The above is a video provided by the YouTube channel JAPAN TRAVEL & WALK for nature, landscape, flower and it shows Mt. Akagi in Gunma Prefecture. As with many mountains in Japan, it's a revered object for worship under the Shinto religion and a World War II Japanese battlecruiser was named for it. Plus, if memory serves, I think that a number of kayo kyoku have referred to the mountain in past decades.
Such is the case for Noboru Kirishima's（霧島昇）"Akagi Blues" which was recorded in 1940. Written by Shoji Kubota（久保田宵二）and composed by Yashio (or Yasuo?) Okuno（奥野椰夫）, it's a melancholy if determined kayo regarding a soldier waiting for the day that he can return to his home at the foot of Mt. Akagi. The rhythm makes me wonder if the soldier were dreaming of home while he was marching on some plain somewhere.
Maybe it's something to ask Noelle Tham about but considering the recent revelation to me that enka, officially recognized as a genre no earlier than the early 1970s, retrofitted a lot of different types of kayo kyoku to come under its umbrella between 1955 and 1970, I wonder whether that retrofitting applied to music before 1955 including the wartime songs. "Akagi Blues" seems to have that familiar enka feeling but maybe officially, it is considered a bokyo kayo（望郷歌謡）or a yearning-for-home song.
a bokyo kayo（望郷歌謡)? I learned something new again! I do not think I have ever heard that term before, but it sounds like what the people might label the ever popular 'Take me home, country road'. Not, sure how that song became so popular in Japan? Anway, Akagi Blues is one of those song I probably would have guessed would have been a bit of a mood kayo, but looks like I was wrong. I have got a lot more to learn the world of kayo.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I only learned the term very recently from Noelle myself. I think "Take Me Home, Country Road" would make for an ideal American bokyo kayo. Maybe even Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind".
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DeleteHi, J-Canuck and Brian.
DeleteI've not heard of this one from Kiri-san, but it's a really interesting song! The instrumental bits do have that prewar Japanese blues sound. Yet it also has that gunka/gunkoku kayo feel especially when Kirishima sings. The words too have a strong gunkoku kayo taste to them. It makes for a very odd mix, considering gunka was the anti-thesis to blues and jazz.
Regarding bokyo kayo... I'll be going into a bit of detail, so pardon the extra long comment.
Bokyo kayo is basically a rather broad genre of songs that either talk about homesickness and/or glorify the countryside that became a thing around the mid-50s because of the popularity of songs like "Wakare no Ippon Sugi" and "Akai Yuuhi no Furusato." This era was when urban migration and mass employment movements occurred and songs like those resonated with the countryfolk in the city. It was also simultaneously a low-key way of convincing people to stay behind in the countryside due to the rapid depopulation in those areas. From my understanding, bokyo kayo did mostly become an important part of modern day enka since it reflected the sentiments of the Japanese folk and featured "traditional" and "real" Japan, but I think there were some rock-inspired or pop-like bokyo kayo that weren't particularly... enka. But that's a whole other can of worms.
Of course, the topic of missing home has always been around in pop music in the 1930s and early 1940s, what with all the internal and external migration and war drafts going on. It was also present in ronin-yakuza-themed stuff (matatabi mono), sailor stuff (madorosu mono), gunkoku kayo (wartime songs created by record companies and not the military), and sasurai mono, which featured wandering in a far-off place and feeling the bite of homesickness. However, as far as I know, there wasn't a specific category called "Bokyo kayo" that explicitly focused on homesickness until the 50s. So, I reckon that Kiri-san's "Akagi Blues," if put in the context of the postwar era music industry, can be a bokyo kayo-esque piece. Probably. These kayo categories are rather vague and what goes into them really depends on the musical powers that be.
That has been my abridged takeaway from Hidetada Fuji's "Bokyo Kayokyoku Ko" (望郷歌謡曲考) from 1997. Hopefully that shed a little light on this thing called "bokyo kayo" for you guys. And if you're interested to know more and can read Japanese, I recommend that book. I actually used it as a basis for a mini, casual presentation on Hachiro Kasuga's bokyo kayo/enka stuff some months ago.
Thanks, Noelle, for the information on bokyo kayo. I will take it then that it is a more of a genre for the 1950s onwards. Perhaps then "Akagi Blues" can be seen as a wartime gunkoku kayo although I would think considering the fascist nature of the Imperial Japanese government, they may not have been too happy hearing about a song that had the soldier protagonist longing for home and away from the front lines.
DeleteNo problem! And yeah, I would say that "Akagi Blues" would be considered a gunkoku kayo, a Blues mono/kayo, or potentially a matatabi mono.
DeleteFunny you should mention the Imperial government because they did actually dislike certain types of gunkoku kayo or even kayo from the "approved" genres for the reason you gave and had the censors flag a number of such tunes from around 1937/1938 onwards. The censorship was a bit on the erratic side, though, and sometimes stuff could be flagged for the most arbitrary of reasons. "Akagi Blues" sounds like it may have gotten the stink-eye from the powers that be, but considering how the censorship wasn't as intense yet, I think it would've passed relatively unscathed.