Hisaya Morishige/Keiko Fuji -- Sendou Kouta（船頭小唄）

 

I was watching a 1994 TBS variety series of a trio of tarento bicycling their way around the shitamachi area of Tokyo, and they encountered a couple of grizzled artisans in their 50s who specialized in creating obi for kimono. They accepted and lamented at the same time that they and their fellow comrades were slowly becoming extinct since machines were now able to create them much better and at a lower price although they felt that the human touch added that much-needed character. Now that it's almost thirty years later, I wonder what has become of them.

My feeling regarding the sendou（船頭）or Japanese boatmen is more guardedly optimistic. I can hardly imagine the day when robots will be rowing those old boats on the many rivers of Japan let alone seeing them pull off stunts like the one in the above video supplied by sshinozukajp. And I think that they've had a bigger presence in Japanese culture including within kayo kyoku. I've sometimes come across a few songs with sendou in the title.

Just recently, I found out about this one song titled "Sendou Kouta" (Boatman's Ballad) which was originally created in 1921 by lyricist Ujou Noguchi（野口雨情）and composer Shinpei Nakayama（中山晋平）under the title of "Kare Susuki"（枯れすすき...Withered Pampas） before being renamed the following year. Utako Nakayama（中山歌子）was the first singer to record "Sendou Kouta" in 1923, but unfortunately, I couldn't find any sign of her popular version online. However, I've noticed that the song has been covered by many singers since then, and it's even merited its own article on English Wikipedia.

From what I could discern of Noguchi's lyrics, "Sendou Kouta" seems to be a sad relating of a despairing boatman who may have lost his love and can now just do his job and little else. In 1957, the movie "Ujou Monogatari"（雨情物語...Rain Story） used the song as the theme with actor/singer Hisaya Morishige（森繫久彌）giving his version. The arrangement and Morishige's forlorn delivery can really punch a hole in the heart and I'm reminded a lot of Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）"Kanashii Sake"（悲しい酒）which was released the following decade.

The first version of "Sendou Kouta" that I heard though was by Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）via her July 1971 5th album "Keiko no Jinsei Gekijo"（圭子の人生劇場...Keiko's Theatre of Life）. Her take has a bit more of an epicness to it and then about halfway through, the song suddenly veers more toward a jazzier Mood Kayo arrangement thanks to the introduction of a bluesy saxophone. With that version, I think that the setting goes from the lonely boatman all the way into a Shinjuku nightclub.