I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Out of a sense of curiosity, I wanted to check out whether veteran enka singer Kazuko Mifune（三船和子）was related at all to the legendary actor Toshiro Mifune（三船敏郎）. Alas, this doesn't seem to be the case. In any case, I saw the Aichi Prefecture singer for the first time on a recent episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）last year and she tenderly related her time under the tutelage of the late songwriter Minoru Endo（遠藤実）. Not surprisingly, she said that though he could be very gregarious and jaunty, he could also be quite the fist-thumping and furiously dissatisfied teacher. That probably describes a lot of kayo kyoku creators and singers.
The first several singles of Mifune, who debuted in 1965, were indeed created by her master Endo and that includes "Tanin Bune" (A Ship of Strangers), her 4th single released in December that year. It was also the song that I heard on that episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta". A very bittersweet tune with a lot of kobushi, it relates the story of a woman about to say goodbye to a lover forever as he gets on that ship. She even says outright in the lyrics that she would rather be told by her soon-to-be erstwhile paramour to go die somewhere rather than endure the reality of parting as such sweet sorrow. The song would become a big hit for Mifune throughout 1966 and sell over 100,000 records. However, she only got onto the Kohaku Utagassen for the first and only time thus far in 1995 to sing a completely different song.
Yep, the above is RCA's "50 Years of Hits in Stereo", a collection of 5 LPs that probably came with the new stereo when my parents bought it just before my birth. I used to see this and hear this all the time. I haven't seen it since I got back from Japan and asking my parents about its whereabouts just brings blank looks, so I'm ruefully assuming that they had thrown the entire set away when they got rid of the RCA Victor.
That would be too bad. There was a lot of music history in that set. And as much as I've said in the past that my music awakening began at the turn of the 70s into the 80s, music really had always been there with me in those first fifteen years of life. It wasn't just Yukio Hashi（橋幸夫）, Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）and others on the Japanese side, there was also Henry Mancini, The Ames Brothers and The Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler along with the many other singers and groups involved in "50 Years of Hits in Stereo".
As such, I've already referred to that huge tome of records a few times since The Ames Brothers have gotten their due on the blog with their remarkably bright and chipper version of "September Song" while Mancini was of course behind the cool "Peter Gunn" theme, both versions which are on "50". I distinctly remember my mother playing the former song when I came home after a rotten day at school and I cheered right up. What I would eventually learn is that a lot of those songs that I grew up with were indeed actually cover versions of the original song but given a jazzier, more swivel-happy, and loungier touch. "September Song" by The Ames Brothers definitely falls into that category.
"Sing, Sing, Sing" was once the go-to song for all trailers of Hollywood movies set in the Jazz Age. A bunch of us fellow moviegoers figured that Benny Goodman's iconic swing classic was contractually obligated to be on any and every such trailer. But the Mancini version which is far shorter than the original is the first version that I had ever heard, and it's even swingier, cooler and more dangerous in that 1960s way. It even seems to tell a story of a major heist that suddenly turns very dangerous for its perpetrators and the the police coming after them.
As with "Sing, Sing, Sing", Ann-Margret's take on "Moon River" was the first version I ever heard, not hearing the original by Audrey Hepburn from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" or the popularized version by Andy Williams for many years. Apparently, her version first showed up on RCA Records in 1962.
"Lover" was the Rodgers and Hart song from way back in 1932 when it was sung by Jeanette MacDonald in the movie "Love Me Tonight" when her character sung it to a horse. It's been popularized as this grand pop waltz, performed by many an orchestra such as The Boston Pops. However, it's not that version which was included in "50", but the one by Marty Gold & His Orchestra. And this one has got to be the jazziest and most percussive march I will ever hear.
As with Mancini's propulsive version of "Sing, Sing, Sing", Perez Prado and his Latin jazz ensemble made "Caravan", a jazz standard from 1936 by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol, into this car-chase-through-the-city-streets thriller of a cover. There was another cover by Arthur Lyman, a vibraphone and marimba player from Hawaii, which was used in "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) for one scene where Ocean and Ryan are recruiting the Amazing Yen.
I finally caught most of the original 1956 movie "Around the World in 80 Days" with David Niven and Cantiflas with its royally sweeping theme song. The Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler were back to give their take on the theme which also has its sweep but further seasoned with some Latin and enough excitement in the intro and outro to fuel a Saturn rocket launch. It does feel like a musical orbit around Earth.
From the Wikipedia article, I read that "Moonglow" is a jazz standard from 1933 by composers Will Hudson and Irving Mills with the words by Eddie DeLange. It's the one song in this sample tonight for which I have not heard any other version and that's fine with me although it's been covered by some of the greats including the aforementioned Duke Ellington. The Ames Brothers are more than satisfying with this smoky take that seems to be perfect for a performance in an equally smoky nightclub in Manhattan. I guess that the one I know from "50" had its intro truncated compared to the one above.
The above is merely and approximately 10% of the total output in the 5-LP set. I know that at least some of the other tracks among the records do exist on YouTube, so if there are any of you interested in the old-school pop, just cut-and-paste the artists and titles from that Discogs site that I linked you to at the top and try them out.
Let's see what some of the big hit singles in Japan that got released in 1965 were.
Being Friday, I would usually be putting up my spate of urban contemporary tunes onto the blog, but I hope you'll permit me one change here. Singer and actor Yukio Hashi passed away at the age of 82 yesterday on September 4th. My parents and I were watching an NHK news flash when the announcement came out which garnered a joint gasp from all of us. In the last couple of years, we had seen him announce his retirement from show business in 2023, even going to the extent of searching for a young singer to take on the name of Yukio Hashi and continue his music. But due to popular demand, the original Hashi rescinded that retirement exactly a year later. I don't know if many of us who've enjoyed enka and Mood Kayo knew that he was sick but he had been diagnosed with an Alzheimer's-type disease earlier this year and that may have been a factor in his passing along with pneumonia according to the latest report on J-Wiki.
Hashi's death is especially poignant as he not only was one of the three young Turks in Japanese pop culture's first Gosanke trio alongside Kazuo Funaki（舟木一夫）and Teruhiko Saigo（西郷輝彦）, but in our household, I came to realize that a number of his records were part of my father's collection. So, his voice was a familiar one on the stereo although I wouldn't know who he really was until many years later. The Tokyo-born singer was mostly known for his enka and Mood Kayo classics but he could also put out songs that were outside of those traditional genres...songs that would also become very popular over the decades.
I'm going to put up the songs that I knew as a kid at home. My condolences go to Hashi's family, friends, and many fans.
Welcome to the weekly Reminiscings of Youth (or toddlerhood as it is here) where I will once again dive deeply into the vaults of TV theme songs this time. This week is the 1965 "Green Acres" which had premiered about a month before I arrived on Earth. I wasn't a precocious kid at all (more undercooked, actually) but my impression of the show when I was a baby was that it was about an odd old couple who bought a terrible farm and the husband was pretty much angry all the time at the locals. In the years since, I have been surprised lawyer-turned-farmer Oliver Douglas didn't end up needing his own lawyer because he could have easily murdered the entire populace of Hooterville from frustration.
In my early years of TV viewing from the late 1960s, America's CBS was famous for having a lot of rural-based sitcoms such as "Green Acres", "Petticoat Junction", "The Andy Griffith Show" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" (yes, I know that for that last one, the setting was the titular Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, but the main characters were still down-home folks). Viewers must have wondered whether CBS stood for Cornpone Broadcasting System instead of Columbia Broadcasting System. However, when the 1970s arrived, the powers-that-be decided to go on a rural purge and all of the above sitcoms were cancelled with the focus being on more city-based and socially aware fare such as "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show".
But getting back to "Green Acres", I still remember the opening credits and the theme song by Vic Mizzy. My mother used to tell me (and perhaps everyone within earshot) that I used to bounce on my diapers whenever "Mission: Impossible" came on (that was actually a CBS action drama...nothing countrified there) with its legendary theme song, so there was no way that I wasn't going to do the same with the theme from "Green Acres". At the time, I couldn't quite get the lyrics that main actors Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor sang, but I did get a kick out of the catchy arrangement and got a laugh out of Eddie tossing the pitchfork and then clapping his chest with a straight face. It would also be a while before I realized the irony of Eddie's Oliver driving a dirty tractor while wearing a full business suit.
So, in comparison, let's see what songs were winning the Japan Record Awards back in 1965.
Welcome to the final Monday of August 2025. Although it took me a while to catch up, I've loved the zany Mel Brooks' movies of the 1970s including "Young Frankenstein", and it's poignant to realize that just about all of the main cast have left this mortal coil. There was that one scene where the Monster and Elizabeth had one heck of a romantic night but then the former had to suddenly leave the latter which had poor Liz chastising the Monster as one of those wham-bam-thank-you-ma-am boors who prefers to love 'em and leave 'em.
Harumi Miyako's（都はるみ）June 1965 8th single "Bakaccho Defune" (You Dumb Departing Ships...although I prefer the translation of Darn You, Love 'Em Leave 'Em Sailors) reminds me of that "Young Frankenstein" scene. I heard it last night on NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta" (and yep, it looks like the regular programs are returning from summer hiatus this week) and was delighted that it was a song that I've heard from my childhood but just forgot through the breezy windmills of my mind.
Written by Miyuki Ishimoto（石本美由起）and composed/arranged by Shosuke Ichikawa（市川昭介）, Miyako herself sings in the lyrics that this is a madorosu kayo kyoku or a sailor-based kayo, one of the many sub-genres that would finally be all officially melded into enka, the traditional genre that finally got official standing in the Japanese lexicon in the early 1970s. I gotta ask Noelle whether that Hawaiian twang in Ichikawa's supremely cheerful arrangement was part and parcel of the madorosu kayo kyoku experience. But in any case, the enka legend also growls about how all those sailors quickly come (no pun intended😁) for the romance but then take off just as quickly for the seas, leaving the women bereft of companionship once more. When Miyako growls the title out, I feel that's similar to Elizabeth barking out in frustration, "Oh, you men are all alike!".
We were watching the final episode of the kayo music program, NHK's"Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌...Songs of Japanese Spirit） which included up-and-coming teenage enka/kayo kyoku singer Kokoro Umetani（梅谷心愛）. I've mentioned her once before in a Sites article about a couple of interesting shops in Asakusa earlier this month, and I'm going to have to write about at least one of her singles in the new year. But in any case, for a 17-year-old, she certainly took on a moody and pretty mature song on that episode. It reminded me of adolescent Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）recording "Shishuuki"（思秋期）back in 1977.
The original recording of "Onna no Iji"(Pride of a Woman) was done by Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）back in October 1965. Written and composed by Domei Suzuki（鈴木道明）, it was the B-side to her "Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete"（赤坂の夜は更けて）which is a bit more jazzy (ironically, I wrote about that one exactly nine years ago). "Onna no Iji" is a straight melancholy Mood Kayo and enka mix about the complicated emotions a woman is going through after a relationship goes sour, and it all probably takes place in a bar community in Shinjuku, Ginza or Akasaka. The same musical tropes of a Mood Kayo are there, but I have to say that the tenor saxophone in "Onna no Iji" really stands out.
According to the J-Wiki article on the single, "Onna no Iji" was one of Nishida's favourite songs and around the beginning of the 1970s, it got a second look as its own single. It then became a favourite of many listeners to the extent that "Onna no Iji" managed to sell about 400,000 records. At the end of 1970, Nishida was invited to the Kohaku Utagassen that year to sing it. Her tenth appearance on the NHK New Year's Eve special, it would also be her final appearance on the show after getting married.
This could go down as one of the longer and more curved preamble rambles that I've ever written to lead up to the song of the article, but please bear with me.
In the last half-hour or so, I encountered the "List of longest-running television shows by category" on Wikipedia and apparently at the top of this list is the "Lord Mayor's Show" on BBC. I've seen my fair share of BBC shows in my life such as "Doctor Who" (which is also on the list), but I'd never heard of this televised special that's been going on for 80 years, and the spectacle that's shown on screens has been one that has existed since the 13th century.
Japan has its own entry in the list with NHK's "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）amateur song contest show existing for 68 years. Even my humble Canada has one which is "Hockey Night in Canada" which has been around for 70 years.
The Sanremo Music Festival is Italy's contribution to the list and it's an annual music spectacular that has been on television since 1951. Well, at the 15th edition at the end of January in 1965, there was a performance of a song, created by Vito Pallavicini and Gorni Kramer, titled "L'amore ha i tuoi occhi"(Love Has Your Eyes). Back then, according to the contest rules, each and every song had to be performed twice by two different singers or bands, and "L'amore ha i tuoi occhi" was performed by Bruno Filippini and young Japanese singer Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）.
It didn't take long for this Italian ballad to race across the continents to Japan since in March of that year, Ito had herself another new single which was a cover of the song she sang at Sanremo but given the Japanese title of "Koi suru Hitomi"(Eyes in Love) with Osamu Shouji（東海林修）handling the old-fashioned orchestral arrangement. The Japanese lyrics were provided by Hiroshi Arakaha（あらかはひろし）which was really a pen name for someone at the record company who had to come up with the words. Still, the song wasn't entirely in Japanese; Ito also sang the last half of "Koi suru Hitomi" in Italian.
All of the above was done simply because I knew that the Little Italy neighbourhood in Toronto was having its annual "A Taste of Little Italy" festival this weekend, and I was looking for a kayo kyoku as a tribute.
The iconic "Sazae-san" has been in existence across the broad media spectrum in Japan since its appearance as a manga in 1946. I've known it mostly for the weekly anime series that has been on since 1969. Sometime in the last ten or twenty years, I was also aware of a live-action version of "Sazae-san" starring the adorably wacky Atsuko Asano（浅野温子）but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any clips from it on YouTube.
However, I only realized that there had been an initial live-action version decades previously within the last day or so. Only a couple of years following the debut of the manga, there was a 1948 movie with actress Takarazuka Revue graduate Tonko Azumaya（東屋トン子）in the starring role. But then less than a decade later in 1956, another film, also with the title "Sazae-san", was created, this time with actress-singer Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ）as Sazae-san herself. I'm not certain but perhaps the above clip may be from that movie. She's singing one of her earlier singles "A Guy is a Guy"（ガイ・イズ・ア・ガイ）while she's doing the laundry the old-fashioned way.
Eri must have really left an impression on producers and viewers alike because several years later in late 1965, she even got her own show "Sazae-san" on TBS which lasted a couple of years. The above was apparently the main theme, simply titled "Sazae-san", a brassy and upbeat ditty with a bit of a Latin cha-cha to it. It was written by Tatsuo Miyata（宮田達男）and composed by Yoshiyuki Kouzu（神津善行）.
It's always nice when contemporary pop culture brings back a tune or an entire genre from the past to the revelation and delight of a new generation. That was true for jump jive and swing back in the 1990s and of course, we had that "Plastic Love" thing in 2018. And then, several years ago, an episode of "Family Guy" introducing a new character, Lieutenant Commander Dan Quagmire, brought back an old classic to accompany the naval officer's fabulous moves down the stairs.
The thing is that for Japanese music show viewers, this same song had been used as the theme for TBS' often raucous (after all, it had the notorious Takaaki Ishibashi as a co-host) "Utaban"（うたばん）.
For this week's Reminiscings of Youth, I give you Nancy Sinatra's"These Boots Are Made For Walkin'". Mind you, I was only a couple of months old when this song about kissing off a potentially former boyfriend was released in December 1965 so I very much doubt that I would have remembered hearing this when it came out. However, over the years, it did pop up on a number of variety shows and music programs on the major American networks since Sinatra's voice and that melody have instantly activated my memory engrams whenever I hear them. According to the Wikipedia entry for "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'", songwriter Lee Hazlewood came up with the title after hearing a line ("They tell me them boots ain't built for walkin'.") by The Chairman of the Board himself in the comedy-western "4 For Texas" back in 1963. Yes, I'm talking about Hollywood legend Frank Sinatra, Nancy's father.
For a threatening kiss-off song, "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" is pretty darn sultry and sexy as if Nancy were showing both the carrot and the stick at the same time. Wrong me, I'll mash you into paste, do me right, I'll give you all my lovin'.
The song was a hit worldwide, reaching No. 1 in a number of nations including America, Denmark, Ireland and Argentina. In Canada, it hit No. 2. But even before all of the covers and its usage in "Family Guy" and "Utaban", I knew "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" was also notable for the fact that it had a promotional video which could be acknowledged as one of the first examples of a music video, and this news I got from "The All-Night Show", that local overnight show on the Toronto multicultural channel which was basically the video version of Japan's "Village Vanguard" curio shop.
For this ROY, let's go with what won some of the hardware at the 7th Japan Record Awards for 1965.
First off, let me say that the above video is by the YouTuber kirara and in it is a group of people doing the old 1960s dance, The Monkey. Now I was never the greatest dancer when my friends and I were hitting the discos in the 1980s. Probably, people would have described me as a wayward exoplanet on the dance floor but I do remember one of the moves I had was identical to that of The Monkey, but I can't be sure how that could fit into a 80s dance remix.
Tonight on "Uta Con"（うたコン）, the show paid tribute to the late lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）who had passed away in 2007. Japanese tradition has it that a person's death is to be commemorated on the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 12th, 16th, 32nd and 49th anniversaries of their passing, and so last year was Aku's 16th anniversary. The list of his works for many singers such as Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）, Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）and Pink Lady（ピンクレディー）is so famous and long that even a full hour of tribute to him wouldn't have been enough.
However, I was intrigued by one song of his. In fact, it's been officially noted as Aku's first work as a lyricist: "Monkey Dance" by the Group Sounds band The Spiders...well, to be exact, the cover single states that it is Shouchi Tanabe & The Spiders（田辺昭知とザ・スパイダース）; Tanabe was the leader and the drummer. "Monkey Dance" was the B-side to the band's first single"Furi Furi"（フリフリ...Shake Shake） which was released in May 1965. Koji Wakino（脇野光司）was responsible for the suitably Monkey Dance-friendly tune and even Masaaki Sakai（堺正章）and Jun Inoue（井上順）are getting in on the act on the cover.
For all of you enka fans out there, yes, that is indeed singer Hiroshi Miyama（三山ひろし）having fun at last year's Yosakoi Festival in Kochi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. According to Kids Web Japan, the annual tradition began in 1954 following the creation of Yosakoi Naruko Odori (Yosakoi Naruko Dance) based on the minyo "Yosakoi Bushi"（よさこい節...Yosakoi Song）. The dancing is accompanied by a couple of clappers known as naruko.
In July 1965, enka singer Harumi Miyako（都はるみ）recorded her version of "Yosakoi Naruko Odori", which was originally written and composed by Eisaku Takemasa（武政英策）and arranged by Shosuke Ichikawa（市川昭介）.
Now, the reason that I'm writing about this minyo in the first place is that I just watched the first "Uta Con"（うたコン）this year with real live guests with one of them being pop and R&B singer-songwriter Yu Sakai（さかいゆう）. He managed to perform a very stylized and stylish rearrangement of "Yosakoi Naruko Odori" with hefty dollops of soul and jazz and electric guitar and a brass section hopping onboard. In fact, the above video had comments stating that they came over from watching the "Uta Con" broadcast to catch it once more.
Sakai's version is on his double-CD BEST album "Sakai Yu no Playlist ~ Shiro to Kuro"（さかいゆうのプレイリスト［白と黒］...Yu Sakai's Playlist: Black & White） from December 2023 to commemorate his 15th anniversary in the music industry. Another reason that I'm writing about this is that not too long ago, I'd also made note of another new twist on an old minyo "Kaigara Bushi"（貝殻節）by Minyo Crusaders.
Soon after I had posted up the weekly Reminiscings of Youth on Shirley Bassey's scintillating "Goldfinger" for the 007 movie of the same name, I received a comment from someone who pointed out that only the late Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）and Hatsumi Shibata（しばたはつみ）could approach doing a great cover of that theme song.
Maybe this song isn't exactly the one to put in as proof in the pudding when it comes to the above claim since it requires a certain coolness and sultriness here compared to the brass in "Goldfinger". However, I have had to keep reminding herself that Hirota was still all of around eighteen years of age (heck in that outfit on the cover in the thumbnail above, she still appears like a high school kid!) when she released her "Miko in New York" in 1965 and knocked me off my seat hearing her scat like a pro for "Comin' Home Baby", one of the tracks. As much as she was one of the classic kayo singers with hits like "Ningyo no Ie"（人形の家）, she was also a pretty snazzy jazz chanteuse as well. Might I also give my compliments to the Billy Taylor Trio and their inclusion of "Sakura, Sakura" within the arrangement.
Ben Tucker had first come up with the 1961 instrumental jazz tune "Comin' Home Baby" with the Dave Bailey Quintet recording it. Bob Dorough then added lyrics after which The Velvet Fog, Mel Tormé, sang it into a hit in 1962. I was able to get the information from the Wikipedia article on the song.
The above is an image of the April 1965 album by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, "Whipped Cream & Other Delights". Well, that cover certainly had a lot of people talking when the album hit the record shelves, and I recall Alpert coyly telling fans at the Brass' concerts that he had to apologize but he couldn't play the album cover for them. 😁
Now, judging from the fact that I'm talking about Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass here today, you'd all be forgiven for thinking that this is a special Reminiscings of Youth article but it really isn't. The track here is "Bittersweet Samba", a short song at under 2 minutes that I've heard from time to time over the decades, probably through commercials or those "Technical Difficulties" situations on the telly way back when.
But what I hadn't known was that "Bittersweet Samba" has had a much more significant presence in Japanese radio history in that it's been the theme song for the Nippon Broadcasting System program "All Night Nippon"which has been keeping night owls up almost every overnight in the week since October 1967. My impression is that if there's something that the Japanese are absolutely aces at, it's having mellow radio talk shows deep into the wee hours...in the case of "All Night Nippon", it's been from 1 am.
Last night on "Uta Con"（うたコン）, singer Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）appeared on the show. There was a brief montage of her career through old footage, and although her career began in 1958 when she was around eleven years old, there were even a couple of photos of her as a 6-year-old singing in front of a mix of civilians and American servicemen, so she's actually been behind a microphone for 70 years!
Now, her featured song on "Uta Con" was her trademark kayo "Koyubi no Omoide"（小指の思い出）from 1967, but during the montage, there was another song played that I had never heard before. Titled "Suteki na Cappuccina" (Splendid Cappuccina), at first thought, I'd assumed that it was one of Ito's cover tunes of an old American chestnut since her early discography consisted of two wings of cover tunes and actual kayo kyoku created by Japanese songwriters. Well, as it turns out, "Suteki na Cappuccina" is an example of the latter with the homegrown song being created by lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）.
With a gallant guitar twang, a high-toned backing chorus and a steady rhythmical gait, "Suteki na Cappuccina" sounds like an ideal American girl pop song of those 1960s, and well that is obvious, since it was indeed released as Ito's 30th single in December 1965. I was wondering about that last word, though. What is a cappucina? Well, in Italian, it refers to the capuchin monkey. I'd assumed that it was a variant of coffee but the way it's used in "Suteki na Cappuccina" and one other golden oldie, it's a lady of a goodly amount of popularity.
As for that other golden oldie, I'm talking about Nat King Cole's"Cappuccina" from 1961. It's a different song to be sure, but this particular song does remind me somewhat of "Mack the Knife".
Welcome to November 2023. It's definitely gotten seasonal here with the current temperature at 4 degrees Celsius. Hopefully, the chocolate bars and candies from last night's Halloween festivities have been tasty and won't end up as a coagulated semi-sentient mess in a year.
The video here is a decade old and comes from shin3mania TV and it shows someone grinding the sesame seeds which is known as gomasuri（ゴマすり）in Japanese. I've always done this whenever I go out to dine at any tonkatsu restaurant, and I do appreciate my ground sesame seeds on the tonkatsu itself or in the gloppy sauce.
Gomasuri is also a slang term to mean ass-kissing or toadying up to the boss. I always saw that sort of character in a J-comedy set in the corporate world. They would be trying to curry favour with the president or section chief while seeing the main character as a meddling presence in the way up to the top.
My intention to start off the penultimate month of the year was to find something from my birth year of 1965 and I encountered this song by the late entertainer Hitoshi Ueki（植木等）. His most famous persona (although the real person was very far from this personality type) was that of the unrepentantly lazy and irresponsible company worker as displayed through his trademark tune of "Suudara Bushi" (スーダラ節）from 1961.
The 1965 song, "Gomasuri Koushinkyoku" (The Sycophant March) is another Ueki jaunty kayo kyoku of sinful personality where it's good to be as obsequious as possible. Gotta polish those apples and brown those noses. The usual trio arrived to take care of this song with Ueki behind the mike while Hiroaki Hagiwara（萩原哲晶）came up with the snappy melody for the orchestra and Yukio Aoshima（青島幸男）was behind the lyrics.
Not surprisingly, there was a movie for Ueki with "Gomasuri Koushinkyoku" as the theme song: "Nippon Ichi no Gomasuri Otoko"（日本一のゴマすり男...Japan's No. 1 Sycophant） which hit the theatres in May 1965. One of the cast members was Mie Hama（浜美枝）who would later show up in the James Bond movie "You Only Live Twice" a couple of years later. That must have been quite the change from Ueki to Connery. In any case, you can see Ueki and Crazy Cats performing the song below and they're even doing the gesture for gomasuri.
Yep, that's the one. This is one of the first albums, Japanese or non-Japanese, that I ever got to hear as a little tyke playing around on the carpet. In fact, I played it last night on my TEAC for the first time in ages; the bass tones have gotten muffled but Herb Alpert's distinctive trumpet is very much intact. And for the first time in ROY history, I'll be talking about an album rather than a single although I will keep things to just a few tracks.
Trumpeter Herb Alpert and the Tiujana Brass has already gotten representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in the Reminiscings of Youth category for their provision of the catchy theme for the first "Casino Royale" movie in 1967. Even when I was watching the movie for the first time and heard the theme, I quickly figured that it had to have been Alpert with that puffy and breathy style of his.
Alpert and the Brass'"Going Places" was their 5th album released in September 1965, just a month or so before I arrived in the world. Listening to the album again last night naturally brought back a whole wave of nostalgia. The first track is "Tijuana Taxi" which is a good song to get acquainted with the guys. Knowing my brother and myself back then, I figured that we were giggling all the time to that bicycle horn blasting away.
The other really recognizable track is "Spanish Flea" which is a playful tune that has a close connection to that "Casino Royale" theme. Probably out of all of the tracks, it's the most famous one in pop culture since it was used as background music for the American game show "The Dating Game" and humourously utilized as the go-to song whenever a TV station had technical difficulties.
"Going Places" is also known as the Alpert album of cover songs and one of them is "Walk, Don't Run" that had originally been a 1954 composition by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith and then covered by The Ventures in 1960. I got really hung up on this song for a while not knowing that it was a cover version. Of course, being that young at the time, my musical vocabulary and comprehension were minimal to say the least so I hadn't realized that the Tijuana Brass wasn't just solely doing the mariachi thing; they were also rocking hard, like with this particular track, and jazzing it up, too.
My final track is "And the Angels Sing" which was originally recorded by Benny Goodman in 1939 as a jazz tune. This was also another favourite of mine for its breezy and easy listening style. Alpert and everyone on the band sounded like they were having a grand old time with this one.
It was fun for me going down memory lane with "Going Places", and apparently so did many people when the album first came out. It stayed at No. 1 on US Billboard for six weeks straight. To finish things off here, I came across some poignancy when I was reading up on Alpert's biography and perhaps this quote could help those who are just starting out in anything and have gotten discouraged. I found it on Wikipedia but the original source is the April 2017 issue of "Off Beat".
All artists should be looking for their own voices. I went through a period of trying to sound like Harry James and Louis Armstrong and Miles [Davis]. And then when Clifford Brown came along, it was almost discouraging. The guy was so good! But I kept at it. I loved playing. And then when I heard Les Paul multitrack his guitar on recordings, I tried that with the trumpet. Boom—that sound came out. After I released ‘The Lonely Bull,’ the record that started A&M in 1962, a lady in Germany wrote a letter to me. She said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Alpert, for sending me on a vicarious trip to Tijuana.’ I realized that music was visual for her, that it took her someplace. I said, ‘That’s the type of music I want to make. I want to make music that transports people.
And of course, he did find his own sound. As much as Miles Davis has his own voice, so does Herb Alpert.
I've known about singer and outspoken commentator Akihiro Miwa（美輪明宏）for years due to his frequent appearances on television. He's been more than willing to give out advice and opinions, and at least once, he's given a huge on-air tongue-lashing to fellow celebrities if warranted. As for his singing, I believe chanson has been his domain since he began his career in the 1950s though his time as a commentator is by far how I know him best.
A few days ago, someone left a comment at the article for Ichiro Fujiyama's（藤山一郎）"Nagasaki no Kane"（長崎の鐘）inquiring about a song that Miwa had recorded in the 1960s. It's often the case that a commenter will state that a certain tune is fun and/or enjoyable, but for Miwa's tune, they stated that it was important. So, my curiosity was peaked, especially on learning that this particular kayo had been banned from radio for apparently a good length of time even after becoming a popular hit.
The song is "Yoitomake no Uta"(The Day-Labourer's Song) and though it was first released as a single in July 1965, it had been first sung by Miwa back in 1964. According to J-Wiki and Wikipedia, the circumstances behind its origins are two-fold. "Yoitomake no Uta", which was written and composed by the singer, is based on the mother of a childhood friend who died while working as a day-labourer known as a yoitomake（よいと巻け）in the construction industry. The character of the young boy in the song was bullied because of his mother's job but seeing her toil for her family galvanized him into eventually becoming a top-level engineer.
The second circumstance was the trigger behind the creation of the song when by accident, one of Miwa's associates had booked him to perform in a small mining town in 1964. Although unhappy at first, Miwa went ahead with the show but noticed that the audience members were workers who had gathered together their meager wages to purchase tickets. Feeling ashamed for his initial attitude, the flamboyant and expensive clothing that he was wearing in front of them, and the fact that he didn't have any song directly meant for them, he created "Yoitomake no Uta". Whenever he performed the song in concert, Miwa shunned his usual fancy garb and hairdo for something far more plain. The lyrics' translation is available here.
My own observation of "Yoitomake no Uta" is that although it's undeniably Miwa singing, the song itself doesn't sound anything like a chanson at all. Instead, it's arranged as a simple and innocent and proud kayo kyoku, and Miwa sets the tone right from the beginning by declaring loudly that the work is being done on behalf of the mother's husband and children.
Although I was obviously not around in Japan in the immediate postwar years, I've read and imagined that the country, though on the road to recovery by the 1960s, still had many people working hard in the factories, the fields and the mines so it wasn't surprising that "Yoitomake no Uta" would hit hearts and become a popular kayo. When he performed it on a TV morning show in 1965, the favourable response was so immense that he was asked to do an encore which was very unusual at any time. As well, when that single was first released in the summer that year, it managed to sell 400,000 records.
But the surprising thing was that the organization currently known as The Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association banned the song from public broadcast due to what it felt was discriminatory wording within Miwa's lyrics including the words "yoitomake" and "dokata"（土方）. Not surprisingly, Miwa and fans of the song cried foul. I looked up those words on places like Jisho.org and found only "heave-ho" and "labourer" respectively. I don't know the deep cultural nuances of the Japanese language but even considering the time period, I haven't been able to glean what the problem was through using that vocabulary, and so I ask any Japanese readers of the blog along with any of those viewers who have a strong handle on the language to provide any insight.
I also don't know how long the ban lasted although it seems as if Miwa, his fans and other singers simply ignored it with that third group doing their own covers including Kiyoshi Hikawa（氷川きよし）and Shinobu Otake（大竹しのぶ）.
Ultimately Miwa was even able to perform "Yoitomake no Uta" on the 2012 Kohaku Utagassen, something that could have happened half a century earlier when he had been invited to sing the song on an earlier Kohaku. However, because neither NHK nor Miwa would budge on their positions during negotiations for shortening the six-minute song to fit the special's schedule, the latter had to decline the offer.
Well, I've had one representative song from the currently running anime "Tomo-chan wa Onna no Ko!"（トモちゃんは女の子！...Tomo-chan is a Girl!）in the form of Maharajan's "Kurae! Telepathy"（くらえ！テレパシー）. There have already been some highlights from the first few episodes of the show including main character Tomo giving her own special touch to traditional Japanese kids' songs at karaoke. I will definitely have to cover the song that Tomo sings here very soon since it is a classic and because her seiyuu Rie Takahashi（高橋李依）has really shown her range.
But allow me to introduce an old kayo that I hadn't realized was specifically a children's song until I got to listen to it again after many years. I simply assumed that "Te no Hira wo Taiyou ni" (The Sun in the Palms of Our Hands) was just another one of those Showa Era songs that everyone loved to do in a singalong. It's jaunty and people can do it in unison so I can imagine that it was a fun tune to do at karaoke, and maybe ol' Tomo can give it a shot the next time she goes...if she does go a next time.
Bonny Jacks（ボニージャックス）is a chorus group that I've always wanted to get onto the blog just because I like the sound of that name of theirs. Formed in 1958 from the Waseda University glee club, they first consisted of Takeomi Kashima（鹿島武臣）, Motoyasu Tamada（玉田元康）, Hisao Nishiwaki（西脇久夫）and Masato Ohmachi（大町正人）. With the deaths of the last two members in 2021 and 2011 respectively, it's currently a trio with Hideyuki Yoshida（吉田秀行）joining in 2003. "Te no Hira wo Taiyou ni" is one of Bonny Jacks' trademark tunes that was released as a single in 1965 and it was successful enough that the group made their final of three appearances on the Kohaku Utagassen that year.
Not surprisingly, "Te no Hira wo Taiyou ni" has had its covers over the decades, and in fact, Bonny Jacks' tilt at the song was also a cover. The song about friendship and love of life in all its myriad forms (sounds rather Shinto) was first recorded in 1962 for NHK's music program for kids "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）with lyrics and music provided by Takashi Yanase（やなせたかし）and Taku Izumi（いずみたく）respectively. Recorded by Mariko Miyagi（宮城まり子）, a singer and actress who would later become an advocate for children with disabilities, and Victor Jidou Gasshoudan（ビクター児童合唱団...The Victor Children's Chorus）, the orchestra has an almost rumba approach to the arrangement. Miyagi herself is downright boisterous in her delivery.
I was talking with Scott of "Holly Jolly X'masu" recently and we happened to get onto a topic concerning one of my old personal signs that the summer holidays were about to end and school was once again going to cast a long ugly shadow on my life. Mind you, "The Jerry Lewis Labour Day Telethon" was always something that was fun to watch for me back in the 1970s, and as I would realize later on in life, the telethon was one of the very few opportunities that I got to see a lot of the Rat Pack in their heyday. Back then, it was fun to watch Jerry, Ed McMahon and Sammy Davis Jr. among other starsentertaining viewers for hours on end.
However, it was the tote board hourly showing how much money was being raised to battle muscular dystrophy that got my excitement. I guess that it was due to all of the pomp and circumstance leading up to the announcement and then Jerry and Ed doing all of those Hollywood yells ("HAOOOOOOH!") when the new total came out.
The other thing is the song that the telethon orchestra played each time the total came out and it just seemed to be the theme for the entire show. I would find out that it was "What the World Needs Now Is Love" and to echo my feelings on it, I remember seeing a commercial advertising the telethon one year in which animated caricatures of Jerry and a lot of the Hollywood hoi polloi sang the song.
When I looked up the song on Wikipedia, I was surprised by a couple of things. I'd assumed that the original song from April 1965 was recorded by someone like Dionne Warwick, but it was actually Jackie DeShannon. Crazily enough, DeShannon already has recognition on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for being the first singer to record "Bette Davis Eyes", which would become popularized by becoming a New Wave anthem by Kim Carnes in 1981 (and another subject for a ROY article). The other surprise was that "What the World Needs Now Is Love" has been categorized as a folk rock tune as well as a jazz/soul number. Jazz and soul are in full supply here in what I've deemed to be an absolute wistful standard but I can't really hear the original as either folk or rock. What isn't a surprise is who was behind the song: the legendary duo Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
"What the World Needs Now Is Love" hit No. 1 on Canada's RPM singles chart while it became the 7th-ranked single on America's Billboard. Incidentally, according to the Wikipedia article on the song, Warwick had been offered first dibs to sing it but she turned it down for being too "country" (!), but I guess that she finally did acquiesce to the request since she did record it in 1966 for her "Here Where There Is Love" album.
Although I couldn't find out in which month the first two Japanese tunes had been released in 1965, the final one was indeed an April 1965 single, just like DeShannon's magnum opus.
As a PS, since we are still mourning the loss of musician and songwriter Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）this month, here's his version of "What the World Needs Now Is Love" from his 1990 album"Broadcast from Heaven".
Good golly! I remember this oh-so-1970s commercial as if it had been playing yesterday on the old telly. Lowney's Cherry Blossoms were a treat that I had to eat from time to time as they were readily available in supermarkets and convenience stores in Canada. They not only raised my caloric input but most likely decreased my life expectancy without me realizing it. Mind you, we have a box of the Laura Secord version on the coffee table but those blossoms are thankfully far less potent.
Chocolate in their bars and other forms were just as popular in Japan, too. I believe that I actually did buy a few boxes of Look Chocolate at the local 7-11 or am/pm during my time there. Certainly, the shapes look very familiar. I'm also happy that someone on YouTube was enterprising enough to put up an ancient commercial for Look which does have that mild psychedelic appeal. The jingle seems to have come out of some 1960s Italian movie.
Look is still putting forth chocolates and commercials today as you can see from the fellows of Snow Man making their mark.
I was actually doing a bit of research on the legendary kayo writing team of lyricist Rokusuke Ei and composer Hachidai Nakamura（永六輔・中村八大）. Of course, the two have been immortalized for the "Sukiyaki" song, aka "Ue wo Muite Arukou"（上を向いて歩こう）, but I also saw on their list that they were also responsible for one jingle for Look which was created in 1963, a couple of years following "Sukiyaki".
Titled simply "Look Chocolate no Uta"(The Look Chocolate Song), it was recorded by the late Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）. Short and sweet as any chocolate jingle ought to be, it has that catchy twist-friendly arrangement, and maybe the kids were doing their little jig while whining at their parents to take a look at Look.
Going further down the rabbit hole to find out about "Look Chocolate no Uta", I discovered via Discogs that it had been a B-side for a 1965 45" single of chocolate jingles. The A-side had "Topsy no Uta" (The Topsy Song) for a chocolate of that name which no longer exists. Composer Nakamura was also responsible for this jingle but the lyricist for this one was Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）. And the singer here was none other than Bob McGrath of "Sesame Street" fame who just passed away late last year. It's got quite the dramatic and romantic heft for chocolate, doesn't it? Bob did a pretty bang-up job on the Japanese, too.
