One day, I was reading through the J-Wiki article on enka and there was a list of all of the enka songs that actually made it to No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies. Among them, one song was Rumiko Koyanagi's（小柳ルミ子）"Fuyu no Eki" (Winter Station) which was her 13th single.
Released in October 1974, just from that jaunty arrangement, I don't really consider it to be an enka song per se; it strikes me more as a straight-up kayo kyoku, and even the article for "Fuyu no Eki" itself has it categorized as such and not as an enka. Written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, it's characterized by a jangly guitar and Koyanagi's light and airy vocals. With the season and the setting in the title, I figured that it would be about a romance that has hit its reluctant end.
As mentioned in the first paragraph, "Fuyu no Eki" hit No. 1 on Oricon through three non-consecutive weeks and it ended up not only as the 63rd-ranked single for that year, it became the 27th-ranked single for 1975. Koyanagi would also get her 4th invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1974 to perform "Fuyu no Eki" during her 18 straight years of appearing on the annual New Year's Eve special.
I have seen Rumiko Koyanagi on TV many times, but I had not seen her in her younger years before! Wow, she was very charismatic early on as well and had some well-written songs!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think she had a battery of songwriters with a lot of fame coming to them. In the 1970s at least, Rumiko had a more demure image but then in the 1980s, she went all sexy and man-eating.
DeleteShe also had a great smile!
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