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.
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.
Man, what a quandary! Choosing between Nat King Cole and Johnny Mathis over who gave the definitive version of "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" is kinda like having to opt for either turkey or glazed ham as the main dish on December 25th. Maybe it's an easy decision for you readers but for me, I think that both versions of the 1945 Mel Torme/Robert Wells creation are absolutely brilliant.
And to throw something out of left field at you, I think "The Christmas Song" and Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Christmas Eve" have something in common. To specify, both songs apparently came about as a counter-response to the season known as summer. Tats didn't particularly appreciate being brushed off as being merely a summer song singer so he lashed back with the J-Xmas song that has become a perennial tune to be played on TV and in the stores. Meanwhile, according to Wikipedia, "The Christmas Song" was born when Torme and Wells needed to beat back some torrid July heat by thinking and writing about cool thoughts. Not sure if the ploy worked in terms of any cooling effect, but it's safe to say that "The Christmas Song" has become far more eternal as a beloved Xmas number.
I'm going to start off with Johnny Mathis' version of the song since it was the first version that I had ever heard as a kid thanks to that Ronco LP "A Christmas Gift" with all of those chestnuts (pun fully intended) on it. Originally coming from his "Merry Christmas" album from October 1958, Mathis' dulcet delivery has had me tearing up sometimes in the past because of its wistfully magical and wonderful arrangement with the strings and the chorus behind him. This is the song that has people ensuring that they have fireplaces in their new homes.
For several years, Mathis' take was the only one that I knew but then I finally heard Nat King Cole's version on a jazz compilation of Xmas songs that I bought in Japan. The interesting thing is that the legendary Cole had recorded at least four versions of "The Christmas Song" starting from 1946 with the 1961 take being the most beloved version. Again, those iconic vocals are front and centre here but the feeling of his take is epic and intimate at the same with the strings helping out on the former while the jazz group feel takes care of the latter. It's like listening to it at Cole's own home Xmas party with good friends and family surrounding the piano.
Like a lot of eternal standards, "The Christmas Song" is just one of those tunes that was crafted so well that any professional singer and/or musician could send it out of the park if they were of a mind to do so. Jazz pianistVince Guaraldi gave his version on the soundtrack for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and even Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）has brought her own cover which I wrote about long ago. And all this came about because two songwriters didn't bother to hit the fridge to get some cold soda pop.
Anyways, going with the Cole version, what were the big hits in Japan back in 1961?
This is pure Thursday whimsy on my part. For the past few days, I'd been thinking about doing an article involving one of the main subway lines in Tokyo, the Ginza Line which according to Wikipedia is the oldest subway line in Asia, having started on December 30th 1927. Obviously, I have no intention on giving a history lesson on the line but I do want to feature some of the kayo kyoku that have some attachment to the five areas whose subway stations are on the Ginza Line. However, I won't be giving any major information on the songs since the links will take you to the original articles. All I just want to do is relate the walk and a few impressions along the way.
Ah yes, the walk. I also received some inspiration to do this because I still remember my just-as-whimsical but totally insane-and-exhausting decision one day during the Golden Week holidays to actually walk down the streets that have the Ginza Line underneath all the way from Asakusa Station to Shibuya Station. My feet are still muttering to me years later "I'm still not letting you live this down!".😠
From www.tsunagujapan.com
Just to let you know in advance, most of the tunes listed here are in the older kayo genres of enka and Mood Kayo, probably because when they were first recorded, there was an interest in putting the various neighbourhoods of Tokyo into music when the metropolis was getting back on its feet in the postwar period and pulling in lots of young people from all around Japan for work.
I got off at Asakusa Station to start the trek on that day in May. Asakusa still garners a lot of affection as a place where I was working for a couple of years (1995-1997) early in my Tokyo career as an English conversation teacher. Got to see the Samba Festival and the Sumida River Fireworks Festival, and frankly speaking, every day was pretty much a festival with Kaminarimon and Nakamise Dori just around the corner from the school. The shopping streets were great for getting everything from some of the cheesiest Japan-themed souvenirs to some really soft and crunchy yaki manjuu.
Before I made the decision to go ahead with this project article, I had hesitated a bit specifically because I had covered Asakusa and Komadori Shimai during my series of articles while I was on my 2017 trip to Tokyo. Then again, I figured at my age, I was already repeating old stories to my buddies in person so why not do the same in print?
Places frequented often (PFO): Kaminarimon, Asakusa Matsuya, Nakamise and Shin-Nakamise Dori
A 20-minute walk from Asakusa got me to Ueno...not bad at all. I must have performed this major walk on May 3rd, aka Constitution Day, since I did see the ultra-right extremists getting their gear ready near Ueno Station (including the ear-splitting megaphones) while the riot police were setting up their vans.
Ueno also holds a dear spot in my heart since it was the area where I had received my training at NOVA for a couple of months before I was assigned to Asakusa. There was a lot of shopping and noshing to be had in this area since there was the Ameyoko shopping street and I got to learn a lot about the places with bento boxes for lunch. Speaking of Ueno Station, that place has undergone a lot of renovation in the years that I was living in Japan. It was a fair bit grottier back then but it's been gussied up with stylish cafés, restaurants and the like.
PFO: Ueno Station, Ueno Park, Ameyoko, Takeya Department Store (for the bento)
The walk took me from the older traditional districts to the more modern and skyscraper-filled parts of the city, and that includes Ginza. I may have gotten lunch here during the epic walk, but if so, I can assure readers that it wasn't at any of the swanky joints that Ishihara probably frequented. Most likely, it was at the very first McDonalds in the nation, just south of the main intersection (I believe that it closed down years ago). The fact that the counterperson recognized me with a huge smile meant that I had frequented it way too much.
I really enjoyed walking up and down the main drag of Chuo Dori especially when the street was closed on the weekends (weather permitting). Also wonderful were the various stores that I could afford especially Yamano Music which was one source for my CD buying.
PFO: Yamano Music, Ito-Ya (stationery shop), Mitsukoshi Department Store, Yamaha Music Shop
After having moved from Ginza and then through Shimbashi, Toranomon and Tameike-Sanno, I finally reached Akasaka-Mitsuke Station which is at one edge of another swanky neighbourhood, Akasaka. Things were getting rather sweaty for me by that point and I walked over another 500 metres before I stopped off at a parkette right next to the Canadian Embassy. To be honest, I didn't really hit Akasaka all that much aside from invitations from friends and students to certain restaurants and bars. Basically, I had to go there on my own to renew my passport at the embassy.
The Akasaka stop was when my legs and feet started to cry "Uncle!" along with some very choice expletives to my face. My physical condition was beginning to mourn just like Los Indios' chorus which is why I was thankful for the many vending machines that provided opportunities to replenish my fluids. But the message was sent loud and clear: I was pushing things.
Approximately 6 hours of fairly constant walking later after having started from Asakusa Station, I finally arrived (ambled, limped, oozed) in the Teen Mecca of Shibuya. My legs were toast by that point and I was moving like a penguin and The Blob. My memory is a blur after that and I can only surmise that I found some sort of café to stylishly collapse in for an hour or so.
Shibuya was definitely one of my favourite areas and the sparkling Suzuki/Kikuchi duet reflected how I felt about it whether it be day or night. It may be seen as the area for the adolescents but with the various establishments covering the gamut between cutesy and glamourous, it appealed and attracted everyone of all ages. Of course, when I did land in Shibuya, I was sure to visit Tower Records and RecoFan. Not after the walk, though.
Somehow I dragged myself up the steps and took the Ginza Line back to Nihombashi Station and switched over to the Tozai Line to head home. I was indeed grateful for the remainder of Golden Week since it took that long for my feet to deflate back to their normal 27.5 cm size. Still, it was quite the odyssey passing through so many different neighbourhoods. I'm glad that I let my whimsy do the talking and the walking.
As mentioned in my Wakadaisho museumarticle, I was also in Japan for about a week and a half in the earlier half of this month. During that span of time, I managed to visit a few plaques dedicated to kayokyoku, and so I would like to share what I got to see.
Could only get that one bit of it on camera.
I shall begin with the first location, the millennia-old Yatate no Sugi (矢立の杉) in the mountains of Kuronoda Village, somewhere in Yamanashi's Koshu region. I can thank Ryotaro Sugi (杉良太郎) for the tip via his song of the same name for this attraction that's far off the beaten track. Well, it fulfilled Dad's hopes of natural environments, peace and quiet, and no rowdy tourists, that's for sure. In fact, we were the only people there. It was quite refreshing to take in the crisp, fresh air there, and it was a magnificent sight to see this enormous tree standing above its friends that were all tiny and skinny in comparison. That makes me wonder how does this compare to the Jomon Sugi in Yakushima much further down south. There is a legend about how samurai would shoot arrows into the tree for good luck in battle eons ago which I've talked about in my article on the song a while back, so you can check it out here.
For the plaque, there was a crank machine beside it that you had to turn 20 times to get background information on it (in Japanese) or Sugi's "Yatate no Sugi". I went for the latter to get the beautiful song reverberating through the forest. There were quite a bit of emotions bubbling around in me when Sugi sang the lines from "Tabibito yo..." to the end of the stanza. I suppose it was because I was actually there and, well, I am a traveler from foreign lands who had made it all the way to Koshu's Sasago Toge, to the tree that Sugi had recommended to visit when one was drained... I was glad to have gone there. Would've loved to hear the whole song there as the second stanza is what I can better relate to, but the machine was on the temperamental side - oh well. The video above shows what it'd be like to be there.
Alright, before I get too sentimental, let's move on to the next area on the itinerary, Amagi in the onsen haven Izu, Shizuoka. Following our stop at Yuzo Kayama's museum, another place that I had recommended, considering we had nothing else planned for the day, was Joren Falls in Amagi, North of Dogashima and on the way back to Yamanashi. We'd spend a few hours at the museum, and it being winter and all, the sun was setting by the time we headed to one of Japan's Top 100 waterfalls. There was a bit of worrying as to whether we'd make it on time to see the other natural landmark at last light, but thankfully we did - barely. People were leaving by the time we got there, but I was bent on getting a close up look at the waterfall and the plaque of one of the most iconic enka songs, Sayuri Ishikawa's (石川さゆり) "Amagi Goe" (天城越え). And so, I trotted all the way down to the plunge pool behind Dad to see it and the wasabi plantations. My brother followed eventually, but Mom, knowing her limits, stayed up on the hill.
Well, there weren't much sentiments there as compared to the Yatate no Sugi, mostly because I was exhausted upon reaching the destination. T'was a pretty waterfall, though, and I'm sure it would've been a more spectacular view if there were more light.
The "Amagi Goe" plaque was on the faded side and it was difficult trying to decipher what chunk of the song was etched into the metal on the mossy rock, but it begins at "Nemidarete kakure yado tsuzura ori Joren no taki..." all the way to the titular "Amagi goe". Even Ishikawa's picture was barely visible.
I was satisfied with seeing the plaque and playing that portion of song in my head, but the absolute nightmare was climbing back up the horrendous amount of uneven stairs. My athletic younger brother and Dad, who's still in the midst of an exercise and diet streak, thought it'd be a great idea to race each other to the top. Needless to say, the unhealthy person that I am was left behind. Alone. In the semi-darkness. In the forest. Presumably left for the kappas to feast on. I saw a sign around Amagi. Didn't know what it said but there was a kappa on it, so there must've been one or two skulking around the wasabi. I mean, I know these river yokai like to eat children, but I was still 3 days away from turning 20; a non-picky kappa might not have minded sinking its teeth into something on the tougher side. Eventually, after an arduous climb, I made it up alive with no kappa gnawing at my ankles, albeit on the verge of falling face first into the rocks. Most cardio I'd done in a long, long time.
Wasabi field.
Anyway, those have been the plaques that I had managed to wheedle my way into seeing during our time in and around Yamanashi - well, again, not like we had any other thing to visit, so it was a win-win situation for me. The next couple were impromptu visits as I only remembered one of its existence and happened upon the other while in Ginza.
The last time we were in Ginza was 7 years ago during part of a package tour. Not much of the posh part of Tokyo was explored then as such tours only bring you to tax-free department stores where you'd spend your 2 hour time limit. A then 13 year-old me was more into looking at toys too - I mean, I still kind of do like looking at toys because, come on, TOYS - and as such, the rest of Ginza, save for a tiny fraction of its main street with the recognizable Wako clock tower, was left unexplored. Fast forward to now with a considerably more adventurous spirit that still isn't that all that enamored with shopping (non-grocery/music/book stuff), I was game to see what more Ginza had to offer. After all, I'd been hearing a lot more than just Burberry Blue (I think the label's been changed already) or Mitsukoshi in Mood Kayo songs.
One thing that fascinated me more than it probably should've was the presence of willow trees. I had never noticed it on my previous trips there, but the MK songs kept mentioning them, so finally seeing Ginza Hacchome (銀座八丁目) or something like that lined with said foliage thoroughly amused me - yes, I think I've already established somewhere in KKP that I'm very easily amused.
ALL THE YANAGI.
Something else that intrigued me was that the moment you turned into a side street, the number of tourists dramatically decreased. Perhaps the branded shops there didn't boast the tax-free sticker on their front windows. This, I realised, was Ginza's slightly less glamorous side where all the bars were. Strangely, I felt a different air there than on the mad main street.
Coming back to the music plaques. How I remembered that there was an iconic MK plaque somewhere around this district was seeing this one song carved into a block of stone a little further down Hacchome. I don't know what song it showed; perhaps someone could shed some light on it? Looks like "Ginza Yanagi" to me, but I've never heard of anything like it.
It then dawned on me that Yujiro Ishihara's biggest hit "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari" (銀座の恋の物語), a duet with Junko Makimura (牧村旬子), was immortalized in the area. It's a song that had been stuck in my head many times and I had sat through the terrible movie just to see what all the fuss was about. In other words, I had to check out it out. I wasn't sure where it sat, all I knew was that it was somewhere around Nishi-Ginza's Chance Center, all the way on the other side of Ginza from where we were (the plaque above). With that, Mom and I slowly crawled back the way we came.
It got a bit disorienting at the Chance Center as there were tonnes of people lining up for the 10 billion yen jackpot prize - that day was considered to be a lucky day - and we had some trouble locating the "Gin-Koi" plaque. However, the bonus that I spotted on Google Maps and easily found in the same area, was the rock that etched in Frank Nagai's (フランク永井) "Yurakucho de Aimashou" (有楽町で逢いましょう). Personally, I'm not a big fan of this hit, but it was nice to have found it and to have found out that Yurakucho was that close to Ginza.
Yeah, I couldn't really see what was on it as it was dark by then. Even the camera's flash couldn't pick up much, but written in the stone was the song's first stanza, if I'm not wrong.
After a bit of walking back and forth and wondering if the plaque was being blocked by the mountain of people trying their luck at the prize money, Mom found it in front the center's department store.
Written on it was the first stanza of "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari", easily one kayokyoku most synonymous with Tokyo I know - and yet I (ironically) forgot about it until I was there. For some reason, I found it cool or, I suppose, shibui, reading the lyrics standing in Ginza. I'm such a music nerd. And that marked the end of my kayo plaque hunt. Quite fitting, I must say.
Well for "Star Trek" fans all over the world, today is the day! 50 years ago, the very first episode featuring the original Captain James Tiberius Kirk, Commander Spock and Dr. McCoy, "The Man Trap", was broadcast on NBC.
As with any other country on Sol III, there has been a healthy fandom of Trekkies in Japan ever since the original series was played there under the title of "Uchuu Daisakusen"（宇宙大作戦...The Great Space Operation）. I gotta admit that the Japanese seiyuu playing Kirk was really wordy with that introduction and it was fairly hilarious seeing a smiling Spock being shown in the credits. And Scotty was called Charlie?!
I was actually searching to see whether there had been any original song provided for the Japanese dub of "Star Trek" but I couldn't find anything there. So I decided to check for any kayo with the word "hoshi" or "star" in the title. And I had much better luck in that case. This time, I have an old duet from 1962 with The Big Man himself, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）, and Junko Makimura（牧村旬子）singing "Ginza no Sora ni mo Hoshi ga aru" (There are Stars Even in the Sky Over Ginza). Nope, it really doesn't have anything to do with space exploration but it does have that larger-than-life figure in Ishihara...kinda like the larger-than-life William Shatner.
A little over a year previously, Ishihara and Makimura had come out with a classic kayo in the form of "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari"（銀座の恋の物語）which had all that boozy jazz reflecting that night out in one of Tokyo's most expensive examples of real estate (yeah, even pricier than Toronto). Well, the two of them reunited to release another duet in March 1962. However, this particular ballad is a bit more subdued in that instead of the horns and saxes, we have a more melancholy clarinet weaving throughout the melody by Shinichi Nozaki（野崎真一）. The lyrics by Hisao Ohtaka（大高ひさを）, who incidentally was also responsible for the words behind "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari", has the protagonist reminiscing over old times walking through Ginza, probably with a girl wrapped around his arm back then. Perhaps the fellow is now tipsy, shambling and far more alone than he deserves to be.
Perhaps it's for this reason that "Ginza no Sora ni mo Hoshi ga aru" hasn't been quite as well remembered as "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari". Maybe it's just a little too sad. However, who does boozy melancholy better than Ishihara? And going back to "Star Trek", I've always seen James T. Kirk as a profoundly lonely man. He may have had the reputation of having a girl in every space port but at the end of the day, his only ultimate companion is the USS Enterprise.
"Ginza no Koi no Monogatari"(The Love Story of Ginza) is another bluesy Mood Kayo classic from yesteryear, this time courtesy of Yujiro Ishihara and Junko Makimura（石原裕次郎・牧村旬子）. The saxophone and the woozy horns pull in those images of walking through the famous quarter of Tokyo among all the bars and clubs and neon back in the day. This was another old chestnut that I caught on tonight's NHK's "Omoide no Melody"（思い出のメロディー...The Melodies of Your Memories）special.
However, the original came out all the way back in January 1961 when the song was used in a Yujiro Ishihara movie "Machi kara Machi e Tsumuji Kaze"（街から街へつむじ風...Whirlwind From Street to Street）, and subsequently became a huge hit for The Big Man, selling more than 3 million records (if only Oricon had existed back then). A little over a year after that movie, another Ishihara vehicle with the same title as the hit song came out with "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari" used this time as the main theme.
Supposedly even today, the song is still one of the go-to duet choices at karaoke boxes. So, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari" has also been performed oodles of times by the pros as above. The video here has the late Mitsuko Mori and Tomokazu Miura (aka Momoe Yamaguchi's hubby) handling themselves very competently although the latter gets some very good help for the second round.
The first time that I can remember hearing the song was back on the 1981 Kohaku Utagassen when there was a fun segment involving some of the participants tackling some of the old duets. For "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari", I distinctly remember Toshihiko Tahara's （田原俊彦）voice but I had to look up J-Wiki to find out that Sayuri Ishikawa, Yuzo Kayama and Harumi Miyako （石川さゆり・加山雄三・都はるみ）were putting in their vocal contributions as well.
The ballad was written by Hisao Ohtaka（大高ひさを）and composed by Hajime Kaburagi（鏑木創）.
And to add the finishing touch, here are some scenes from the movie "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari" . On a teacher's salary, I never could afford to even breathe on the door to one of those glitzy nightclubs in Ginza, but I've heard my share of stories from some of my students who had access to the expense accounts even in post-Bubble Japan. Still, it's a nice area to walk through, day or night.
