Goro Noguchi -- Hakata Miren（博多みれん）

Photo by Soramimi via Wikimedia Commons

 

For the longest time, I was rather confused about whether one of the most famous cities in Western Japan was formally known as Fukuoka or Hakata. Well, as it turns out, Hakata is actually the most famous area in the city of Fukuoka...filled with a literal and huge community of yatai food stands and it's beloved for the tonkotsu ramen. I would love to have some of that now though if I have too much of it, my blood will end up resembling the broth. I did stay there one night although I regret not exploring too much of the area outside of Hakata Station which you can see above.

At the site "TV Tropes", there is the Early Installment Weirdness section which talks about how long-running TV series started out a bit strangely or differently compared to the peak years which most fans are acquainted with. For example, the original "Star Trek" had a differently arranged theme song, Mr. Spock was a little more emotional and Lt. Uhura wore a gold command uniform for one episode rather than the familiar red one.

Well, we've come to one of those on KKP. Allow me to introduce Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）, enka singer. Fans of the late Showa Era brand of music might pop their eyes at that introduction since we all know that the Gifu Prefecture-born Noguchi gained his fame from not only being a hit aidoru singer of the 1970s but also one of the three teen heartthrobs that made up the Shin-Gosanke（新御三家）, or The New Big Three, alongside Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）and the late Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）.

But it is true. When I first wrote about Noguchi's 2nd single, the intrepid hit "Aoi Ringo"（青いリンゴ）from August 1971, this was a reset of sorts. His very first single from May of that year was "Hakata Miren" which I first translated as "Hakata Regrets" but I'm now thinking it could be a little less melancholy and will re-translate it as "Remembering Hakata". Regardless, "Hakata Miren" is indeed an enka song and teen Goro sang it in a way that made me wonder whether the management group around had been trying to mold him into the next Shinichi Mori（森進一）. His catchphrase was even "The Adorable Hope of Enka". It was a very different sound from him and ultimately one that didn't impress listeners. There isn't even an Oricon ranking listed for it.

I couldn't find any videos of Noguchi singing "Hakata Miren" live aside from this one. Other kayo singers have covered it, though. Incidentally, the song was written by Tetsuo Houshi（鳳司哲夫）and composed by Eiichi Arai（荒井英一）.

Noriko Awaya/Eiichi Arai -- Kurai Nichiyobi （暗い日曜日）

A few months ago, I got into a correspondence with a commenter on the blog about the late chanson singer Megumi Satsu（ 薩 めぐみ）which resulted in kindly receiving a lot of samples of her work. My friend was also kind enough to send me an album titled "Sombre Dimanche" or as it is called in Japanese "Kurai Nichiyobi" (Gloomy Sunday). The CD consists of different takes by Japanese artists on this song which was first published in 1933 by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress. There are some great rock versions, an operatic version and a couple of spoken-word covers by the aforementioned Satsu and Mari Natsuki（夏木マリ）.

There is an article on Wikipedia about this song which has also garnered an unfortunate urban myth (and I emphasize, it is a myth) and secondary title as "The Hungarian Suicide Song". Seress had originally written the ballad to illustrate the horrors of war but later on the poet  László Jávor added his own lyrics to the song in which the protagonist wanted to kill himself after his lover had died. Its reputation spread worldwide in 1941 after the legendary Billie Holiday released her version.

However some years before that, there was a Japanese version by the late Noriko Awaya（淡谷のり子）, the Queen of Blues, titled as "Kurai Nichiyobi" which came out in 1936. Personally, there was probably no one better suited to sing this than Awaya since according to her biography, she went through some tough times as a young girl, and as someone who used to see her only on variety specials spitting a lot of venom on various topics, I thought she had kept a lot of bitterness throughout the decades.

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

I also came across "Kurai Nichiyobi" as performed by blues singer Eiichi Arai（新井英一）and was struck by the rasping power of his voice. Born in 1950 in Fukuoka as a Korean-Japanese citizen, his love for the blues was born while he was working as a teenager on an American base in Iwakuni City, Yamaguchi Prefecture. In 1995, he won a Japan Music Award for his debut album "Chon-ha e no Michi~48-ban"（清河への道～48番...The 48 Verses of the Road to Chong-ha）.

Once again personally speaking, I don't find "Kurai Nichiyobi" particularly depressing at all; just beautifully sad.