Keiko Matsuyama -- Miren no Hatoba（未練の波止場）

From Yanajin

We do have airports as the settings for parting-is-sweet-sorrow romantic farewells. And then there are the even older seaports from which a lot of other kayo kyoku were made. I've always wondered whether there would be a Pavlovian response if any women of a certain age ever heard a boat whistle going off in the background.

The Keiko Matsuyama（松山恵子）file on KKP is still pretty short so I've decided to check out some of her earlier material. So, going through her article on J-Wiki, I found out the late singer from Fukuoka Prefecture had been on the Kohaku Utagassen a total of eight times with her first (1957) and last (1989) appearances covering the same song.

That song would be "Miren no Hatoba" (Harbour of Regret) which was actually released in May 1957 as her 27th single under the Nippon Mercury label. Yurio Matsui（松井由利夫）was behind the lyrics while Fujio Mizutoki（水時富士夫）came up with the mournful melody of a woman pleading with her paramour not to leave town on the ship. Of course, that's not going to happen in an enka song and so the lady has to tearfully wave him goodbye. 

Although Matsuyama appeared seven consecutive times between 1957 and 1963 on the Kohaku, it would be another 22 years before the singer made her final appearance on the New Year's Eve special in 1989. She would die around 17 years later from liver cancer at the age of 69.