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.
Hope everyone is enjoying their first weekend of July 2024. Canada Day and The Fourth of July have now passed by for another year, but perhaps folks are still in holiday mode so the cottages are beckoning.
Came across this video by Nippon Crown which takes care of all things Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）, the famous Japanese folk band from the 1970s. I do love that cover of their May 1978 album"Kaguyahime Today"（かぐや姫・今日）with the band members standing in the middle of a flowing grassy field. Couldn't get more folksy than that.
Also, there is one of the tracks, "Ohayou Oyasumi Nichiyoubi" (Good Morning Good Night Sunday) which was written by Kaguyahime member Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）, composed by Tsuguto "Panda" Yamada（山田つぐと）and arranged by Takahiko Ishikawa（石川鷹彦）. The song is jaunty, reassuring and as flowing as that grassy field on the cover as someone helps their significant other with their homesickness, even deciding to take that drive together from Tokyo all the way back to the old hometown. Now, that's a loving person!
As for the album itself, "Kaguyahime Today" hit the top spot on Oricon and ended up as the 13th-ranking release of the year.
Seeing back on Tuesday that I put up the congratulatory posting on a couple of Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）songs getting used as train station melodies at Kiyose Station, I've decided to put some more melodies into KKP. I've known for a long time that pop songs have been used among the vast network of stations across Japan but this is the first time that I'm putting up such an article here on the blog. As such, the following are only a few of such melodies.
This is only played at Kinosaki Onsen Station on the San'in Main Line in Toyooka City, Hyogo Prefecture during the winter because the area is known for its haul of tasty crab, and the Puffy trademark tune has the lyric of "Let's go and have some crab!".
The evergreen folk song by both Iruka（イルカ）and the band Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）can be heard at Tsukumi Station on the Nippou Main Line in Tsukumi City, Oita Prefecture. According to an archived article, songwriter Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）had based the song on this particular station itself.
C'mon...there was no way that this song was NOT going to be included as a train station melody somewhere in Japan. In fact, it's used at a number of stations...one being Keikyu Kawasaki Station on the Keikyu Main Line in Kawasaki City west of Tokyo. Kawasaki City is special, though, because Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）was born in the city.
Up at Onuma Koen Station on the Hakodate Main Line in the town of Nanae, Hokkaido, this tear-worthy ballad plays for about ten minutes a shot in various arrangements while folks wait for the train. Apparently, the setting in the song was the town itself.
One of anime's greatest theme songs also resides at Kure Station on the Kure Line in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture. The real-life battleship Yamato was built at the former Kure Naval Arsenal which is one reason for the theme being used at the station. The other reason is that the late creator of "Uchuu Senkan Yamato", Leiji Matsumoto（松本零士）, was the Director Emeritus of the Yamato Museum located near the station.
Of course, I have to finish off with the one train station melody that I used to hear all the time while I was living in the Tokyo area. I used to hear the "Astro Boy" theme when I was making the transfer from the JR Yamanote Line loop to the Tozai Line at Takadanobaba Station to head on back to Chiba Prefecture.
So, for any of you who have lived in Japan, are there any train station melodies that were part of your lives?
Last night's "Uta Con"（うたコン）episode had folk music as the theme, something that I don't recall seeing in the several years that the weekly NHK kayo kyoku program under its current title has been broadcasting. But it was good hearing some of the oldies including a cover of Toi et Moi's 1970"Dare mo Inai Umi" (誰もいない海）, itself a cover of the original by Yasuko Ouki（大木康子）in 1968.
Veteran folk artist Kosetsu Minami（南こうせつ）came on the show for a couple of numbers, one of which was "Maxie no Tame ni" (For Maxie). It was the B-side for the 2nd single by his old group Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）in their first iteration which lasted between late 1970 and mid-1971 and consisted of Minami, Shinichiro Mori（森進一郎）and Sanpei Oshima（大島三平）. On the flip side of "Henchou Tabaruzaka"（変調田原坂...Modulated Taburazaka）, "Maxie no Tame ni" was composed by Minami and written by Makoto Kitajo（喜多条忠）based on a female activist that the lyricist had once known. The song was actually Kitajo's first work as a songwriter.
Now, according to the J-Wiki article on "Henchou Tabaruzaka", a second version of "Maxie no Tame ni" was arranged by fellow folk singer-songwriter Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）for the debut album by Kaguyahime in its second iteration (1971-1975) with Minami and Panda Yamada（山田パンダ）who had just left the garage folk group Shrieks（シュリークス）. The album was "Hajimemashite"（はじめまして...How Do You Do?）from April 1972 and its "Maxie" (as shown above) is a Takuro-sounding folk-rock number which sounds dramatically from that original B-side as heard below.
It really sounds like something that could have been used as a theme song for a sitcom based on an inner-city Tokyo neighbourhood. But Kitajo's lyrics tell a tribute to the departed Maxie which Minami clearly states was due to her taking her own life through a drug overdose. Not surprisingly, the song is a combination of admonishing and missing her. The "Uta Con" performance of "Maxie" last night was also very different in that it sounded like a funk-rock extravaganza that could have been done by Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.
Ahhh...there's nothing like a trailer for an upcoming blockbuster to bring back an old pop chestnut. Yup, "Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania" is due to come out next month and I'm predicting that not all of the Pym-Lang clan are going to come out alive. I'm just hoping that Phase 5 is off to a better start than what Phase 4 brought...I was a bit disappointed last year.
In any case, I ought to get to this week's Reminiscings of Youth and it is this song that was winding through the trailer. I've known Elton John's September 1973 (when it was released in the UK) masterpiece "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" since I was a kid with the family radio but back then, I hadn't been paying attention to the lyrics but to the music and especially the famous chorus that I've pathetically tried to emulate in text above to start things off.
Elton John even managed to infiltrate my thick head at the time since he was so over-the-top in his fashion, including his glasses, whenever I saw him on telly, but it would be a while before I connected him and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". I didn't even know the title for the song for several years. Of course, I was scratching my head at why this elegant ballad was making this reference to "The Wizard of Oz", the Judy Garland fantasy that we traditionally watched on Saturday nights on CBS whenever a major holiday was upon us. Eventually, I realized that the John-Taupin creation was all about remembering and reappreciating where one came from. It's something that I've gotten to understand in the last few years, too.
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" hit No. 1 on Canada's RPM Top Single charts while it reached No. 2 in the United States. The song is a good choice for the "Quantumania" trailer as the Pyms and the Langs enter a microversal Oz not by choice and try to get home.
It's taken over a decade on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but I've finally completed the trio of Yojouhan Folk（四畳半フォーク...4.5-Tatami Folk） songs that was a part of legendary folk band Kaguyahime's（かぐや姫）discography. Singing wistfully about living a poor but good and simple life in Tokyo in that tiny room, the band's 7th single from May 1974, "Imouto"(Little Sister), joins 6th single"Aka Chochin"（赤ちょうちん）and 5th single"Kandagawa" (神田川）.
"Imouto", which was created by Kaguyahime members Makoto Kitajo（喜多条忠）and Kousetsu Minami（南こうせつ）under Ichizo Seo's（瀬尾一三）arrangement, is about a man who had been taking care of his beloved little sister in his tiny ramshackle apartment since their parents passed away. However, the sister has grown up and is probably on her way to marry the fellow's best friend, so he's proudly if a bit sadly passing the baton now to his buddy. Kinda gets you right there, doesn't it? 💓
The band'sfinal single before making their first breakup in 1975 and multiple reformations hit No. 16 on Oricon and sold about 600,000 records. A few months later after the release of the single "Imouto" in August, a movie based on the song with the same title was released into theatres starring Kumiko Akiyoshi（秋吉久美子）.
"Kayo Concert"（歌謡コンサート）got pretty sentimental tonight with their "seishun"（青春...salad days）theme. One of the guests was the amiable Kosetsu Minami（南こうせつ）who performed "Aka Chochin" (Red Lantern), a hit from his time with the folk band Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）. In fact, the song is seen as an example of Yojouhan Folk（四畳半フォーク...4.5-Tatami Folk）, sad folk songs that talk about the lifestyle of the poor starving college student.
Strangely enough, I first heard the song on an episode of one of Ken Shimura's comedy shows in which he and a female guest star were portraying a poverty-stricken couple in an apartment so ramshackle that if there were even a Shindo 1 earthquake, the building would shift from side to side...which of course it did in the skit, and so the single bowl of rice would be sliding from one side of the table to the other as husband and wife would be using those precious few seconds to shovel as much rice into their mouths before the bowl started moving again.
But that was the thing about "Aka Chochin". Minami and his colleague in Kaguyahime, Makoto Kitajo（喜多條忠）put in all the tropes of spartan living back in the early 70s; everything from the naked light bulb to illuminate that 4.5-tatami mat room to munching on cabbage for sustenance most of the time to appreciating all that oden from the yatai (food stand) or shop with the titular aka chochin hanging in front. However, the lyrics by Kitajo weren't just about the hard-luck life; they were also about the melancholy story of the breakup of that couple who had once shared that tiny room. Perhaps they have gone onto separate and hopefully more successful lives but that period of life together will always mean something to at least one of them.
Kosetsu and Kitajo were also responsible for what was most likely the most famous example of Yojouhan Folk, "Kandagawa"（神田川）from the previous year. Unlike that classic, though, "Aka Chochin" has a bit more of a gallop to it as if the memories from the episode were not to be mourned too much but accepted as a wistful part of life.
The ballad was Kaguyahime's 6th single from January 1974. It peaked at No. 4 on Oricon and became the 32nd-ranked song of the year, selling about 700,000 records. The song even gained further publicity when a movie was made from it under the same title in that same year starring actress Kumiko Akiyoshi.
About a couple of weeks ago, commenter Ranawaka Aruna mentioned about an old folk song by the title of "Ni-juu-ni Sai no Wakare" (Parting at 22). As is often the case with me, that title didn't ring any bells but the melody certainly did. I've heard it at different times and possibly it was even featured on "Sounds of Japan".
Singer-songwriter Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）had originally pulled double duty with the music and lyrics for "Ni-juu-ni Sai no Wakare" and the even more famous "Nagori Yuki"（なごり雪）while he was with the folk group Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）. The two songs were placed into the band's 4th album,"Sankai Date no Uta"（三階建の詩...A Three-Storey Poem）which came out in March 1974 and hit the top spot onOricon. It would not only become the 5th-ranked album for the year but would also be the 27th-ranked album of 1975. But despite the song's eventual status as one of the more well-remembered J-Folk entries, it was never released as its own single during Kaguyahime's first run between 1970 and 1975.
However, it was released for the first time as a single when Ise formed the duo Kaze（風）in 1975. In fact, "Ni-juu-ni Sai no Wakare" was the debut single for Ise and Kazuhisa Okubo（大久保一久）, released in February 1975. It became the duo's biggest hit as it hit No. 1 and became the year's 7th-ranked song. According to an article by music critic Issei Tomisawa for the book "An Encyclopedia of 300 Famous Folk Songs" (title translated from the original Japanese), the ballad sold a shade over 700,000 records.
Almost a decade later, the original Kaguyahime recording of "Ni-juu-ni Sai no Wakare" was used as the ending theme for an NTV drama and released as its own single. After listening to both versions, I didn't particularly hear any major differences between the Kaguyahime and Kaze takes; both of them have that appealing guitar melody as Ise sings about that venerable trope of parting being such sweet sorrow. It's the type of song that would have any generation getting a bit contemplative about life.
I did come across some interesting information at the bottom of the J-Wiki article for "Ni-juu-ni Sai no Wakare" in which Ise gave an interview for the journal "Sotetsu Kawarahan"（相鉄瓦版）Issue 126 several years back. In it, he mentioned about the circumstances behind the creation of those two songs for the album "Sankai Date no Uta". He had first written and composed "Nagori Yuki" as a creation that he personally liked, but for some reason, he became discouraged with it thinking that it would never become a hit. He then decided to burn the midnight oil one night to make "Ni-juu-ni Sai no Wakare" for the purposes of making a hit that would sell the vinyl.
But this begets the question: Why was the latter never released as a single after all while the former was? Well, at least the long-range answer had a happier result. Both are now considered classics of the genre, although "Nagori Yuki" got its boost thanks to Iruka's（イルカ）cover. Of course, "Ni-juu-ni Sai no Wakare" has been covered by a number of artists ranging from the late Kozo Murashita（村下孝蔵）to Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）.
Toronto's definitely got its Winter back. As I was coming home from a party last night, I was doused in a coat of the white stuff. Nice to see and feel although I may have different emotions about it if it continues for another couple of months.
Anyways, this brings me up to this profile on Iruka's（イルカ） "Nagori Yuki"(Winter's-End Snow). If there is a trademark song for this veteran folk/City Pop singer, this would be it. It's a slow contemplative song with Iruka's tender vocals making it even more poignant. I think any audience or listener would tend to reflexively give a wistful sigh on hearing this song. The group of teachers who were in charge of the graduating students in my junior high school during my stint on the JET Programme gave a performance of this song for the kids, and the kids bawled out like babies...even the judo team.
Iruka's version was released in November 1975 as her 8th single. It peaked at No. 4 and was the 11th-ranked song for 1976, selling about 800,000 records. It was also a track on her 3rd album, "Yume no Hito"（夢の人....Dream Person) also released in 1975.
Iruka's take on "Nagori Yuki" may arguably be the best-known cover of this classic folk song, but it wasn't the first. Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）, the composer and writer of the song, and his band, Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）, which was also behind one of the most well-known folk songs in Japan, "Kandagawa"（神田川....The Kanda River), was the original artist. As for the lyrics behind it, they talk of a bittersweet parting between boy and girl at a train station while some unseasonable snow is falling at the end of Winter. One of the great lines at the end of the chorus is: "Kyonen yori zutto kirei ni natta"（去年よりずっときれいになった....You've become even more beautiful than last year). Another interesting trait which distinguishes this original version is that whereas Iruka's version is soft and lilting throughout, Kaguyahime's "Nagori Yuki" has this rather triumphant trumpet part in the arrangement which might illustrate that although the parting is sad, there is also pride in the time that the two lovebirds had together.
The Kaguyahime original was never released as its own single, but was a track on the band's 4th album, "Sankai Tate no Uta"（三階建ての詩...Three-Floor Poem), released in March 1974. The album did very well, hitting the top spot and not only becoming the 5th-ranked albumof the year but also held in there to become the 27th-ranked album for 1975.
Since Iruka's cover version, lots of singers have covered the song from aidoru Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）to pop singer Ayaka Hirahara（平原綾香）.
Although the title is about the final snow of Winter, I still rather enjoy playing "Nagori Yuki" over the Holidays. And it's a song that I would recommend to anyone who's interested in kayo kyoku.
I think when Japanese are asked about a folk song they remember, almost everyone will probably answer with this song. Kaguyahime（かぐや姫....Princess Kaguya）is arguably the most famous folk band that ever existed in Japan, and "Kandagawa" (The Kanda River) is their biggest hit. Kaguyahime, which was named after the classic 10th-century folktale of a moon princess found in a bamboo stalk as a baby, has had several reunions over the decades, but their first run was in the first half of the 1970s.
The song, released in September 1973, was written and composed by two members of the band, Makoto Kitajo（喜多条忠）and Kosetsu Minami（南こうせつ）...the latter having sung it as well. In the lyrics, Minami portrays a woman who sings her soft admonitions to her boyfriend (reportedly Kitajo in his college days) while the two of them lived in a small ramshackle room by the Kanda River. It struck a chord with listeners as it stayed at No. 1 for a total of 7 weeks (from late October to late November, and then a cameo appearance in December). It also became the No. 6 song of the year and earned the band an appearance in that year's Kohaku Utagassen. It sold 1.6 million copies. The single also appears on the album "Kaguyahime Third", which had been released a couple of months earlier than the single.
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