I don't know that much about actor Renji Ishibashi（石橋蓮司）aside from the fact that he's been often cast as tough guys and high official types. At 178 cm tall, he may not seem all that tall in America but he has likely cast a very long and intimidating shadow in Japan since his career began in the middle of the 1950s.
One thing I definitely didn't know about Ishibashi was that he's been married to an actress by the name of Mako Midori（緑魔子）. Born in Taiwan as Yoshiko or Ryoko Kojima（小島良子）in 1944, Midori started her time in show business in the mid-1960s in front of the camera, but she also had her time behind the recording microphone beginning in 1967. In fact, here is her second single from September of that year, "Onna wa Kanashii" (Women are a Miserable Lot). A particularly smoky Mood Kayo written by Haruki Tango（丹古晴己）and composed by Minoru Yoshikawa（吉川 実）, it is also a cynical song about one woman's opinions on her lot and perhaps a lot of other women's lot in life in the big city...nothing but one-night stands and goodbyes, and maybe those are the high points. Midori puts so much ennui and disdain in her vocals that they make Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）in the last half of her career a decade later sound like the most cheerful girl skipping in the meadow.
I think this song is the very definition of "Mood Kayo"! Sometimes it seems that a song can fit in more than one genre, and then other times it is kind of unclear or tricky to figure out what genre a song actually belongs to, but that is not the case at all with this song.
ReplyDeleteThere's no doubt about where this one belongs in terms of genre. From the bluesy sax and the husky lower tones of Midori, it's a moody Mood Kayo!
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