Akira Mita -- Koi no Ameriachi（恋のアメリアッチ）

 

When I was a kid hearing some of my parents' old records on the RCA Victor, there was one brand of Japanese music that would have me much later think about what kind of music it was. It definitely sounded Japanese so the kayo kyoku was in there but there was some really frenetic rock drumming thumping away. At the same time, though, I could also remember hearing some jazzy horns blaring as well.

Well, thanks to last night's edition of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, the mystery has been solved. NHK brought out the really veteran kayo singers who had hits from half a century to 60 years previously and that included singer and actor Akira Mita（三田明）. The 78-year-old Mita, who wasn't quite an adult yet at the time he had released his 24th single in August 1966, "Koi no Ameriachi" (Ameriachi of Love), performed that very song last night.

The performance rang some memories including that interesting brand of kayo music from my childhood and that also brought a second question: what the heck was an ameriachi? Well, it is written up on J-Wiki but the best source is none other than "TIME" magazine which explains it as a form of 1960s fusion music bringing Mexico's mariachi and squirting it with a healthy dose of American jazz and/or rock n' roll. Apparently, Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass were some of the best practitioners of the genre.

However, Herb didn't have anything to do with Mita's song. For this one, Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）was the composer and arranger to get the kids back then to move their feet and snap their fingers to the beat. Meanwhile, Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）came up with the lyrics about a year before he had his first major hit as a lyricist when he wrote for Naomi Sagara's（佐良直美）"Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni"（世界は二人のために）.