NHK's Let's Go Young（レッツゴーヤング）

 

Throughout the time that we've been working on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I've been hearing about this NHK music program called "Let's Go Young" which had its run between 1974 and 1986. Among all of those old music shows from Japan that I've known all these years such as "The Best 10" and "Yoru no Hit Studio", "Let's Go Young" is the one program that I've known the least about since I never heard of it when I was a kid which means that my family never picked it up at Nippon Video, and of course, by the time I made it to Japan, the show was long gone. However, I've seen clips of it through current NHK shows such as "Uta Kon".

The earliest broadcasts that I have been able to find via YouTube are the 1977 shows such as the one above. My impression so far is that "Let's Go Young" has been the video equivalent of a "Myojo" magazine...a lot of the aidoru kicking up their heels on stage, but perhaps that's because I was probably watching many of the early 1980s episodes. The above episode, for instance, does have its share of old-style kayo included.

From what I've read so far from J-Wiki is that "Let's Go Young" had a central host who had some connection with the music industry such as a singer or songwriter instead of the usual professional NHK announcer. For instance, composer Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）who was responsible for weaving melodies for singers such as Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）and Pink Lady（ピンクレディー）was the second host for 1977 to 1978, followed by the late Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）.

There were also regular guests and sub-hosts which included a lot of the popular artists of the day such as Candies（キャンディーズ）, the aforementioned Pink Lady, Toshihiko Tahara（田原俊彦）and Karyudo（狩人）. Throughout the time of the show, the backing dancers were Schoolmates, a select entertainment group that had included tarento/singer Hiroko Moriguchi（森口博子）and enka legend Shinichi Mori（森進一）. There were also the usual segments during the broadcast such as a request corner and some lollygagging around with some of the guests.

I think one difference that "Let's Go Young" had in comparison with other music shows was that it actually had theme songs with sung lyrics. One that was used between 1979 and 1985 was "Moonlight Carnival"（ムーンライト・カーニバル）which was composed by Hirao and written by Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）. It's a fairly epic samba-esque number that was performed by pretty much everyone appearing on stage that episode. 

"Let's Go Young" had its regular slot between 6 pm and 6:40 every Sunday night. Watching some of the old episodes and then also remembering the other shows such as "The Best 10" made me wonder about how the schedules for those singers must have been bursting at the seams. At the same time, young fans back in those days probably looked forward to "Let's Go Young" as one of the last fun things to view before heading back to school the day after.