Harumi Miyako/Yu Sakai -- Yosakoi Naruko Odori（よさこい鳴子踊り）

 

For all of you enka fans out there, yes, that is indeed singer Hiroshi Miyama（三山ひろし）having fun at last year's Yosakoi Festival in Kochi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. According to Kids Web Japan, the annual tradition began in 1954 following the creation of Yosakoi Naruko Odori (Yosakoi Naruko Dance) based on the minyo "Yosakoi Bushi"（よさこい節...Yosakoi Song）. The dancing is accompanied by a couple of clappers known as naruko.

In July 1965, enka singer Harumi Miyako（都はるみ）recorded her version of "Yosakoi Naruko Odori", which was originally written and composed by Eisaku Takemasa（武政英策）and arranged by Shosuke Ichikawa（市川昭介）. 

Now, the reason that I'm writing about this minyo in the first place is that I just watched the first "Uta Con"（うたコン）this year with real live guests with one of them being pop and R&B singer-songwriter Yu Sakai（さかいゆう）. He managed to perform a very stylized and stylish rearrangement of "Yosakoi Naruko Odori" with hefty dollops of soul and jazz and electric guitar and a brass section hopping onboard. In fact, the above video had comments stating that they came over from watching the "Uta Con" broadcast to catch it once more.

Sakai's version is on his double-CD BEST album "Sakai Yu no Playlist ~ Shiro to Kuro"（さかいゆうのプレイリスト［白と黒］...Yu Sakai's Playlist: Black & White） from December 2023 to commemorate his 15th anniversary in the music industry. Another reason that I'm writing about this is that not too long ago, I'd also made note of another new twist on an old minyo "Kaigara Bushi"（貝殻節）by Minyo Crusaders.