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 know that the daily pad calendars exist everywhere on Earth but since I first saw them in Japan when I went there in 1972, they've been imprinted upon me as a part of Japanese décor. If I'm not mistaken, there was one in my grandparents' house in Wakayama Prefecture. However, I've never used them in my home either here or in Japan because I needed to have calendars with plenty of space for me to write down scheduled events.
Well, I've got one of the most wistful songs ever made in the kayo kyoku era. "Himekuri" (Daily Pad Calendar) was the B-side to Hakucho-za's（白鳥座）June 1981 debut single"Kamome"（かもめ...Seagull） and it was written and composed by band member Yutaka Takahira（高比良豊）. Using the concept of ripping off each sheet as the days come and go, it's an allegory for a couple who lived day-by-day in their own humble little abode until the time arrived that they had to finally break up for whatever reason. It seems like the woman in the relationship was left in the apartment while the man has opted to return to his hometown, but the former is going by the calendar and taking things day-by-day to recover although things are currently still a little tender and raw.
The music by Takahira is led by a poignancy-heavy piano, silky strings and Reiko Sada's（佐田玲子）somewhat weary vocals in a folksy arrangement. And I certainly can't forget that wailing electric guitar. There is that feeling of a sunset leading the now parted lovers into the night but also a new morning. If you have a chance, have a listen to Hakucho-za's 1982"Yonjuu-ni Kilo no Seishun"（42キロの青春）for a different angle in their sound.
Only a few months ago, I mentioned that folk singer-TV personality Masashi Sada（さだまさし）has a sister, Reiko Sada（佐田玲子）, who has also been a tarento and a singer-songwriter. My first article for her was "Shinjitsu"（真実）, a snazzy urban contemporary track from her 1994 album"Cinq".
I also noted there that sister Sada had once been a member of the City Pop/folk group Hakucho-za（白鳥座...Cygnus） produced by her brother Masashi starting from 1981. The band had its initial run between 1981 and 1991 and has gotten back together several times over the decades with its most recent reunion being in 2017. Included with Reiko, there were leader Kunitaka Moriya（森谷有孝）, who had actually been a member of the folk group Craft（クラフト）in the 1970s alongside future City Pop maestro Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）, Yutaka Takahira（高比良豊）, and Megumi Abe（阿部恵）. All four members were employees of brother Sada's own company, Sada Planning, from around 1979 and as an amateur collective entity, they had been called MAST, after the initial letters of their family names. But once production began on singles and albums for Hakucho-za, their label was Free Flight Records, also built by Sada.
Takahira was responsible for the words and music for one track on the band's debut album"Hakucho-za" from July 1982. "Yonjuu-ni Kilo no Seishun"(42 Kilometres of Youth) got me immediately with its smoothly thrumming rhythm and the much higher vocals of Reiko Sada back then. The song is neither City Pop nor folk but an appealingly breezy AOR ditty about falling in love over French Fries and a newly-purchased LP (man, I hope neither party touched the vinyl with their greasy fingers). I'm gathering that those 42 km in the title might be referring to running a grueling marathon to hit the goal line of love finally. After that, it's all joy and relaxation.
Probably anyone in their teens and older in Japan know this song. As soon as they hear Masashi Sada's（さだまさし） first crooning "la, la, la", they can name that tune as the theme song from the 1981 series "Kita no Kuni Kara"(From the North Country). The famous Fuji-TV franchise that spanned from 1981 to 2002 only had the one original successful serial from October 1981 to March 1982, but the periodic specials that popped up in the ensuing years guaranteed huge ratings with the finale in 2002 getting an average rating of around 35%....something that I'm sure a lot of drama producers would kill for nowadays.
I only saw bits and pieces of the franchise starring veteran actor Kunie Tanaka（田中邦衛） as Goro Kurosaka as he, a Tokyo gas station employee, decides to move his two adorable children up to his old home of Furano in Hokkaido Prefecture on hearing of his wife's affair. From a rather dark plot point, the show opens up on how the Kurosaka family adjusts to their new life in a land that may have as well been northern Canada in terms of the very different landscape. When I went to Sapporo for a brief vacation several years ago, as my plane was landing at Shin-Chitose Airport, I just saw all the pine out there and wondered if my flight had been diverted to the Yukon Territory.
As for the song's origins, I actually didn't have to go to J-Wiki to find out. A couple of weeks ago, Masashi Sada himself appeared on one of the many variety shows hosted by the current top-of-the-heap Johnny's Entertainment group, Arashi, where he explained how he came up with the song in all of 10 minutes! According to Sada, the creator of"Kita no Kuni Kara", Soh Kuramoto（倉本聰） invited the singer up to his house in Furano City and asked him to take a look at the first two episodes, and especially at the opening over and over, after getting the request (the order?) to come up with the score and the theme. Imagining the rolling lavender-covered hills of Furano, Sada created the basic rolling melody within a few minutes. With further encouragement from Kuramoto, he was able to come up with the entire theme within those 600 seconds. When Sada asked about lyrics, Kuramoto shot back that words weren't necessary; the song was already perfect.
The above video includes the opening of the pilot episode of the original series. Although the series premiered in late 1981, the song itself wouldn't be released as a single until the following year. However, over the decades, it has come out on a number of releases, including a series of Sada's singles on CD during the 90s.
The completed song included the Hakucho-za（白鳥座） chorus group near the end, and in the middle, there was that wonderful trumpet solo. Sada was the perfect person to perform the theme since his soft and sensitive voice conveyed that heartwarming feeling that seemed to roll over the hills of Furano and towards the viewers. I'd always thought that the show had some resemblance to that old American drama, "Little House on the Prairie", and sure enough, I read on J-Wiki that the concept for "Kita no Kuni Kara" took a bit of a bow towards that show, which was also a huge hit in Japan.
I've mentioned this analogy before for another song somewhere on this blog, but as much as composer John Williams and his works have usually acted as that 10th baseball player on those teams that were Steven Spielberg/George Lucas movies, I think Sada's theme and the score for this drama acted in pretty much the same fashion. You can't think of one without thinking of the other.
