Koutarou Yamamoto -- Mura no Yuubin Haitatsu（村の郵便配達）

 

In the last couple of days, I heard some sad news. Folk singer and songwriter Koutarou Yamamoto（山本コウタロー） passed away at the age of 73 a couple of weeks ago on July 4th from a cerebral hemorrhage. He'd been with at least a couple of bands during his time: Salty Sugar（ソルティー・シュガー）and Koutarou Yamamoto and Weekend（山本コウタローとウィークエンド）, and with the former band, he became famous for the good-time hand-clapping tune "Hashire Koutarou"（走れコウタロー）, a tribute to a famous racehorse of the 1960s but also a good-natured poke at Yamamoto's tardy ways which was created by a couple of his fellow band members.

Yamamoto also had a solo career which started in 1972 and lasted well into the 1980s with seven singles released. Four albums were also released with the most recent one "Moonlight All Night" coming out in September 2013. His first single was the country folk tune "Mura no Yuubin Haitatsu" (Village Postal Delivery), a happy little ditty about writing a love letter and posting it in the mail. Ahh, those old-fashioned ways before SNS.😊

This time, though, it wasn't Yamamoto behind words or lyrics. Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）wrote the words while Hiroshi "Monsieru" Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）, formerly of the Group Sounds band The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース）, took care of the melody. "Mura no Yuubin Haitatsu" first hit the record shelves in March 1972.

My condolences to Yamamoto's family and friends and fans.