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.
Last night's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was a pretty entertaining episode, all told. We had new popular group Monaki（モナキ）with their senpai group Junretsu（純烈）, an old favourite in the form of an Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）and Yosui Inoue（井上陽水）duet that my friend and I used to sing at karaoke in the late 1980s, and quite a bit of soulful stuff. As well, there was a brief announcement of the passing of enka singer Nobue Matsubara（松原のぶえ）.
As for the soulful stuff, Crazy Ken Band（クレイジーケンバンド）appeared with their leader Ken Yokoyama（横山剣）to sing their latest digital single from July 2026,"Shinpai Muyo Bushi" (The No Worries Song). Usually when I add the Labels for this group, it's pretty simple: the music is always gonna be J-R&B. Ahhh...but this time, I have to add an extra genre...that of enka. Crazily enough for Crazy Ken Band, "Shinpai Muyo Bushi" may have the usual funk and soul in there, but even my mother could distinctly hear the traditional undercurrent of enka popping in and out of Yokoyama's melody. I had been thinking of whether to apply the hybrid New Adult Music tag, too; however, the enka and funk n' soul were in there but separate rather than blended so I just kept it as enka and J-R&B.
Lyrically, it's all about brushing off any of the problems since after all, they really don't even amount to a hill of beans in the grand scheme of things. With good ol' Ken by your side at the bar, the song is the reassurance that everything will be A-OK!
Unfortunately, this week of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" will begin with some sad news from the Japanese music industry. Along with a number of famous people in the USA and UK who have passed away recently, I also have to inform readers that veteran enka singer Nobue Matsubara（松原のぶえ）died suddenly yesterday at the age of 65 although the cause hasn't yet been determined definitively. I found out last night through the Mixi news feed.
Born as Nobue Hirohara（廣原伸恵）and raised in Oita Prefecture, she was scouted into the show business industry as a junior high school senior and made the move to Tokyo while in high school. "Onna no Defune"（おんなの出船）was her debut single in 1979 which earned her a Best New Artist prize in a number of competitions. She would have to wait several years until the invitation from NHK came for her to appear on the 1985 Kohaku Utagassen to sing that hit song, though.
Matsubara made a total of seven appearances on the Kohaku between 1985 and 1992. Her second appearance came at the end of 1986, thanks to her 10th single released in June 1985, "Enka Michi"(The Path of Enka). Written by Osamu Yoshioka（吉岡治）and composed by Chiaki Oka（岡千秋）, it comes across as a bittersweet telling of the life of an enka singer with all of its ups and downs. I'm not sure whether it was meant to be autobiographical or just a general impression of a career of someone in the industry.
My condolences go out to Matsubara's family, friends and many fans. Her 67th and final single, "Tsutenkaku no Sora no Shita"（通天閣の空の下...Under the Sky of Tsutenkaku） was only released last October.
Although I have visited Wakayama Prefecture which is the home of my ancestors, I have yet to visit its World Heritage Sites including roads and shrines associated with the Kumano Kodo（熊野古道）series of pilgrimage routes that are located in Wakayama, Mie and Nara Prefectures.
Enka singer Fuyumi Sakamoto（坂本冬美）is another star from Wakayama Prefecture, and as her September 2018 single, she released "Kumanoji e"(To the Kumano Road). Written and composed by fellow enka singer Ikuzo Yoshi（吉幾三）with Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）as the arranger, "Kumanoji e" launches with an epic intro that doesn't really sound like one for a conventional enka song. It sounds more like something for a pop/rock tune although it quickly settles down into an introspective set of verses before the dramatic chorus chimes in. Still, the instrumental bridge is just as epic as the intro and there's even some added oomph at the end of that bridge with what sounds like a thrumming synthesizer. Yoshi and Wakakusa really wanted to fortify this one. "Kumanoji e" reached No. 54 on Oricon.
Yoshi provided his own slightly quieter cover of the song in the same year.
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.
It was around a couple of weeks ago that I posted up "Those Sad and Lonely Tunes", an Author's Picks highlighting songs with titles that featured sadness or loneliness including Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）classic "Kanashii Sake"（悲しい酒）.
Well, I may have stumbled across a cousin to "Kanashii Sake", and I believe it was sung on an episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）recently. "Akachochin no Onna" (Woman of the Red Lantern) was enka singer Mieko Makimura's（牧村三枝子）7th single from March 1976.
Written by Hikaru or Ko Yabuki（矢吹光）and composed by Kiyoshi or Yo Maki（真木陽）, it actually starts out feeling a little scary or chilly because of that organ. If it hadn't been for the warmth of the bluesy guitar accompanying the organ, I might have given up on the song altogether but I'm glad that I didn't. But indeed, it is a sad song about a woman who's eking out her living at what is probably a forlorn drinking establishment (a lot of watering holes in Japan are symbolized by a red lantern). Yabuki's lyrics only consist of three 3-line verses but they give an adequate description of a lonely proprietress who hasn't spoken with loved ones in the longest time (out of shame?) and may have ended up at the bar due to romance trouble.
The song is given further pathos (and this could be important information for those karaoke singers out there) from Makimura's measured and seemingly defeated/exhausted delivery of the words.
My family has often wondered whatever happened to Makimura since she hasn't shown up on any kayo kyoku shows in many years. According to her J-Wiki article, she actually appeared on an interview show in 2023 and revealed that she had been battling cancer that arose around a decade prior. There's no mention on whether she was able to defeat it but she ended up moving from Tokyo to Shizuoka Prefecture where her relatives reside nearby.
As a PS for the songwriters' names, it doesn't happen often but occasionally, I come across names that I can't definitively identify and this time, it has occurred with both the lyricist and composer. If anyone can confirm or deny my attempts above, please let me know.
Ah, yes. The post-relationship trip to someplace unknown...a classic enka lyrical theme. I've come across it a number of times since first posting Sayuri Ishikawa's（石川さゆり）1977 hit"Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki"（津軽海峡・冬景色）all the way back in 2012. I still wonder if there are melancholy folks who flee to that strait up north.
Well, not too long ago, I encountered this enka for the first time during an episode of NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）. Titled "Onna---Hitori Tabi" (Woman...A Journey Alone), this was enka singer Toshimi Tagawa's（田川寿美）debut song from April 1992, and the song even faintly hints at Ishikawa's trademark tune melodically speaking. However, instead of Takashi Miki（三木たかし）handling the composition, it was Jun Suzuki（鈴木淳）who created the sad melody. The lyrics of a woman going to this unknown place up north all by her lonesome without her erstwhile paramour as had originally been scheduled were provided by Keiko Yuuki（悠木圭子）, who recently passed away in March of this year at the age of 90.
Reaching No. 45 on Oricon, Tagawa made her debut on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1994 with "Onna...Hitori Tabi". She would make three more appearances thus far on the New Year's Eve special in 1995, 1998 and 2002.
It was just this morning when I saw commenter Brian Mitchell noticing that there were indeed a lot of songs in Japan with the word kanashii（悲しい）or kanashimi（悲しみ）or some variant. They refer to sadness or loneliness and it would fit in with the kayo kyoku tendency to bring up a lot of sad stories within the lyrics albeit the music supporting them has often been quite cheerful. Well, I've opted to show off an Author's Picks (not complete by any means) of these songs which are mostly upbeat except for one. I refused though to post a thumbnail of a sad face...I went with something more symbolic, namely a Wikimedia Commons photo by User Kenlin of someone pouring some sake for someone having the blues.
For all of the scenes I've seen on shows such as "Enka no Hanamichi"（演歌の花道）and all of those karaoke videos, I'm not sure whether there are actually a fair number of people who hit the fancy bars and izakaya to drown their sorrows in drink. It just seems rather depressing to see and it may not be all that good for business according to the bartender/owner.
But the trope happily exists in music...specifically, enka, Mood Kayo and New Adult Music. And we have another example with Kye Eunsook's（ 桂銀淑）5th single"Yoidorete" (Drunkenly). Released in April 1989, the South Korean singer grandly invites alcohol to take her away from all that is currently ailing her, which probably means heartbreak (her lover's wife finally found out).
Written by Osamu Yoshioka（吉岡治）and composed by Keisuke Hama（浜圭介）, I would have labeled this as European enkaback in the very early days of the blog but perhaps I can tag this now as enka and/or New Adult Music because there is something in the arrangement that gives "Yoidorete" that extra urban kick although I wouldn't say it was City Pop. Peaking at No. 28 on Oricon, the song also won the singer a slew of awards including a Gold prize at the Japan Record Awards. She even got that invitation to appear on the 1989 edition of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen.
Well, speaking of "Enka no Hanamichi", here is Kye Eunsook singing "Yoidorete" right on that legendary show.
For the past several years, we Canadians have been getting along in our economy without the one-cent coin, aka the penny. Rounding up and down has been our way of circumventing the lack of that copper disc when paying in cash here in the Great White North. And yet...and I will apologize to Japanese currency fans in advance for what I'm about to write...the one-yen coin over there still exists despite the fact that it looks and feels more like a token to slip into a gacha-gacha machine.
And yet, the one-yen coin received its fame and appreciation in the sun when this song came out as the debut single of enka singer Saori Hareyama（晴山さおり）. Released in March 1990,"Ichi-en Dama no Tabigarasu" (The One-Yen Coin Vagabond) was presented so that the coin was depicted as the typical historical lone-wolf hero on the byways and highways of Japan. At around the same time, the consumption tax was first applied to the bills of the Japanese public so that having all of those one-yen coins became rather precious in trying to provide exact change.
Written by Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）and composed by Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）, it was created as this rather robust if playful enka performed by the then-16-year-old Hareyama from Kanagawa Prefecture. I first saw and heard it played on a recent episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）and just from how it sounded and what the song was about, I figured that it would have ended up on NHK's music vignette show "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）, and sure enough it was there.
"Ichi-en Dama no Tabigarasu" won a number of awards including Best New Artist for Hareyama who was especially lauded for her kobushi, the vibrato technique that is vital to any enka singer. Hareyama's career in singing had started when she won an award in NHK's amateur singing program "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）in 1988. Following that debut, however, her career failed to stay on fire and by 1992, she went into temporary retirement. She decided to give it another go for another decade beginning in 1995, but this time, she went along more of a pop vein although eventually nothing really took off for her.
I was watching "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）last night when I saw the ever-beaming enka veteran Mitsuko Nakamura（中村美津子）appear on stage to perform a song that I'd initially assumed was one of her oldies. As it turned out, it was her latest (her 73rd) single from May this year.
"Jinsei Banzai"(Here's to Life) was released to commemorate Nakamura's 40th year in the music industry and I'm pretty sure when it comes to the annual Kohaku Utagassen, her name will probably be in the Red team lineup. Written by Kyosuke Kuni（久仁京介）and composed by Koji Tokuhisa（徳久広司）, it's a very genki song showing off her satisfaction and gratitude to everyone over the past four decades. The enka is in there of course, but I could hear a rumbling rhythm reminiscent of a 50s Latin-tinged number.
This week's Reminiscings of Youth will be a little more unusual and involved so please bear with me today. For one thing, this really ought to be one of those Reminiscings of Babyhood articles actually, but I'll explain as we go along.
For citizens and international residents of Japan of a certain age such as myself, there was the weekly Sunday night Hollywood movie of the week on TV Asahi that lasted for decades since the 1960s. So, folks could watch anything from that decade to something more contemporary like a Steven Seagal action flick but it had to fit within the tight two-hour slot with commercials...which often meant that the movie had a fair amount of footage slashed out. Annoying as heck, but that's the way it was.
The host of "Nichiyou Youga Gekijo"（日曜洋画劇場...The Sunday Western Movie Theatre） for most of its time was the avuncular and dapper movie critic and tarento Nagaharu Yodogawa（淀川長治）. He always showed up at the beginning of the show to introduce the film and then wrap up with his thoughts about it for a few minutes before signing off with "Sayonara, sayonara, sayonara".
Then, there were the ending credits for "Nichiyou Youga Gekijo" which had stills or slow-motion footage of the movie just presented while this really dramatic and melancholy-sounding song played in the background. In fact, I found the music so sad that I was more than happy to switch the channel. I wouldn't find out until literally several days ago that the piece was a Cole Porter standard called "So In Love" as interpreted by conductor and arranger Morton Gould.
"So In Love" was a song used in one of Porter's famous musicals "Kiss Me Kate" from 1948. It was also used in the 1953 cinematic adaptation, but Gould's interpretation was presumably from 1951. Now that I've heard the whole thing above, I have a better view of it as something more epic and moving. Japanese commenters have complimented it as being very nostalgic since they used to watch the Sunday movie of the week when they were younger.
But "So In Love" hadn't been the main target for my ROY ROB this week. That was merely a happenstance stumbling discovery. Actually, it was for another Porter classic "Night and Day" which had been created in 1932. I remember getting to see it performed on the 2004 "De-Lovely", the Porter biopic musical starring Kevin Kline where I could glean some more insight into what the song was about.
Now, I realize that there have been many renditions of "Night and Day", sung and instrumental. But the reason that I started all this was that I remember the very first rendition that I heard of this song and it was by the aforementioned Morton Gould through his 1961 record "Kern/Porter Favorites" although that track later showed up on our "RCA 50 Years Of Hits In Stereo" that I wrote about last October.
According to his Wikipedia article, Gould was a master of interweaving different musical genres into formal classical structure without losing any of the main elements from either the adopted genres or the original song. Gould had a few more contributions to my family's "RCA 50 Years of Hits In Stereo" which were "Brazil" and "Blues in the Night" and I note that he was epic and playful with those.
With "Night and Day", he showed that same verve for grandness. His take took the ultimate song of pining away in love and made it into his own overture movie. To me, his "Night and Day" sounds like a romance between two people rudely interrupted by war with the happy and grateful return interpreted as this huge orchestral rush. And it just happened to be a song that I heard often enough as a kid on the old RCA stereo.
So, let's see about some of the major singles of 1961 in Japan.
Earlier this morning, I turned on Jme to see the NHK news when I saw the familiar blue frame surrounding the video, and I knew immediately that there had been some major disaster. Unfortunately, Kumamoto Prefecture was hit with a big earthquake a decade following the tremor that had slammed into it before. I'm hoping that everyone in the province is doing OK under the circumstances, especially the family of an old friend of mine.
To start off today's duo of articles, I've decided to go with a go-touchi song from Kumamoto Prefecture (specifically the city of Amakusa) by enka veteran Shinichi Mori（森進一）relatively early in his career. "Bojou ~ Amakusa no Onna"(Longing ~ Woman of Amakusa). Released in April 1971 as Mori's 19th single, it's a bittersweet enka regarding the theme of "parting is such sweet sorrow" as one-half of a once-happy relationship is now on a boat slowly puttering away from the Amakusa shore (you can hear the engine itself at the beginning and the end) while the other half is probably standing devastated on that shore. Mori was most likely already the go-to singer for heartrending enka thanks to his weeping vocals.
Written by Akari Yamaguchi（山口あかり）, "Bojou" was composed by Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）. It's not everyday that Hirao came up with an enka melody so I consider this quite the revelation. It broke the Oricon Top 10 by coming in at No. 9 and it sold 300,000 copies in the first monthfollowing its release.
When it comes to South Korean singer Cheuni（チェウニ）, I've always known her as someone who had gotten her career in the 1990s singing a mix of enka and other genres mixed together...something that I've labeled New Adult Music. It was quite the musical version of blended refined whiskey.
However, after I'd posted my previous Cheuni song, "Glass no Tokyo Tower"（ガラスの東京タワー）, a month ago, one commenter had to give me a correction in that Cheuni's debut had actually happened perhaps as much as a dozen years earlier than expected. For some reason, although J-Wiki had noted her debut as a child singer in the early 1970s at the age of 8 and a Japanese album release at the end of that decade via what is now known as the Taihei Record Company, there is currently no mention at all of a couple of singles in 1979 and 1981.
The anonymous commenter thankfully guided me to the above video on YouTube and it was for her debut single in Japan, "Wasurenagusa" (Forget-Me-Nots), which was released in 1979. She was in her mid-teens at the time so there was of course none of that familiar rasp in her vocals but listening to them now, I can still recognize them as Cheuni's. Considering her age, the single may have indeed been marketed as one belonging to an aidoru and there is something in the arrangement that hints at enka but I think most of the song gives me folk and kayo vibes.
Yoko Yamaguchi（山口洋子）provided the lyrics while the melody was composed by Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）, the veteran songwriter who also had a hand in bringing over another lovely teen ingenue from overseas to Japan: Agnes Chan（アグネス・チャン）.
The Nagoya Sumo Tournament wrapped up yesterday afternoon with Ukrainian wrestler Aonishiki（安青錦） grabbing the championship. Not only that, but he also secured his second promotion to the second-highest tier of ozeki as well.
I thought then that perhaps we can start this week's edition of KKP in this final week of July with something related to sumo. And sure enough, we come to the legendary enka singer Hideo Murata（村田英雄）. He was known for bringing in some oaken manly-man verve into some of his discography, namely into those songs celebrating Japanese pastimes such as judo via "Sugata Sanshiro"（姿三四郎）and "Judo Ichidai"（柔道一代）, and even shogi through "Osho"(王将).
Well, Murata presented his take on sumo with his January 1964 single"Otoko no Dohyo"(The Man and the Sumo Ring), and once again led the way on the odyssey to become a worthy rikishi in this ancient sport of Japan. This was actually written and composed by Murata himself and does so in a way that reminded me of the musical story of a masterless samurai wandering the Earth that often provided material for an enka tune...aside from the peppery percussion in the middle that often signals a sumo bout. Interestingly enough, "Otoko no Dohyo" was released in the same month as the judo-based "Sugata Sanshiro". As well, "Otoko no Dohyo" was performed by Murata on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen but not until 1976.
Kinda keeping on the summer festival theme that I started from the previous article, I gather that another sign of the summer is fireflies or hotaru as we say in Japanese. In fact, where I taught in the former town of Tsukiyono, Gunma Prefecture, there was a firefly festival each year. The usual food stands and other temporary establishments associated with a matsuri were all set up while next door in the woods, adults and kids alike could see the dozens or perhaps hundreds of glowing fireflies flitting about, providing the evening with its own organic illumination.
This particular May 1990 single by enka singer Nobue Matsubara（松原のぶえ）, "Hotaru"(Fireflies), popped up on one of the NHK music shows recently. Up to now, I only really knew one other firefly-related kayo kyoku and that was "Hotaru no Hikari"（蛍の光）, otherwise known as the Japanese cover of "Auld Lang Syne", also used to signal the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one (and simply to signal closing time at some commercial complex).
Well, "Hotaru" is a much less grandiose song and much more of a grounded and calm enka about finding love among the flying fireflies. And certainly, I did see a few yukata-garbed young couples walking about at the Firefly Festival, so I guess that the hotaru season can also be another symbol for romance. Written by Takashi Taka（たかたかし）and composed by Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）, I'd say that it is indeed a woodsy traditional ballad of love.
The last time I brought Olivia Newton-John into Reminiscings of Youth was a little over a year ago when I wrote about her early 1970s ballad"I Honestly Love You". When I look back on her career from that time forward a decade, it's amazing how much she changed her style. And yes, I'm well aware that we are approaching the 4th anniversary of her passing.
From a well-scrubbed country lass back in those 1970s to a New Wave diva of the early 1980s (and a disco gamine in between...along with her time in "Grease"). Yep, I'm referring to the above music video for her October 1983 hit"Twist of Fate" which I saw a lot on the video shows. I'm not sure whether a lot of folks actually watched the movie that it was attached to, the 1983 "Two of a Kind", starring Newton-John and her old buddy from "Grease", John Travolta, but the song and the video sure were popular.
As I mentioned, "Twist of Fate" was a synthpop/New Wave-y concoction produced by David Foster and created by Steve Kipner and Peter Beckett that was catchy and pretty much screamed "I'M OF THE 80'S!" in its arrangement. Maybe it could have gotten folks onto the dance floor as well. But it was the music video that got my attention at least with a glammed-up Olivia strutting into a seemingly futuristic court. I swear that she looked halfway to becoming a live-action version of Memphis Group art. I think even the singer mocked herself in a later interview about how much lipstick she spackled onto her mouth for the video, although I thought she looked dang hot to be honest.😉
In Canada, "Twist of Fate" reached No. 5 on RPM while in the United States, the song peaked at No. 5 as well. So, what was up on the Oricon charts on October 24th 1983, a few days after the release of this OJN hit? Just for fun, let's go with Nos. 18-20.
No "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）tonight but that's OK since we've got family coming over for dinner so we can't really be watching TV. Still, that means we haven't had any kayo programming here for a week since we weren't also able to catch "Uta Con"（うたコン）due to some emergency coverage of Japanese government deliberations.
However, last weekend when we could watch "Shin BS Nihon no Uta", semi-regular guests Junretsu（純烈）appeared to sing "Junretsu Damashii"(The Soul of Junretsu). This was the vocal group's 15th single from February 2024.
On the face of it, this might sound rather self-congratulatory but it's really a sweet thank-you song to the fans for their support all the way from their time entertaining guests at hot spring resorts. Junretsu leader Kazuyoshi Sakai（酒井一圭）was behind the grateful lyrics while the Old Man of Enka himself, Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）under his Joji Hara（原譲二）pseudonym, provided the sweet and laidback melody. "Junretsu Damashii" reached No. 4 on Oricon.
It's been said that Level 42's"Something About You" from 1985 remains as the band's biggest accomplishment, and I couldn't disagree since it was the first song that I heard by the English group on the radio and it really grabbed me by the shoulders and has never let go. However, having said that, I think Mark King and his guys released a lot of other great tunes as well, some of which I'll be writing about on this week's Reminiscings of Youth...this time as an album, namely their March 1987"Running in the Family".
Buying the LP and then recording it onto audiotape, "Running in the Family" became one of those go-to albums that I played whenever I had to pull an all-nighter during university. In fact, it was one of three LPs that I put onto tape, the others being Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）1986"Wagamama"（わがまま）and "Uchuu Senkan Yamato Kanketsuhen Tehma Ongakushuu II"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト 完結編 テーマ音楽集Ⅱ）, one of the soundtracks for the 1983 anime movie "Final Yamato". Yes, it's a rather eclectic musical triumvirate but I was playing these guys non-stop while typing away to desperately get my thesis done and keep away that bothersome gnat called sleep. The cups of green tea helped as well.
I just wanted to feature my three favourite tracks from "Running in the Family" although the entire album is great. These three were all released as singles with arguably the most famous one being "Lessons In Love" that had actually been released almost a year before the album itself. The album, by the way, has been categorized as a sophisti-pop creation which I'm not sure about. Sophisti-pop is something that I actually think has plenty of champagne-clinking strings and brass along the lines of Swingout Sister. "Lessons In Love" certainly sounds more like funk-rock plus pop, and it's an infectiously fun piece either in its original four-minute-and-change form or the longer extended take, and I think it was the latter where I first heard "Lessons In Love" which was another grab of my shoulders. I got to know more about the famous King slap-bass technique through this one, too.
"Lessons In Love" reached No. 14 in Canada and No. 12 in the United States while it reached No. 1 in nations like Denmark, Finland and Spain.
The second of my favourites is the title track. "Running in the Family" is a cheerful melodic treatise on the average family with average rambunctious kids. In a way, although the band's description of the family is not really dysfunctional, I've often wondered if this could have made for a pretty cool theme tune for a movie on a really dysfunctional family such as "The Royal Tenenbaums". The blasting synth riff will always live rent-free in my head. The single was released in February 1987 and it was also hitting the Top 10 in several countries including the band's own UK.
"To Be With You Again" starts off on Side B of the original LP and it has such a great intro that I was always looking forward to it on the tape to get my eyes and brain fully awake once more in the overnight hours. It's quite the soaring piece and I have to mention here that I've always liked the vocal combination of keyboardist Mike Lindup with his high voice and King's deeper and grounded tones. The song was also the first single from "Running in the Family" to be released after the album's release by coming out in April 1987. It did more modestly than the aforementioned songs although it did come in at No. 6 in Italy and the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, the album reached No. 6 in Canada, No. 23 in America and No. 2 in the UK. I haven't done all-nighters since the first George Bush was US President but wouldn't it be nice to place that audiotape into the machine again (although I'm still worried about Jaws!)? Then again, I have a perfectly benign record player that can handle the LP.
So, what were three singles in Japan that were being released in the merry month of March 1987?
A few months ago, I decided that I would become a tourist in my own hometown of Toronto. And as such, I visited the Art Gallery of Ontario for the first time in half a century back in April. Well, today, I visited Casa Loma, the castle-style mansion that's now well over a century old and has been a popular site for film shooting such as "X-Men", "Cocktail" and "Chicago". You can take a look at the Wikipedia article for some of the other movies that have been filmed there.
Of course, I had to go on a day that was deemed to have one of the worst levels of air pollution on Earth today (a hot and sticky day, to boot) and I actually had to climb the Baldwin Stairs to reach Casa Loma. I'm surprised that I actually survived. To be fair, the number of steps is probably a mere fraction of the stairway to heaven needed to access some Japanese temples but I wonder if architect E. J. Lennox had some sort of sadistic streak in him.
The above shot here is of the Group of Seven Room, named after the famous Canadian group of painters including A.Y. Jackson. I wonder if this is where Professor X (Sir Patrick Stewart) held court with his students.
Well, seeing that I did visit Casa Loma for the first time in 46 years, I figured that I ought to post an article having to do with castles. At first, I'd considered an Author's Picks consisting of castle kayobut considering that I'm doing this late at night, I just don't think I have the time or energy. But while I was searching, I did encounter this Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）enka titled simply "Shiro" (Castle).
Man, for a June 1993enka, "Shiro" is mightily old-fashioned without any sign of an electric guitar. It's got the traditional koto and shakuhachi along with some epic chorus and timpani to really set down the feeling that Kitajima is really paying tribute to the overall Japanese castle right down to its parts and construction. And yet, he looks downright Bing Crosby-ish in his cardigan on the cover of the single. Daisuke Shiga（志賀大介）was in charge of the lyrics while the composer was none other than Sabu-chan himself under his usual pseudonym of Joji Hara（原譲二）.
Monzen-Nakacho Station happens to be one of the stops along my old Tozai Line. I used to pass by it all the time on my way to downtown Tokyo although there were a couple of times that I actually stopped by to meet with friends. One time, the inner city area was the place to have dinner at a restaurant along the monjayaki alley.
Thanks to This Japanese American Life
After all these years, I still can't say that I'm a huge monjayaki fan. I'll take okonomiyaki in a heartbeat, but monjayaki is indeed Tokyo soul food.
Admittedly, I never got the chance to fully explore Monzen-Nakacho but I was still a little surprised to find out that a Mood Kayo song was based on the area. I mean, there are areas in Tokyo that have gotten their due through kayo kyoku such as Ginza and Shinjuku but I never thought that Monzen-Nakacho was ever that big to get its own tune. Well, I was wrong since Hiroshi Wada & Mahina Stars（和田弘とマヒナスターズ）indeed paid tribute to the shitamachi neighbourhood by recording the 1963 single "Koi no Monzen-Nakacho"(Falling in Love in Monzen-Nakacho).
Composed by Masanobu Tokuchi（渡久地政信）and written by Minoru Shimizu（清水みのる）, it's all about the mournful singing of love gained and lost in the area...and probably drinking one's sorrows, and there are tons of watering holes in the area, I have to admit. The rhythm is appropriately laconic and wistful; plus there are elements of both enka and Mood Kayo along with that Hawaiian twang which was often part and parcel of the latter genre.
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