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.
I've been seeing vivacious enka singer Eiko Segawa（瀬川瑛子）from time to time on the kayo shows such as "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）. It's been hard to believe that she's actually 79 now and that next year will be her 60th anniversary in show business.
The last time I saw the Tokyo native on stage, it was to sing one of her hits "Waraijiwa" (Laugh Lines) which was originally released as her 61st single in September 1995. It's been classified as a straight enka tune but its arrangement incorporates some of that Latin to such an extent that personally I can also treat it as a New Adult Music number....kinda along the same lines of a Matt Bianco song but without the synthesizers.
The songwriters for "Waraijiwa" were husband-and-wife composer Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）and lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）as they came up with a song for Segawa regarding a woman's lifetime filled with its share of roses and thorns. As quite a few KKP viewers would know by now, Uzaki and Aki were the main duo behind many of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）hit songs in the late 1970s including "Yokosuka Story"（横須賀ストーリー）. I couldn't find out how "Waraijiwa" did on Oricon but Segawa was invited onto the 1996 edition of the Kohaku Utagassen to sing it.
Over the years that I've been doing "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I've been gaining some more aural experience in terms of the sounds of certain composers and/or arrangers. With Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, it's that odd pleasurable quirk that he can slide into his synthesizers while Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）can often put in that reassuring breezy melody. In the enka genre, I've realized that the late composer Toru Funamura（船村徹）may have always injected that distinctively pensive guitar of his, perfect for brooding over a tumbler of whiskey or a glass of shochu.
Funamura was responsible for the composition of this particular ballad by enka singer Ichiro Toba（鳥羽一郎）,"Wasure Yado" (An Inn of Forgotten Memories). The B-side to his 5th single"Wakare no Yado"（別れの宿...An Inn of Parting） released in April 1984, the lyrics by Daisaburo Nakayama（中山大三郎）talk of a woman somehow looking on or imagining her former paramour and his wife following a brief affair at their old haunt of an inn. Through the tears, the heartbroken woman is wishing them well as she tries to reassure herself that this is for the best. Couldn't get more enka than this. Meanwhile, that Funamura guitar hits right from the start going high and then low as Toba gives a woodsy and resonant delivery. The heart-on-sleeve strings which alternately glide and pluck adds to the melancholy atmosphere.
Toba's version is actually a cover of the original by Eiko Segawa（瀬川瑛子）whose "Wasure Yado" was released in November 1983. I couldn't find the recorded version of the song but listening to the above performance, Segawa gives a more emotion-drenched take and the arrangement sounds folksier. I can definitely hear the disappointment and mourning in her vocals.
I don't know whether Hiroshi Itsuki's（五木ひろし）cover of "Wasure Yado" was ever officially released as part of a single or an album in tribute to Funamura, and if it was, when it was released. That Funamura guitar sound still exists but the arrangement takes on a bigger presence because of some epic strings and other added flourishes.
Was doing the usual maintenance of the blog last night and so was wrapping up the articles in 1987. One of them was the Top 10 Oricon Rankings for 1987 Singles and I noticed that I had covered all of the songs listed except for one...the No. 1 single for that year.
Obviously, I wasn't going to let that one go. But the interesting about this No. 1 of the year is that unlike the recent No. 1s of the year which have been owned by the alphabet aidoru groups, the No. 1 single for 1987 had been recorded by anenka/Mood Kayo singer. Now, how poignant is that?
Yup, Eiko Segawa（瀬川瑛子）got her No. 1 via her 40th single"Inochi Kurenai" which was released in March 1986. This was almost 20 years after her career had begun in the late 1960s, and at first, when "Inochi Kurenai" was released right on the first day of spring, it hadn't been expected to make that much of a splash. In fact, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper via J-Wiki, record stores all over only requested a shade over 1800 records to sell. Talk about humble beginnings.
However, going into 1987, thanks to a growing reputation through Japanese cable radio (yuusen), Segawa's single would finally reach No. 2 on Oricon and then end up as the top-selling single for that year. By the end of January 1988, "Inochi Kurenai" ended up pressing its one-millionth record. And even by the end of 1988, the song came in as the 20th-ranked single of the year. The song also earned Gold Prizes from the JASRAC Awards for 1987 and 1988.
Written by Osamu Yoshioka（吉岡治）and composed by Jun Kitahara（北原じゅん）, the story revolves around a woman vowing to make her marriage work no matter what the obstacles are. When I first saw the title "Inochi Kurenai", I had thought that it meant "I Won't Get My Life", but through looking at Yoshioka's lyrics which repeat the title, and even putting the title through Google Translate, the answer I got was "Will Not Give Up". And I thought: good enough.
The other realization is that I've heard the weaving opening notes time and again over the years but never knew that it belonged to this particular song and singer. Well, perhaps before the fame of "Inochi Kurenai" grew to huge proportions, a lot of folks may have forgotten about Segawa but that was no longer the case. She received her very first invitation to the 1987 Kohaku Utagassen to sing this one. She would be invited three more times to the NHK special with the most recent appearance being in 1996.
Actually, my first article on Segawa can be seen here.
During my swing through western Japan in the summer of 1991 before I headed back to Canada, one of my stops was Nagasaki. It was definitely one of the most striking cities that I had ever seen in Japan as the metropolis seemed to go up the sides of the mountains surrounding the long bay. And like Yokohama and Kobe, the Chinatown in the city was quite stylish. Yup, I did have my chanpon there as well.
The other day, I caught the weekly broadcast of NHK's "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）singing contest and saw veteran enka singer Eiko Segawa（瀬川瑛子）make her appearance and wondered why I had yet to profile her in the blog. I think the main reason is that I've seen her more as the ever-smiling tarento with that nasal delivery that the monomane experts just love to imitate. Still, her initial bread-and-butter was that of an enka and kayo singer so when one of the contestants tried to sing one of her early hits, I felt that it was time to enter her into the annals of "Kayo Kyoku Plus".
"Nagasaki no Yoru wa Murasaki"(A Night in Nagasaki is Purple) is another one of those geographical kayo that had been all the rage in kayo kyoku for decades. And from what I remember reading in J-Wiki was that the city of Nagasaki had been quite the target for songwriters during the late 60s especially. Of course, there is probably the biggest representative of those songs in The Cool Five's"Nagasaki wa Kyou mo Ame datta"（長崎は今日も雨だった）, but Segawa, who actually hails from Tokyo, had one of her early hits with "Nagasaki no Yoru wa Murasaki" in March 1970 as her 7th single.
Unlike The Cool Five's Mood Kayo paean to the city, I found that Segawa's tribute to Nagasaki was a bit harder to pin down in terms of genre. The song has a certain laconic way about it that makes it sound quite folky but there is also something in there which definitely feels like the story (aside from the lyrics) is taking place in the city. And yet, I can also hear elements of enka and just plain pop in there, too. Go figure.
I couldn't find out how the song did on the charts although Oricon was already in existence by then. I did find out it was written by Hanae Furuki（古木花江）and composed by Toshiaki Arai（新井利昌）, a songwriter who had connections with bands like Los Primos and The Drifters.
Along with the fact that the comedians just love to imitate her, I also found out that Segawa is a huge Mah Jongg fan and one of her distant relatives happens to be the singer-songwriter Hiroshi Madoka（円広志）who came up with the catchy "Musoubana"（夢想花）back in the 1970s.
