Keisuke Hama -- Akogarete（憧れて）

 

Commenter Justin C. cottoned me onto this song by veteran songwriter Keisuke Hama（浜圭介）a few nights ago called "Akogarete" (Longing). This is a special one here in that the Hama file on KKP has had him in the back office, so to speak...just as the composer of enka and Mood Kayo hits such as The Cool Five's "Soshite, Kobe"（そして、神戸）and Aki Yashiro's（八代亜紀）"Ame no Bojou"（雨の慕情）. He also composed Yujiro Ishihara's（石原裕次郎）final single that I only wrote up yesterday "Lonely Night, Lonely Way"（ロンリーナイト･ロンリーウェイ）.

Now, Hama did sing and release singles and albums, mostly in the 1960s (and I'll have to seek a few of those out eventually), but it's the first time for me to include him as a singer in "Kayo Kyoku Plus". And to celebrate his 55th anniversary in music last year, he put out the January 2021 "Akogarete" which was by him and longtime lyricist Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）. Justin was also kind enough to give me links to a couple of Japanese-language articles at "Sponichi Annex" and "Pride Japan" talking about this particular single since "Akogarete" may be the first enka to directly relate the story of a man's unrequited love for another man, his senpai, although the target of his affections is involved in a relationship with a woman.

Reading through the "Pride Japan" article, I found out that Yukawa had been looking for a young male enka singer to tackle "Akogarete" but couldn't find anyone. When the lyricist reported this back to Hama, he said that he would sing it and perhaps someday, another singer would cover it.