Toshiro Omi/Eisaku Ohkawa -- Yuu-no-Machi Elegy（湯の町エレジー）

 

I've been to individual onsen（温泉）but alas, I never had the opportunity to really experience a full-blown onsen town or yuu-no-machi（湯の町）. My anime buddy and a couple of his friends were fortunate enough in the pre-pandemic times to make it out to Ginzan Onsen（銀山温泉）in Yamagata Prefecture to take in the wonderful townscape where tourists in their yukata could do their own version of barhopping by trying out the various types of hot springs. Since my buddy is also a photography hobbyist, he had the grandest time taking shots of the area which is especially spectacular at night. I gather that there is a certain mystique and romance with the combination of light and dark at Ginzan with bright white wisps or billowing clouds of steam escaping.

By the way, the above footage of Ginzan Onsen came under the aegis of Kuga's Travel, one YouTube channel that I have been subscribed to for quite a while now.

Yesterday, I was watching NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新・BS日本のうた...New Broadcast Satellite Songs of Japan）, the longer and slightly grander version of "Uta Kon"（うたコン）which focuses almost solely on kayo kyoku genres such as enka and Mood Kayo, and one of the special segments for that episode was a tribute to the late composer Masao Koga（古賀政男）. Koga will always be known as one of the master architects for kayo kyoku, and his brand of music, affectionately called Koga Melodies（古賀メロディー）, is notable for the sad Latin guitar imbued into his songs. Our resident kayo kyoku expert, Noelle Tham, gave a tasting on Koga's music several years ago via "The Works of Masao Koga" on KKP, so have a read of that if you like.

One of the songs that was featured on Noelle's article was actor/director Toshiro Omi's（近江俊郎）"Yuu-no-Machi Elegy", a ryukoka（流行歌...literally, popular song） from 1948 which centered around the realization of love lost in an onsen town. Toshio Nomura（野村俊夫）applied the lyrics to Koga's melancholy melody and the result was a huge hit for Omi, selling around 400,000 records, although the J-Wiki article for "Yuu-no-Machi Elegy" (Onsen Town Elegy) also stated that it took 23 missed takes to get to a satisfying one since Omi couldn't quite hit the low notes right. As well, the song had initially been titled "Yuu-no-Machi Blues" but because the finished product by Koga didn't have that blues feeling, the switch in titles was made.

I discovered that the guest on "Shin Nihon no Uta" was veteran enka singer Eisaku Ohkawa（大川栄策）who had been a student of Koga's, and I think that he was the ideal singer to cover "Yuu-no-Machi Elegy". It's always advantageous for any singer to have a certain unique and recognizable quality in their voice. There is soul in Aya Shimazu's（島津亜矢）vocals and Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）has always had that working-man oaken quality in his voice. With Ohkawa, his high, nasal and somewhat mournful qualities probably struck the late Koga as things that could apply very well to his music collectively. So it wasn't any surprise that Ohkawa's version of "Yuu-no-Machi Elegy" was released as his 10th single in July 1972.