Hisao Ito/Akemi Iijima -- Uruwashi no Ryukyu（美わしの琉球）

 

What I've heard is that spam musubi, basically spam rice balls, is a popular dish in both Hawaii and Okinawa. Now, this is a big foodie truth from me but I'm a huge fan of spam and have been so since I was a toddler. My good friend in Japan has disdained the luncheon meat as Alpo for humans, but living in the country all those years, it was often the case that my dinner consisted of fried spam slices and a bowl of hot rice (I did include salad as well, so I was not totally unhealthy), and I couldn't have been happier. There's something about the flavour and the nice thin crust that was a perfect fit for my palate. 

My apologies for the ham-fisted, or I could say spam-fisted, segue into this Okinawan song but unfortunately my options were rather limited because I've never been to Japan's southernmost prefecture. However, I did hear "Uruwashi no Ryukyu" (The Beautiful Ryukyus) on one of the NHK music shows some months ago, and I was hoping to feature this on the blog. 

The furthest back that I've heard "Uruwashi no Ryukyu" is a 1941 recording by Hisao Ito（伊藤久男）, who would gain even more fame from his "Iyomante no Yoru"（イヨマンテの夜）nearly a decade later. His tribute to the Ryukyu Islands which include the island of Okinawa was written by Sounosuke Sato（佐藤惣之助）and composed by Nobuyuki Takeoka（竹岡信幸）, according to the JASRAC database. Ito's version is delivered in a proud but also mournful way, and although I'm uncertain whether it had been meant to be arranged in that fashion, there is something poignant about "Uruwashi no Ryukyu" considering the Battle of Okinawa that would befall the islands a few years later.

Thirty years later in July 1971, singer Akemi Iijima（飯島あけみ）released her 4th and final single which was a cover of "Uruwashi no Ryukyu". Her cover has more of an exotica feeling with the percussion and chorus, and Iijima's delivery makes it feel more like a sung message to all those throughout the islands. Unfortunately, there's very little other information about the singer. Speaking of information, although JASRAC did give the names of the songwriters, Iijima's list of singles on another site mentions that the composer of the "original source" is unknown and the lyrics were provided by Hiroshi Iwase（いわせひろし）.