Ikuzo Yoshi -- Venezia Monogatari（ヴェネツィア物語）

 

As I mentioned in my previous article on Masako Oka's（岡雅子） "Yume Zaiku"（夢細工）, Japan has entered its annual Golden Week holidays and so has its television programming. So, this morning, instead of the usual hour-long NHK "News Watch 9", we only got an abbreviated version of the news for half an hour and then for the next hour, we were able to watch a new hour-long episode of "Sekai wa Hoshiimono ni Afureteru"（世界はほしいモノにあるふれてる...This World is Filled With Wants）, the program specializing on the voyages and adventures of Japanese buyers looking for innovative products to place in their stores back home. 

"Seka Hoshi" did have a regular spot on either Tuesday or Wednesday but it's now been coming out as the occasional special. I've enjoyed the series as something calming to watch so I was able to lap up the latest trip by co-host Ryota Suzuki（鈴木亮平）as he enjoyed the sights, sounds and food of Italy including the magical city of Venice. I confess that I've never had much of a desire to travel but after seeing the images of the shops, canals and restaurants in the Italian city, some spark of interest welled up within me about this particular place.

Well, I figured that there must be a kayo kyoku about Venice somewhere since Shinichi Mori（森進一）was able to get a hit out of his 1982 song "Fuyu no Riviera"（冬のリヴィエラ）. And sure enough, it didn't take much of a search to discover that another enka veteran, Ikuzo Yoshi（吉幾三）, came up with his own tribute to Venice, "Venezia Monogatari" (Venice Story). A track from his February 2015 album "Ai Arigato"（愛・ありがとう...Love, Thank You）, Yoshi wrote and composed this love-drenched tale of romance within the City of Canals. With the instrumentation and rhythm involved, I have categorized it as a New Adult Music piece (somewhere between enka and pop) but there was still something...probably Yoshi's vocals...that still pulled the song strongly back to the enka side.