Welcome to the last day of 2021. Yup, it has been a typical New Year's Eve in the J-Canuck household. Cleaning up things here and there, getting ready for the toshikoshi soba later tonight, and catching the last third of NHK's annual Kohaku Utagassen, the 72nd edition (there was at least one major change to the schedule since I first put up the list), via TV Japan when I woke up this morning. Of course, Happy New Year to all of those folks in Japan; I did catch "Yuku Toshi, Kuru Toshi"（ゆく年くる年...The Departing Year, The Approaching Year） afterwards.
I did PVR the broadcast so I'll watch the entire thing at my leisure over the next few days, and perhaps some of us will give our opinions on No. 72. But in the meantime, I had been thinking of putting up another Kohaku-themed article to start off the New Year's Eve 2021 batch of KKP articles. At first, I had thought about doing another Fantasy Kohaku Utagassen as I did back in 2019 but that was my second round at it, and I eventually felt that...well...a second round was enough. Then, I mused about going all the way back in history to the very first Kohaku Utagassen on NHK Radio on January 3 1951. However, there was only one song on the lineup there that I knew about, and I just didn't want to smash in a whole bunch of new songs with descriptions when they could eventually get their own articles.
But I did get some more luck with the 4th annual Kohaku which was the very first televised edition on NHK on December 31 1953. It was held at the Nihon Gekijo（日本劇場）facility in Yurakucho, Tokyo which is only a few minutes' walk away from the 72nd edition's venue of the Tokyo International Forum. Broadcast between 9:15 pm and 11:45 pm with Red and White teams consisting of 17 performers each, actress Takiko Mizunoe（水の江瀧子）was the captain of the Red team while NHK announcer Keizo Takahashi（高橋圭三）led the White team. Another NHK announcer, Seigoro Kitade（北出清五郎）was the overall emcee.
For those who may have wanted to find out any footage of the 4th edition, don't bother. According to J-Wiki, because of the technology at the time, no audio or video exists of that show...only some stills which are probably stored away in the NHK archives. However, although I don't know many of the songs listed for that Kohaku, I can put up at least three that I do know since they're already included in the KKP family, and introduce one more by Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ）who appeared for the very first time on the NHK special.
Shigeko Orii -- Kimi no Na wa （君の名は）
Shizuko Kasagi -- Tokyo Boogie-Woogie （東京ブギウギ）
Katsuhiko Haida -- Tokyo no Yane no Shita （東京の屋根の下）
Chiemi Eri -- A Guy is a Guy（ガイ・イズ・ア・ガイ）
Eri had debuted in January 1952 but her version of "A Guy is a Guy" was her 10th single from February 1953. This was a cover of the Oscar Brand-written standard in 1952 although according to the Wikipedia article for the song, its origins may go all the way back to a 1719 British tune; at this point, though, there is no definitive proof connecting Brand and the UK ditty. Getting back to Eri, she does sing the original English lyrics in the second half of the song but Japanese lyrics were provided for the first half and those were provided by Takashi Otowa（音羽たかし）, the collective pen name for any directors representing King Records.
There have been a number of versions of "A Guy is a Guy" but the most popular one was recorded by Doris Day in 1952.
To finish up, Wendy Tokunaga tweeted about an article at Sora News 24 regarding the future of the Kohaku Utagassen which I found quite interesting and probably already has garnered some very differing opinions.
Hello, Brian.
ReplyDeleteActually until a few minutes ago, I was watching some of the re-broadcast of the Kohaku (I've got it PVR'ed already) so I've seen about a majority of the acts. Yup, it has been good so far and the feeling is certainly more positive than it was last year.
Having said that, I am curious about what might happen in 2022 since one of the top guys at NHK is apparently thinking about some major reforms including cancelling long-running programs that he feels are stale. NHK's "Gatten" is one of the shows on the chopping block and maybe the Kohaku.