Hiroshi Miyama -- Donkozaka（どんこ坂）

 

As I mentioned in the Morning Musume '22 article earlier today, last night's "Uta Con"（うたコン）only really had the one enka performance. Enka singer Aya Shimazu（島津亜矢）showed up at the beginning of the show but she actually sang an old chanson instead of the traditional stuff. It was actually left up to young Hiroshi Miyama（三山ひろし）to provide the genre representative during what was basically a pop episode.

(shortened version)

Miyama was still happily savoring his victory at the Kohaku Utagassen on New Year's Eve since he and his kendama tribe managed to set another Guinness world record. He was also on the show to perform his 17th and most recent single which was released only a couple of weeks ago on the 11th, "Donkozaka" (Donko Hill). Now, I've translated the title as if it were a straight name since looking up the word "donko" on Jisho.org, I found out that the word refers to either a species of goby or a type of shiitake mushroom. I would go with the latter but I didn't see any references to fungi in Daizo Saito's（さいとう大三）lyrics so I'll be happy to assume that it's just the name of a hill. However, if anyone knows better, please let me know.

After hearing a lot of the pop stuff over the past few weeks, it's nice to get some of that enka as a palate cleanser, so to speak. Tetsuya Gen's（弦哲也）melody is filled with plenty of proud enka brio through the timpani, the electric guitar, the strings, the acoustic guitar and the shakuhachi. Then, Miyama gives some reassuring vocals to the love of his life that they will be fine as long as they are together to surmount any hills/obstacles in their way. It doesn't get more enka than that.