Akira Kobayashi -- Kuroi Kizuato no Blues（黒い傷跡のブルース）

 

At the end of September, I posted "Top 10 Singles for 1961" and from there, seeing that singer Yukio Hashi（橋幸夫）had four songs on that list, I wrote on one of those hits, "Nankai no Bishonen"（南海の美少年）. Well, I am also intrigued by some of the other songs that managed to get onto the list, but I went beyond No. 10 and found No. 12.

The powers-that-be in Japanese show business must have been truly celebrating when they had Akira Kobayashi（小林旭）on the payroll. The actor and singer could bust heads and be all cool on the big screen but he could also more than carry a tune, often for his own movies. Heck, a lot of his songs at one point even carried the katakana version of his name in the title back in the day.

However, this one that was the 12th-ranked song on the list didn't. The April 1961 single "Kuroi Kizuato no Blues" (Black Scar Blues) is a jazzier-than-usual Mood Kayo tune during which you can practically hear the tumblers of scotch clinking in the background. With lyrics by Tetsu Mizushima（水島哲）, it's about a man thinking back to the night of his sad breakup with his lover three years previously as he's walking through the foggy night.

The above video has a good karaoke version of "Kuroi Kizuato no Blues" and I've put it up there because it has scenes from the movie that was created in homage to the single. It was released about half a year later and naturally, it stars Kobayashi involved in a romantic thriller. The composer for the song was John Schachtel who was a songwriter and a saxophonist, and it turns out the song as provided to Kobayashi was a cover for the 1960 original released by Henri de Pari and his orchestra under the title of "Broken Promises".