Enka veteran Fuyumi Sakamoto（坂本冬美）appeared on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）last weekend and stated that she has long been an admirer of fellow enka singer Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）, and like her great sempai, Sakamoto has dabbled into other genres during her long career.
On the same episode, Sakamoto performed her latest single from March of this year, "Tooi Mukashi no Koi no Uta" (A Love Song From Long Long Ago). Written and composed by Yuka Kawamura（川村結花）with Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）handling the arrangements, it's a relaxing jazz ballad that has me thinking of Mariko Takahashi's（高橋真梨子）own jazz songs from long long ago. In a way, it seems to bring together the strings of the beautiful music that had been seen as the "good" music of yesteryear and the trombone of jazz that had been considered to be the "evil" music way back when.
I also recall Ishikawa tackling the century-plus-old genre a few decades back with "Whiskey ga O-Suki deshou?" (ウィスキーが、お好きでしょ）.
Flawless vocal performance from Fuyumi on this, as would be expected. Really nice song.
ReplyDeleteHi, Robert. Yeah, I'm quite the sucker for these jazz standard-type tunes as well.
DeleteFuyumi Sakamoto seems to really like that green top that she is wearing in the video and on the album cover and in another video I saw. I assume that a lot of people admire Sayuri Ishikawa, as I think she is a living legend. I don't think her career is quite as long as Misora Hibari’s career was, which lasted through a large part of the Showa period. But, I say Sayuri Ishikawa’s career is nonetheless significant. Now, as for Fuyumi Sakamoto, I enjoy that she is rather flexible in regards to genre.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. Yeah, I think she was even wearing that teal-green blouse during her performance on TV. I guess it's become her go-to top for this particular song.
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