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Just out of whimsical curiosity, I wondered about what the first Mood Kayo（ムード歌謡）to appear in Japanese music history was. With all of the mournful backing choruses, bars and broken romances, who was the first singer or band to provide the city cousin of enka?
Reading up on the history of Mood Kayo on J-Wiki, I learned that the roots may have been planted by jazz singer and old-time kayo crooner Dick Mine（ディックミネ）. A couple of songs attributed to him as the origins of the bar-focused genre are "Yogiri no Blues" (夜霧のブルース) in 1947, and this particular song released in October 1954, "Ame no Sakaba de" (At a Rainy Bar).
The fact that it has that mournful melody by Namiryu Hirakawa（平川浪竜）and it takes place in a drinking establishment certainly fulfills that Mood Kayo definition. Minoru Shimizu's（清水みのる）lyrics seem to have either a buddy helping out another guy who's literally drowning his tears in drink or a soon-to-be ex-paramour telling his inconsolable mistress to stop drinking and head home to face the inevitable. Not exactly the happiest of scenarios but perhaps it and "Yogiri no Blues" did start up a new genre in Japanese music.
Dick Mine's career spanned from 1934 to 1990, meaning that he is basically Mr. Shōwa. If he had begun just 9 years earlier, he would have been in active service every year of the Shōwa period.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit of a surprise that he actually wasn't called Mr. Showa.
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