Not quite sure how I found out about this particular kayo but I figure that it must have popped up during one of the taped segments from NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）a few weeks ago.
In addition, I'm also not 100% sure whether this song "Bibou no Miyako" (City of Beauty) would fall under enka or a kayo but let's split the difference and consider it both for now. The song was the theme for the titular melodrama movie released in March 1957 about the complications of love among a few folks within a small Osaka factory.
Sung by the main male lead, actor/TV personality Akira Takarada（宝田明）, "Bibou no Miyako" comes across as a combination of a slow march and a love song crooned by a band singer from the 1930s. It was written by Yaso Saijo（西條八十）and composed by Gento Uehara（上原げんと）. Takarada's J-Wiki article doesn't have him listed as a singer at all and there is no discography although he sings one more song in the movie, but I think he acquits himself quite well behind the mike.
The man looks quite dashing in his tuxedo above and "Bibou no Miyako" here has a pretty nice Mood Kayo arrangement.
Takarada has also been immortalized thanks to a role that he had a few years earlier as salvage ship captain Hideto Ogata in the original "Godzilla" (1954). He's even appeared in the various sequels including the Hollywood retake of the monster in 2014. Godzilla is pretty much everyone's favourite semi-friendly kaiju now but can you imagine folks watching the trailer above for the first time? It probably would have had the same effect as audiences seeing the trailer for the very first "Alien" in 1979.
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