Yujiro Ishihara -- Tooki Furusato（遠きふるさと）

 

Catching "The Empire Strikes Back" when it first came out at the University Theatre in downtown Toronto back in 1980 was a far more difficult mission than first thought. My brother and I had known from witnessing the long lineups for the original "Star Wars" even two years after its debut year of 1977 that when its sequel came out, the frenzy to catch this in its first several days would be wilder than the Millennium Falcon whipping through the asteroid field (with accompanying John Williams music, of course). But little did we know that on reaching the theatre two hours before showtime, there was literally an anaconda's equivalent of coils of people wrapping around the intersection. That Saturday, we were told straight out that if we were just arriving, just head on back home; all of the shows were sold out. 

Yes, disappointed we were (and nope, I'm not trying to be Yoda here) but we tried again on Sunday and that time, we could get in after another couple of hours of waiting. This time, we were far from disappointed. All of the audience were thrilled, terrified, awe-struck and horrified during those two hours. Of course, the scene above when Darth Vader and the Imperial Fleet including the Executor showed up to the strains of the iconic "Imperial March" by Williams was one of the plentiful huge highlights and I distinctly remember jaws dropping on seeing Vader's ship dwarfing the Star Destroyers and then the cheers when we got that view of Vader looking outside.

Unfortunately, my hybrid world of sci-fi culture and Japanese popular music suffered another blow this morning on hearing that character actor David Prowse, the first man to inhabit the armour of the Dark Lord of the Sith had passed away yesterday at the age of 85. Of course, everyone has praised James Earl Jones' amazing voice that emanated from Darth Vader, but that voice still needed a mighty body and that was supplied by the 6'6" Prowse. It took both of them to bring one of the ultimate movie villains to life.

Speaking about big men, I've got another one by The Tough Guy and The Big Man, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）. It took a bit of doing but I was able to find out that his song "Tooki Furusato" (Far From Home) was released back in May 1972, thanks to the Ishihara Promotions website.

Written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Yasuro Osawa（大沢保郎）, "Tooki Furusato" was another one that was a tad hard to pinpoint in terms of one category. The song embraces the enka lyrics of longing for home in the northern parts of the nation, the lonely Mood Kayo guitars and a bit of a kayo beat with the orchestra horns and strings so I might as well throw all three genres into the mix. In any case, I see that Ishihara took on that crooning tone quite early in the 1970s. 

I've noticed that for a number of The Big Man's songs that they have often centered very affectionately on those northern parts of Japan which made me wonder if Ishihara had actually been born and raised somewhere in Hokkaido or Aomori Prefectures, for example. But as it were, he hailed from the city of Kobe in Hyogo Prefecture much farther south on the main island of Honshu.