It's hard to believe that it's been over five years since "Avengers: Endgame" hit the big screens and elicited the big cheers, tears and laughs to wrap up the Thanos saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Of course, it was Alan Silvestri's amazing theme for The Avengers which escorted us home in the end credits but Kitty Kallen's "It's Been a Long, Long Time" got its re-debut of sorts when it was played for Steve Rogers' own homecoming. Even after half a decade, I still listen to both songs to get a nice emotional lift.
Commenter Robert B. honed me in on Yoshiko Shinkura（新倉美子）and her contributions to show business the other day. Actress and jazz singer Shinkura only had a brief dalliance in the geinokai between 1953 and 1956 but for those who did see and hear her, she probably did leave a lifelong mark especially with her singing voice. The scene above might be from one of her four movies that she released in 1953 titled "Seishun Jazz Musume"（青春ジャズ娘...Young Jazz Girl） since according to J-Wiki, it was not only Shinkura but also comedian Frankie Sakai（フランキー堺）and actor Tadao Takashima（高島忠夫）in it, and I recognized the faces for the both of them (even as young as they looked) as two members of the jazz group Teruo Yoda and Six Lemons（与田輝雄とシックスレモンズ）. The guys played some snazzy stuff before Shinkura took the stage to perform "You Belong to Me".
Shinkura got married in 1957 at the approximate age of 23 or 24, thus saying goodbye to her celebrity career. It's stated that she only released one single, her cover of "Vaya con Dios" in 1954, but in 1989, an album recorded by her, "All of Me", was released. At 25:02 is "You Belong to Me" once more and with her dulcet tones at that time along with her demure appearance in "Seishun Jazz Musume", my imagination began bubbling and figuring that if 70s aidoru superstar Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）had gone back in time and made her debut a couple of decades earlier, she could have been Shinkura.
At 33:23 is Shinkura's cover of "It's Been a Long, Long Time", so if you folks were wondering why I began with "Avengers: Endgame", well, your patience has now been rewarded. Her version is a bit more late-night in tone. As for what has happened to her, Shinkura has been known as Yoshiko Ikeda（池田美子）and in 1973, she opened her own art gallery in Tokyo's Aoyama district, "Galerie Shinkura". I'm not sure whether she ever did continue singing professionally outside of that 1989 album.
Thanks for the post.
ReplyDeleteI saw that video you linked but did not listen to it before. It must have been recorded much later than the 1950s, judging by her voice. Maybe it was from 1989.
She really maintained it.
The translated comments are all glowing.
I would love to hear her nightclub singing, not likely I will ever though.
Same as for Kumiko Hara's purported club performances.