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.
Hello there. I would have been happier if I'd had the list for the Oricon Top 10 Singles for July 1st 1967, which was the 100th birthday for Canada but I believe Oricon's lists hadn't started quite yet. Well, I guess we'll go with the list when Canada turned 101.
Not to say that I'm an X-Man or anyone like that, but earlier today as I was entering my usual digestion-induced nap, I got a little spark in my head about whether there would be an obituary regarding someone in the music industry, and annually, there have been a few. As it turns out, less than an hour ago, I was watching the morning news on NHK and the report came out that veteran lyricist Jun Hashimoto had passed away on May 21st at the age of 86 due to cirrhosis.
Since I began this blog back in 2012, as someone who hadn't been too up on lyricists, arrangers and composers at the time, Hashimoto's name was one that I came across fairly often especially in the early years of KKP. And according to both J-Wiki and NHK, he had written approximately 2000 songs of which a little over 70 have been covered here. He worked with a number of composers during his career which lasted close to 60 years but it was his collaborations with the late Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）that produced a lot of those kayo kyoku hits.
Born on July 8th 1939, Hashimoto was born Junsuke Yoda（与田凖介 ）, the son of famed poet and children's book author Junichi Yoda（与田凖一）, in Tokyo. He started learning about lyric writing on his own while studying at Aoyama Gakuin University, and he eventually came under the wing of composer Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）in 1961. Some years later in 1966, his first stint at lyrics which ended up as a record was "Kiiroi Lemon"（黄色いレモン...Yellow Lemon） by another Sugiyama protege, singer Koichi Fuji（藤浩一）who would later become Masato Shimon（子門真人）. It was also Tsutsumi's first stint at composing a record as well under Sugiyama's wing. Thus, the source of all those Hashimoto/Tsutsumi hits can be tracked back here.
Of course, a couple of years later, Hashimoto and Tsutsumi would pen their first evergreen kayo hit, "Blue Light Yokohama"（ブルーライト・ヨコハマ）by Ayumi Ishida（いしだあゆみ）.
The lights of the city are really beautiful, aren't they? Yokohama, Blue Light Yokohama The two of us are so happy
As always, those words of love Yokohama, Blue Light Yokohama Give those words to me
A year previously though, Hashimoto with Jackey Yoshikawa and his Blue Comets member and composer Tadao Inoue（井上忠夫）came up with "Blue Chateau"（ブルー・シャトウ）, arguably the Group Sounds band's most famous hit from 1967. In fact, NHK reported that Hashimoto was instrumental to the GS boom of those late 1960s.
Surrounded by the woods and the springs There quietly sleeps the Blue Chateau You are waiting for me The dark and lonely Blue Chateau
Another Group Sounds hit that Hashimoto wrote was "Amairo no Kami no Otome"（亜麻色の髪の少女）by The Village Singers (ヴィレッジ・シンガーズ) in 1968 with his mentor and composer Sugiyama behind the melody.
The wind gently folds the long flaxen hair The girl holds the white bouquet to her chest As she comes down the hill as if with wings To her kind boyfriend she goes Her singing voice cheerful because she's in love
Even with the end of the Group Sounds period in the early 1970s, Hashimoto would continue to pen the hits including the popular duet song "Canada Kara no Tegami"(カナダからの手紙）in 1978 with Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃） , who also composed it, and Yoko Hatanaka（畑中葉子）. Yeah, to think I pummeled the heck out of that one at karaoke, and it was a Hashimoto classic!
Love letter from Canada If by chance, we were together How much fun we would have on this trip Love letter from Canada
Hashimoto and Hirao would work together again soon after and this time, it would be for the theme song of one of the most famous anime series ever created, "Ginga Tetsudo 999"（銀河鉄道999）as sung mightily by Isao Sasaki（ささきいさお）.
The train comes out of the darkness into the sea of light It's the endless universe where dreams scatter Let's cross the bridge of stars People will always search for happiness As if they were voyagers
My last entry here involves Hashimoto's dalliance with City Pop, and I'm not sure how far down the rabbit hole he went but he and Tsutsumi worked together here as well to make Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美)"Street Dancer" in 1980.
As I keep my sunglasses on I gaze at the flow of time Weekend The neon at noon, the glittering streets Stuffing my face with a hamburger Seeking the sprit of youth Together
Of course, this article isn't anywhere near as comprehensive as I would like it to be. However, I did want to pay homage to the man in some fashion and hopefully some of you can take a look at the other articles of songs that Hashimoto wrote over his decades in the music business. My condolences to his family, friends, fans and many fellow songwriters in the industry.
Well, just like that segment on "Entertainment Tonight", let's go with some birthday announcements for two singers who are still around and one composer who did leave this mortal coil several years ago.
It's been one of those days where I was out for most of it (explanation next time) and so I'm doing my second of two postings as usual close to the midnight hour. Therefore, I'm not exactly filled with energy right now. I'll have to settle with putting up some rankings and since it's close enough to April 22nd, why not go with April 22nd 1968?
In the old days of NHK's various incarnations of its weekly kayo kyoku show such as "Kayo Concert", hosts, staff and guests would occasionally come up with a theme night. The theme could be based on a samurai drama with the singers all dressed up in historical garb or it could be a bunch of guys out on the town in Shinjuku or Akasaka with one of the female veteran chanteuses as the proprietress of the popular drinking hole. The sets would be quite elaborately set up.
Since the COVID days though, I think those big theme nights have largely shrunk in design and frequency, perhaps due to health and/or budgetary concerns. Still, tonight's "Uta Con"（うたコン）brought out the theme of the annual welcome party for the newbies of a company with everybody getting involved including legendary kayo singer Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）as the generous and wise (if perhaps a tad longwinded) president.
Not surprisingly, Itsuki, who is now celebrating his 55th year in show business, had the final song of the night, and as has been the gimmick for the last few weeks, the staff placed a small trivia question regarding Itsuki as he was performing. As Itsuki fans know, the singer had gone through a number of stage names early in his career in the late 1960s before the name Hiroshi Itsuki was the final one he needed for sustained success. The question was "Which stage name did he have for only one day?", and the answer was "Jun Nakagawa（中川淳）" which explains why I haven't seen any songs under that name in his J-Wiki discography.
Still, let's go to one of his songs under the past stage name of Eiichi Ichijo（一条英一）. I have posted one song when Itsuki was Ichijo, and that was his first single under that name, "Ore wo Nakaseru Yoru no Ame"（俺を泣かせる夜の雨）from 1967. That was more of a Mood Kayo number but his third and final single under Ichijo was "Hatoba no Mari" (Marie on the Waterfront) which was released in April 1968 and it's quite a different animal.
Written by Kaoru Mizuki（水木かおる）and composed by Hideyuki Fujiwara（藤原秀行）, if I could use the 1980s-and-beyond genre New Adult Music, I probably would. It's quite the mix of enka with a jangly Group Sounds arrangement including a really boozy saxophone. My other observation is how consistently high-toned Ichijo is here along with a plaintiveness that reminds me of a young Shinichi Mori（森進一）who was breaking out at around the same time.
Apparently, "Hatoba no Mari" didn't sell but the man hung on for a few more name changes and singles, before he finally hit pay dirt with "Yokohama Tasogare"（よこはま・たそがれ）.
Kasuga performing at the Kurashiki no Hito promotional recital. The band conductor (extreme right) is likely Hayashi. From Mikasa, 14 April 1968 Issue
It goes without saying that a singer's voice is their main attraction... Well, most of the time I would think it is. It certainly is one of them for me. I tend to favour the smoother, resonant vocals of singers from the 1930s and immediate postwar era, and value the singer's ability to convey emotion without having to go over the top - I'm looking at you, do-enka singers. I suppose it's no surprise by now that the one who is the perfect intersection of everything I like in a singer's voice is Hachiro Kasuga (春日八郎).
Hachi ordinarily delivered his songs according to the music sheets with little to no room for adlibbing, for this seemed to be a hardline expectation for artistes in the old kayo world (approx. late 1920s to early 1960s). Such an expectation began to fade by around the 60s or so as more and more amateur singers came on to the scene. By the time enka the genre sprouted (1964-65), conveying anguish/sadness/drama, as well as not sounding "perfect" nor singing according to the (music) books seemed to take priority - in enka, at least. Nevertheless, Hachi still mostly sang as he did when recording songs, though on the rare occasion he does surprise me. One of such times is in Kurashiki no Hito (Woman of Kurashiki).
Part of Kasuga's late-to-take-off "Onna Series"* (女シリーズ), Kurashiki no Hito hit the shelves in March 1968, was written by Takashi Tsukasa (司太可志), and composed by Isao Hayashi (林伊佐緒). I got to know this song several years ago when I was still testing the waters with Hachi. I was on board with it fairly quickly with it being a romantic blues Mood Kayo with the saxophone blaring away and all. Topic-wise, its your standard enka and Mood Kayo fare, i.e. our song protagonist is reminiscing and pining for the titular woman from Kurashiki - a love that wasn't meant to be. However, at the time the Hachiro Kasuga whom I knew as generally sounding measured if not somewhat gloomy seemed to let loose and essentially cried out in anguish at the song's crescendos. So emotional is this cry that his voice was on the cusp of breaking. I was floored. I don't know why, but it sent my heart racing. "Kasuga could sound like that??" I thought. Admittedly, I still feel the same way now, despite it being at least 6 years from that very moment. I suppose there's something attractive in him straying from his usual, rather placid demeanour and expressing more primal-sounding emotion.
I don't think Hachi ever reprised the same vocal style in recordings since then, and I did wonder why this sudden anomaly with Kurashiki no Hito. This is pure speculation on my part, but this song emerged around the time when blues Mood Kayo singers like Shinichi Mori (森進一) and Mina Aoe (青江三奈) made it big. Both were known not just for their unique, husky vocals, but also heavily emotive cries or sighs of anguish - particularly Mori. Considering Hayashi sensei's melody was made in a similar vein to the younger singers' hits, I wonder if Hachi decided - or was instructed - to take on a style not unlike them.
Moving on, Kurashiki no Hito is a go-tochi song that is set in Kurashiki, a quaint town in Okayama prefecture where the vestiges of the Edo era remain. It seemed like it was made with the Kurashiki town council's support with hopes that it'd boost tourism - one of the pluses that come with being featured in a go-tochi songs. To that end, the song was also quite heavily promoted in the town/the prefecture, enabling it to perform fairly okay in terms of sales. Unfortunately, it didn't really stand up to the test of time, and it wouldn't be wrong to say that it's mostly a deeply buried gem.
I got this at a a used book flea market in Shinbashi for 200 yen
I've not been to Kurashiki yet, but I have in my mind's eye only what photos, videos, TV shows, have shown me, and the romantic picture Tsukasa had so vividly depicted in Kurashiki no Hito: traditional houses with snow white walls and ash grey tiled roofs, waterways lined with willows hanging lazily over the water's surface, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was considered Japan's answer to Venice. I think it's high time I heed the call of this go-tochi song and head down there for one of my solo trips. I'm also a big fan of author Seishi Yokomizo's detective Kosuke Kindaichi series, where several instalments were set in Okayama. There's a little museum exhibition in a town around Kurashiki where Yokomizo had evacuated to during WWII and served as the setting to the series' first tale, so that'd definitely be on my must-visit list.
I would've loved to see Hachi singing Kurashiki no Hito live. From Mikasa, 14 April 1968 Issue
Anyway, let's circle back to Kurashiki no Hito to end things off. Despite it being a relatively unknown Kasuga Bushi, it's sung fairly regularly at the Kasuga Enka Denshokai. I decided to give it a go for myself during my first visit of the year. Ordinarily, I'd be shaking from the nerves, or being too self-conscious with singing the songs "right," but I thought that if Hachi could let loose and put his all into conveying Kurashiki..., so could I. I think it was the only song that I was able to sing with no inhibition. And by golly, that felt so good! And to sing it with/for people who enjoy Kasuga bushi as much or even more than I do felt so good.
*A series of songs with the word "onna"(女) but read as "hito"(ひと) in their titles. It was technically kickstarted by Kasuga with Nagasaki no Hito (長崎の女) in 1963. However, it became associated with Saburo Kitajima (北島三郎), who more consistently released songs of this theme since his Hakodate no Hito (函館の女). By the time Kasuga began to be more consistent with the "Onna series" in the late 1960s, the series' association with Kitajima essentially became almost set in stone.
It's been a standard through all audio media for the decades that it has been in existence since its release by singer-songwriter Bobby Hebb in February 1966. Yep, "Sunny" has popped up here and there in my life via radio and records and now on YouTube.
But now through my browsings of YouTube, I've discovered that there have been a couple of remarkable cover versions of "Sunny" in Japan. One was by the late Taeko Morino（森野多恵子）who was a member of the Group Sounds band The White Kicks（ザ・ホワイト・キックス）via an appearance on a 1968 music show that was preciously saved on audiotape by YouTuber Old But Cool (something that I would like to be).
As I mentioned in the lone article thus far regarding The White Kicks, Morino went by a few names during her life and career which were sadly cut short in 1998 at the age of 50. She was also known as Tan Tan, known for her disco and City Pop material from the late 1970s, and then as Harumi Ohzora（大空はるみ）going into the 1980s as she specialized in techno jazz. Morino didn't leave The White Kicks until 1971 but she gave a fine solo performance for "Sunny" with a really brassy voice to match the brass accompanying her.
Then, a couple of surprises greeted me when I discovered via the Wikipedia article for "Sunny" that the late Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）had recorded the song. Surprise One was that she had recorded the standard onto her January 1966 album"Miko in New York"...several weeks before Hebb himself released his version to the world, although the song had been created by Hebb all the way back in 1963. So, does that mean Hirota was the very first person to show "Sunny" to the world? As for Surprise Two, that would be the singer herself who sounded far more mature and rich for someone who wouldn't reach the age of 19 for another few weeks when she was in the recording booth.
My previous article some minutes ago had to do with one of America's most famous bars on television. As well, my good anime buddy has just returned from his annual pilgrimage to Japan, including a few days in Hokkaido, so I figure that it was time to search for a shibui Sapporo-based enka or Mood Kayo.
Looks like I may have hit the kayo kyoku trifecta here. To be honest, I couldn't distinguish whether Mina Aoe's（青江三奈）"Sapporo Blues" is an enka or a Mood Kayo (I can hear elements of both genres) and of course, it serves as a go-touchi (local or regional) song. The late singer released "Sapporo Blues" back in March 1968 as her 9th single and also as another entry in her "Blues" series which includes the much later 1983 "Osaka Blues"（大阪ブルース）. Written by Kohan Kawauchi（川内康範）and composed by Koumei Sone（曽根幸明）, the husky tones of Aoe (including those famous moans) deliver a story of longing and trysting in the capital city of Hokkaido where the cold can easily have people search for bodily (or drinkable) warmth.
Welcome to Hump Day here on KKP! Although I never saw him during his active days as a sumo wrestler between 1957 and 1974, Yokozuna Katsuaki Kitanofuji（北の富士勝昭）was still someone that I knew on sight and by sound because he became a frequent commentator on the NHK sumo broadcasts.
Kitanofuji was a figure that I could recognize from his glasses and how dandy he looked in either a yukata or a tailored suit in the occasional times when the camera was focused on him during the TV broadcasts. From what I read, he could be very cordial and also very harsh in his comments on other rikishi and their actions. In the last year or so though, I noticed that he hadn't been appearing on the last few tournaments and then came the announcement in November 2024 that he had passed away at the age of 82. My condolences to his family, friends and fans.
When I think about what retired rikishi do following their illustrious careers in the ring, I usually think three options: TV commentator, chankonabe restaurant owners and singers. For example, Daishiro Masuiyama（増井山大志郎）took that third route through songs such as "Yuko no O-Mise"（夕子のお店）in 2013. For Kitanofuji, even though he was still an active wrestler, he had his few years of going behind the recording mike and putting out some enka or Mood Kayo tunes.
One such song by Kitanofuji was "Bojou no Blues"(The Yearning Blues) which is notable for its rich Mood Kayo stylings. And often in that genre, I hear a baritone sax but this is the first time that I had ever heard of a bass saxophone being played which perhaps added some further gravitas to the big man singing there. Kitanofuji did have a good voice and perhaps his spirit is blushing a bit when I say that his vocals were reminiscent of the Tough Man himself, actor/singer Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）.
According to his J-Wiki profile, his recording career ranged from 1967 to 1969. However, I couldn't track down when he released "Bojou no Blues", so I'll go for average and say 1968 until I get something confirmed. As well, there were apparently two songs with the same title but with no singer listed and two pairs of different songwriters according to the JASRAC database. I know none of those songwriters so I'll just let that go, too, for now.
As much as I've often referred to Burt Bacharach as one of the architects of pop music in the 1960s, I think another figure that should be put into that role is Michel Legrand because his compositions and arrangements have also hit me as being representative melodies of that decade. One example is his score for the 1968 movie "The Thomas Crown Affair" with the main theme "The Windmills of Your Mind" as sung by Noel Harrison.
Legrand was not lost on Japanese audiences either...or for that matter, Japanese songwriters of the time. To be honest, the song "Kareha ga Chiru" (Dead Leaves Fall) has a rhythm that reminds me of "The Windmills of Your Mind" but at the same time, the instrumentation and laconic tempo also have me thinking of Legrand's other earlier magnum opus "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg".
However, "Kareha ga Chiru" had nothing to do with the legendary French composer and arranger. Instead, this was a Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ）kayo kyoku that was written by Michio Yamagami（山上路夫） and composed by Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）. It does sound so French and melancholy that I can only imagine Paris as being the city where the song's romance began...and died. Of course, the title immediately sends out that message that this is a bittersweet tune at best because kayo kyoku dealing with autumn almost always refers to the loss of love. Now, unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn't track down the origin year of "Kareha ga Chiru" although it has popped up in later Eri BEST compilations, so at least for now, why not give it the adopted year of 1968, just like "The Windmills of Your Mind"?
Supposedly, we're only a month away from the Paris Olympics, so I guess this can be considered a tribute article to the major sporting event. However what got me to write about this song wasn't the Games.
Yesterday, we got to see NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）for the first time in a couple of weeks on June 25th. Actually, the show hadn't been pre-empted on the source network on the 18th but when I saw the hosts announce on the 11th that the episode on the 18th would have a Disney theme, faster than the NHK copyright troll yelling, "No Uta Con for you!", I knew that we wouldn't be getting an episode for that week. For the past couple of years, the general rule on TV Japan and now Jme has been that Disney songs simply can't be heard via NHK.
Let me just stop the rant there, though. The theme for the show yesterday was the genre of chanson and overall French pop which has had its fans for decades now. So, of course, it was also an indirect theme for the late chanson singer Fubuki Koshiji（越路吹雪）who had given her covers of songs such as "Sans Toi M'amie"（サン・トワ・マミー）and "Hymne A L'Amour". At first, I'd assume that I could do an article on "Les Champs-Élysées", but I had already done so all the way back in 2016.
However, I didn't give up there. Although the song hadn't been presented on "Uta Con" last night, there was the famous "La Vie en rose", the 1945 classic by Edith Piaf, and sure enough, Koshiji did cover it via her 1968 album"Chanson no Subete"（シャンソンのすべて...All Chanson） under the translated title of "Bara Iro no Jinsei" with Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）as the lyricist for the Japanese words. Considering how iconic it is as one of the representative songs of the City of Lights, I was surprised that it didn't get its due on the episode. It's a gorgeous cover with a brilliant jazz trumpet reflecting the late night of Paris. In an odd way, despite the volume, I can also treat it as a lullaby.
I'm not a Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）super fan or expert by any means but when I found this single by her, I began to wonder about the different voices that the late singer possessed in her singing arsenal. The last few times I've written about her, they've involved her early prodigy-level teen jazz scatting in songs such as "Comin' Home Baby" from 1965 and then her Cleo Laine approach with her City Pop"Body Talk"（ボディー・トーク）in 1980.
And in between those two songs, and yep, I realize that there are a good 15 years between them, there was also her 42nd single"Kawaii Uso"(Pretty Lies) which was released in September 1968. Created by the golden songwriting duo of lyricist Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, the J-Wiki article for the song noted that the team had basically gone for a Motown kayo kyoku based on The Temptations' "My Girl". At the same time, we also got another new voice from Hirota: that of the velvety and purring sex kitten surreptitiously twirling her beau around her pinkie while at the same time admitting that she really does have feelings for the guy.
I failed to mention this yesterday but April 29th is part of the Golden Week holiday season in Japan and it's currently known as Showa Day. It had been celebrated as Emperor Hirohito's(the Showa era emperor) birthday until his death in early 1989 and then it was known as Greenery Day until 2007, when it was given its current name (Greenery Day is now May 4th).
Since there has been some nostalgic attraction for the culture of the Showa era (1926-1989), that's how I've usually seen Showa Day...not so much for the veneration of the late emperor but for what the times and trappings were like for ordinary people in Japan. Apparently, there is a Showa era museum in Aichi Prefecture as you can see above via MEGULOG's video. My particular examples of Showa era culture that regularly pop up in my memories are the old public phones of different sizes and colours, and the old-style kissaten as you can view in Mikki Café & Life below. Personally, my Showa era café will always be Café Renoir, the long-running franchise.
But of course, this being a kayo kyoku blog, I wanted to give my own contribution to Showa Day in terms of culture by providing some of the old songs. I'd wondered if I could find some sort of Top 5 list regarding memorable kayo kyoku but really couldn't find anything, so I've decided to come up with my own list of six songs representing each decade from the 1930s to the 1980s (sorry, couldn't remember anything from the 1920s). There wasn't any great research or all-night brain wracking for these songs...they just popped into my head and together they can perhaps show how music changed during the Showa era. So, without further ado...
Well, for a guy who really wanted to keep things a secret, he's pretty open about it with how much he loves that girl.
I'm talking about Teruhiko Aoi's（あおい輝彦）debut single as a solo artist, "Boku no Himitsu" (My Hidden Secret). Once a member of Johnny & Associates' first group Johnnys in the 1960s, Aoi even took four and a half months during his stint with the group to head over to America to study singing, dancing and English. Of course, he would have his biggest hit nearly a decade later with "Anata dake wo" (あなただけを).
But it all began with "Boku no Himitsu" which was released in August 1968 not long after Johnnys broke up in the previous year. Written and composed by Aoi himself (something that he did on occasion) with arrangement by Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）, he created the song as this one-man Group Sounds tune which probably had the teens shimmying on the tables, although I don't know how well it did on the charts. The sultry way he keeps saying "I love you" and "I wanna tell you my hidden secret", it's pretty obvious that he was studying his English.
Last Wednesday, I posted a 1962 song with the title of "Furusato wa Souya no Hate ni"（ふるさとは宗谷の果てに）, by Masao Kikuchi（菊地正夫）who would later take on the stage name of Takuya Jou（城卓矢）to even bigger success. Written and composed by Kikuchi's older brother, Jun Kitahara（北原じゅん）, the kayo kyoku was their paean to their birthplace, Karafuto Island, which had been taken over by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and turned into Sakhalin.
Well, it looks like Kitahara's ardor for Sakhalin and perhaps Russia/the USSR in general continued forward for quite some time. Later in the decade, the songwriter took five young lads under his wing and whipped them into Group Sounds band The Genova（ザ・ジェノバ）. Led by bassist Shoji Sasaki（佐々木章二）, despite the band being named after an Italian city, their debut single in February 1968 was "Sakhalin no Hi wa Kiezu" (The Light of Sakhalin Will Never Die), once again which dealt with the love afar (well, not that far, geographically speaking) for the island or someone on the island. In fact, according to an Ameba blog, Kitahara would create a few more singles with that Russian theme in mind in what was called the Sakhalin Series.
Kitahara came up with the jangly melody while Kaoru Wakaki（若木香）wrote the pining lyrics. I noted some of that blog mentioning about Kitahara's rationale that Russian folk songs had been popular in Japan for a long time and so that particular sound would sell, but I never got any hint of underlying Russian music in "Sakhalin no Hi wa Kiezu". It struck me as being the usual GS song and it was a pretty successful one at that, selling approximately 100,000 records. But I don't know how long they lasted although the GS boom would fade out early in the 1970s.
Luckily no rain in the forecast today and as I look out my window, it's brilliantly sunny out there and I've got the fan spinning behind me.
However, I am beginning today's round of KKP articles with a rather pensive rain-based song from the 1960s. The band Swing West（スウィング・ウエスト）had its time between 1957 and 1970, first starting as a rockabilly group and then taking on the Group Sounds vibe in its last few years in the late 1960s. On J-Wiki, Swing West's changing lineup reads like a list of candidates in an election but one of the main vocalists was Masayuki Yuhara（湯原昌幸）who entered Swing West in 1964.
And I am assuming that it is Yuhara who was spearheading one of Swing West's biggest hits, "Ame no Ballad"(Rainy Ballad) that came out in May 1968. It was actually the B-side to "Maboroshi no Otome"（幻の乙女...Mystery Girl）, but I gather that "Ame no Ballad" gained more attention, relatively speaking. As I said off the top, it's a pensive GS tune about a man seeing a perhaps lonely woman off in the precipitation-filled distance and becoming oddly drawn to her. Band leader Yoshiyasu Ueda（植田嘉靖）wrote and composed the song although for the lyrics he did so under his pseudonym of Haruka Kouji（こうじはるか）. There's something about the overall feeling of "Ame no Ballad" that had me thinking about The Cascades' 1962 hit "Rhythm of the Rain" (besides the fact that both songs have "rain" in the title), although I know the songs are completely different.
I mentioned vocalist Masayuki Yuhara in that above paragraph because when Swing West broke up in 1970, Yuhara began a solo singing career which included his second single, a remake of "Ame no Ballad" that was released in April 1971. Given a bit more epicness through a horn section and some ripping percussion, unlike the original by his former band, his "Ame no Ballad" was a big hit by reaching the top spot on Oricon and staying there for a few weeks. It would eventually become the 8th-ranked single of the year.
In the same year, another cover came out, this time by big-voiced Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）. His "Ame no Ballad" was placed in his December 1971 studio album "Ozaki Kiyohiko Album No. 4"（尾崎紀世彦アルバムNo.4）which managed to reach No. 4 on the charts. There's not a whole lot different in the arrangement but perhaps Ozaki's vocals are a bit more resonant.
Well, just a couple of days following an article on the very famous Group Sounds band The Spiders（ザ・スパイダース）, I've got another GS band that is perhaps not all that well known. I wasn't able to discover how this quintet of rock n' rollers got the name The Edwards（ジ・エドワーズ）...I keep thinking that perhaps one of the guys was a British Royal watcher.
Formed in June 1967, The Edwards had apparently wanted to bring back the sound of the early Beatles. However, they only released two singles and broke up in October 1968. Both of those singles were handled by lyricist Haruo Hayashi（林春生）and a young songwriter named Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平） whose legendary run as composer was still way ahead of him. Their debut single from February 1968 was "Cry, Cry, Cry" with Takeshi Maki（麻紀タケシ）as the vocalist and keyboardist. Yup, I can hear an amped-up version of The Beatles in there, although the fuzzy guitar makes me wonder whether The Edwards was trying to aim for The Fab Four around their "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" period.
Another member of The Edwards, guitarist Satoshi Sakakibara（榊原さとし）whose real name was Yoshio Hatano（秦野嘉王）, entered entertainment company Geiei Productions（芸映）once the band broke up, and became the very first manager for Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）. After he and Saijo had split up, Sakakibara set up his own company Office AtoZ where he was instrumental in giving comedy duo Tunnels（とんねるず） their push toward stardom. Of course, composer Tsutsumi made his breakthrough some ten months following the release of "Cry, Cry, Cry" with a totally different kayo kyoku.
Michi Aoyama（青山ミチ）was born as Fusako Yagi（八木フサ子）in Yokohama in 1949 to a Japanese mother and an American soldier. She was barely into her teens when she won a prize in a jazz singing contest in 1961 which got noticed by the then Polydor Records, and by the following year, she made her debut as a singer. Over the next four years, she would release around 25 singles for the recording company which would have included a song called "Kaze Fuku Oka de"（風吹く丘で...On a Windy Hill） in late 1966 (and also her own cover of "Namida no Taiyo"（涙の太陽）in May 1965). However, Aoyama was then arrested for drug possession which got her kicked out of Polydor, and "Kaze Fuku Oka de" was shelved until a few years later, when it was given a new title and presumably new lyrics and arrangement. It was then called "Amairo no Kami no Otome"（亜麻色の髪の少女）which became a classic for The Village Singers (ヴィレッジ・シンガーズ) in early 1968.
Despite the seriousness of the incident, Aoyama was able to transfer to a new company, Nippon Crown, surprisingly quickly and was even able to release her first single with them in December 1966. In February 1968, at approximately the same time that her former song was released by The Village Singers, a new Aoyama single came out, "Shikaranaide" (Don't Be Mad). A relatively upbeat Mood Kayo written by Tetsuro Hoshino（星野哲郎）and composed by Jinzo Kosugi（小杉仁三）, it relates the story of a mother who beseeches the heavens above for mercy for her wayward daughter. Taking into consideration the genre, I can imagine that the daughter may be working in Shinjuku. There is also some irony of Aoyama singing this song considering her past troubles.
Unfortunately, the troubles continued for the singer going forwards. Aoyama was arrested for the same crime in 1978 and 1999. Earlier in 1974, she had even been arrested for shoplifting. There was a second release of "Shikaranaide" in 1975 but her final official single had come out in May 1972. In January 2017, Aoyama was found dead in her home in Yokosuka due to acute pneumonia. She was 67.
As I've mentioned many times before in the blog, that summer trip in 1981 to Japan was the turning point in my life. I was just so amazed by what I had seen and experienced in Tokyo and other cities that I basically devoted myself to studying about the nation of my ancestors and that included presentations in high school. At the time, Japan was the No. 2 economic power in the world behind the United States and there was the belief that the nation, having risen out of the postwar ashes, could do no wrong.
It wasn't until midway through my university years that I had even heard of the place known as Sanya. When I learned that it was a slum that no one talked about and no mapmaker would draw, I was stunned because I'd naively believed that Japanese society could never allow slums or homeless people to exist. Y'know, it was the whole thing about a very few very rich and a very few very poor with a massive middle class. Apparently, however, even those very poor were considered to be persona non grata and were publicly not recognized.
When I started teaching in Asakusa from the mid-1990s, one of my colleagues who lived in the neighbourhood told me that Sanya was pretty much a stone's throw away from his apartment and he sometimes rode his bike through the area. I never went there myself and always wondered what the area looked like (there were blue tarp communities along the Sumida River that I saw); I'd heard that a lot of the residents were middle-aged or elderly day-labourers who waited for work in things like construction via employers who came recruiting in specific locations.
With the advent of YouTube, I've recently been able to see personal walking tour videos of Sanya and the impression is that though the area looked very inner city, it didn't look anywhere near as bad as some of the slums I've seen and heard about in cities such as Philadelphia or Los Angeles. Plus, I also heard that at least before COVID-19 reared its ugly head, foreign backpackers had used local hotels in Sanya as desirable inexpensive accommodations. However, as you can see above, one YouTuber by the name of Oriental Pearl has reminded me that Sanya is no Valhalla though you have to search fairly hard to find it. Homelessness may not jump out at you in Tokyo but it does exist.
One commenter mentioned that though they appreciated the video, they also wanted to point out that the percentage of poor compared to the rest of society in Japan is miniscule when compared to similar rates in other nations. Point taken, but I try to imagine those people who can only live in Sanya (and Nishinari in Osaka) wondering about their lot in life in a country which is seen as a technological and societal envy in the world.
A while back, I had bookmarked singer-songwriter Nobuyasu Okabayashi's（岡林信康）"Sanya Blues" but when I wrote up the article on Akihiro Miwa's（美輪明宏）"Yoitomake no Uta"（ヨイトマケの唄）a couple of weeks ago, I decided that it was time to talk about this song which was first released in September 1968 as his second single (it had also been the B-side for his debut single), a little over three years following the release of "Yoitomake no Uta".
I recall that singer Sachiko Kanenobu（金延幸子）was considered to be the Joni Mitchell of Japan. Okabayashi was given a similar comparison in that he was seen to be the Bob Dylan of Japan...basically the God of J-Folk. From what I've read on his J-Wiki profile, he has also been brutally frank in his opinions through interviews and lyrics and probably has never suffered fools gladly (many of his songs ended up getting banned from being played on radio). As someone who had also worked as a day-laborer in Sanya, Okabayashi brought some of those experiences to bear when he created "Sanya Blues" along with co-lyricist Hisahiro Hiraga（平賀久裕）. Compared to the signs of hope and pride in "Yoitomake no Uta", "Sanya Blues" shows no optimism; the lyrics relate the story of a man trapped in the titular neighbourhood who churns through the same schedule of getting those odd jobs getting buildings and highways erected and then slipping into the shochu bottle after work, never getting any recognition for his deeds.
As dark as "Sanya Blues" may be, Okabayashi didn't mind having a sense of humour as you can see above (unfortunately that video has been taken down). I'm not sure whether the song was one of those banned on radio but just like "Yoitomake no Uta", there were plenty of other cover versions by singers such as Shinichi Mori（森進一）in 1970 and Aki Yashiro（八代亜紀）. The original though peaked at No. 65 on Oricon and sold about 14,000 records.
