. She would make a total of 9 appearances on the special with her final appearance being in 1973. None of those appearances had her performing "Ame no Oranda-zaka".