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.
Fridays are usually reserved for the urban contemporary music but today also happens to be January 30th 2026, aka the 14th anniversary of "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Grace and Mr. Calico are celebrating up above so we will, too.
I just wasn't quite sure how we were going to commemorate and celebrate fourteen years of Japanese music blogging. However, for starters, I opted to search for cover versions of the song that became the point of the very first article on KKP back on January 30th 2012, and that was Jun Horie's（堀江淳）big hit "Memory Glass" from 1981. For example, I found this urbane version by Ms. OOJA that she recorded for her April 2024 album"Nagashi no OOJA 3 ~ Vintage Song Covers"（流しのOOJA 3～VINTAGE SONG COVERS～...Strolling OOJA 3）. I don't know who arranged it but they apparently went for the Old City Pop rather than the Neo-City Pop which is perfectly fine for me. There's even more of an urge to drop in at that hotel top bar for a cocktail now.
Decades earlier...in fact, in the same year that Horie's original was released in 1981, veteran chanteuse Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）recorded her own take on "Memory Glass" via her November album "Hotarubi"（螢火）which can be translated as either "Firefly Glow" or "Embers" (depending on how romantic you feel, you can pick either one). Fuji's take is much closer to Motoki Funayama's（船山基紀）original arrangement of the song.
Although I realize that Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）had been singing (she's now retired) since the mid-1950s, I kinda pegged when this particular single of hers was released just from hearing the arrangement without knowing anything else about it.
"Namida no Kawaku made" (Until the Tears Run Dry) possesses that big downtown brassy sound with the beefy sax and rumbling percussion, so I figured that it must have come out in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Sure enough, it was released in December 1967 with the legendary Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）behind the melody. Shigeru Tsukada（塚田茂）provided the lyrics of a woman who's beside herself with desperate grief and hate over the impending death of her relationship with a paramour.
The song earned Nishida her 7th appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1967 and it ranked in at No. 27 on the yearly chart for the newborn Oricon in 1968.
There were a number of singers who covered "Namida no Kawaku made" including Mood Kayo specialist Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）. Fuji's version came out in 1973 and has more of a psychedelic rock buzz.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted my usual Thursday Reminiscings of Youth article, that time on The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun" and noted that I couldn't put up the Top 3 on Oricon as the usual comparison kayo kyoku because I hadn't ever covered any of those three. So, I started remedying that by posting No. 1 from Oricon's August 3rd 1970 Top 10 list which turned out to be Hide & Rosanna's（ヒデとロザンナ）"Ai wa Kizutsukiyasuku"（愛は傷つきやすく）.
Well, No. 3 on that list was Shinichi Mori's（森進一）"Hatoba Onna no Blues" (Woman on the Wharf Blues), his No. 16 single from June 1970. Written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Charlie Ishiguro（チャーリー石黒）under his songwriting pseudonym Miyoshi Shiro*（城美好）, I guess this is one of those songs that could straddle the Mood Kayo and enka line.
On J-Wiki, it's been categorized as an enka and Mori's characteristic gravelly voice sure does retain a whole lot of emotion, apropos for a song of that genre. However, the arrangement by Kenichiro Morioka（森岡賢一郎）strikes me as being Mood Kayo with that bluesy saxophone and that insistent beat. In any event, a poor lady is left bereft without her significant other at her side anymore. This is the type of tune that I could see Mori performing on an episode of "Enka no Hanamichi" (演歌の花道) because the show loved to have their musical guests sometimes standing on a pier contemplating the future before breaking into song.
"Hatoba Onna no Blues" reached No. 2 on Oricon and became the No. 17 single of the year. It also earned Mori a Japan Record Award in Best Performance. There have been covers of the song including one by Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）in 1973.
*That last name of 「城」can be read in many different ways according to my usual site, and I couldn't find the proper way to pronounce it. If anyone can confirm or correct what I put down, I will be thankful for it.
Welcome to the weekly Reminiscings of Youth, and all I gotta say here is that if anyone back in the early 1970s in California whose family was about to celebrate a wedding or a major wedding anniversary had watched this commercial for Crocker National Bank, they would have rapidly used up the tissue box. The jingle here was "We've Only Just Begun" by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols with Williams singing it.
I remember Williams back then more as a TV personality who showed up on comedy-variety programs such as "Laugh-In", so I had assumed that he was just a wisecracking comedian. It wasn't until much later that I realized his stock-in-trade was as a singer-songwriter. Certainly, I didn't know about him coming up with "We've Only Just Begun". According to the Wikipedia article for the song, it apparently worked a little too well for the Crocker Bank since it did bring in the young customers but they had no collateral for the loans, so the campaign ended up getting suspended.
Still, "We've Only Just Begun" made it onto Williams' 1971 album"Just an Old Fashioned Love Song". It's a very intimate and subdued love ballad that paints the picture of a newly-married couple perhaps having their first dinner in their new house (bought with a loan) consisting of a candle, a spread-out newspaper on the bare floor, a bottle of red wine and Spaghetti-Os. The hope is that it just gets better from there.
Fate had other plans for "We've Only Just Begun", though. Richard Carpenter saw the bank commercial and ran into Williams in the parking lot for A&M Records (both were contracted there) and asked the songwriter whether he could take a crack at the song. Williams didn't seem to have a problem with it, and so as any Carpenters fan would know, "We've Only Just Begun" was released as The Carpenters' third single in August 1970.
Richard and Karen Carpenter came to think of "We've Only Just Begun" as their trademark tune and I think that out of their huge discography, the song rates as one of their most Carpenter-esque creations. I mean, there are the horns, the lonely woodwind, Karen's incredible vocals and those harmonies between the siblings that still manage to raise the hairs on my neck. The song hit No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary charts for both Canada and the United States, and in the latter country, it stayed at the top for seven straight weeks and it was their most successful single. I recall hearing it plenty of times on the radio. Incidentally, when it was released in Japan, it did so under the title of "Ai no Prelude"（愛のプレリュード...Prelude to Love）.
To think, one of the most eternal romantic pop standards started out as a melodic plea to apply for a loan. Anyways, I managed to find a website listing the Top 10 on Oricon for August 3rd 1970. Unfortunately, I have yet to profile the Top 3 songs on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" but here are Nos. 4-6.
Well, while I was writing up Kyu Sakamoto's（坂本九）bittersweet kayo kyoku"Sayonara Tokyo" from July 1964, I noticed to the right of the screen that there was another song with the same title, this time performed by another veteran who also sadly left this mortal coil several years ago.
My initial impression was that Keiko Fuji's（藤圭子）"Sayonara Tokyo" was a cover of the Sakamoto original, but nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, this song was written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也）and composed by Yukihiko Ito（伊藤雪彦）. Senke's lyrics also actually tell of a romance gone bust but the dynamics are different in that the poor woman scooted from the countryside or small town to see her lover in gigantic Tokyo, only to be shocked and heartbroken.
Whereas Sakamoto's "Sayonara Tokyo" had a distinctive Latin guitar, Fuji's "Sayonara Tokyo" has the much more twangy guitar and the overall arrangement is much more in the Mood Kayo (including that sharp trumpet) vein that is her genre-in-trade. The song was also not released as a single but was included as a track on her December 1977 album"Omokage Heiya"（面影平野...Field of Reminders）.
I was watching a 1994 TBS variety series of a trio of tarento bicycling their way around the shitamachi area of Tokyo, and they encountered a couple of grizzled artisans in their 50s who specialized in creating obi for kimono. They accepted and lamented at the same time that they and their fellow comrades were slowly becoming extinct since machines were now able to create them much better and at a lower price although they felt that the human touch added that much-needed character. Now that it's almost thirty years later, I wonder what has become of them.
My feeling regarding the sendou（船頭）or Japanese boatmen is more guardedly optimistic. I can hardly imagine the day when robots will be rowing those old boats on the many rivers of Japan let alone seeing them pull off stunts like the one in the above video supplied by sshinozukajp. And I think that they've had a bigger presence in Japanese culture including within kayo kyoku. I've sometimes come across a few songs with sendou in the title.
Just recently, I found out about this one song titled "Sendou Kouta"(Boatman's Ballad) which was originally created in 1921 by lyricist Ujou Noguchi（野口雨情）and composer Shinpei Nakayama（中山晋平）under the title of "Kare Susuki"（枯れすすき...Withered Pampas） before being renamed the following year. Utako Nakayama（中山歌子）was the first singer to record "Sendou Kouta" in 1923, but unfortunately, I couldn't find any sign of her popular version online. However, I've noticed that the song has been covered by many singers since then, and it's even merited its own article on English Wikipedia.
From what I could discern of Noguchi's lyrics, "Sendou Kouta" seems to be a sad relating of a despairing boatman who may have lost his love and can now just do his job and little else. In 1957, the movie "Ujou Monogatari"（雨情物語...Rain Story） used the song as the theme with actor/singer Hisaya Morishige（森繫久彌）giving his version. The arrangement and Morishige's forlorn delivery can really punch a hole in the heart and I'm reminded a lot of Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）"Kanashii Sake"（悲しい酒）which was released the following decade.
The first version of "Sendou Kouta" that I heard though was by Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）via her July 1971 5th album "Keiko no Jinsei Gekijo"（圭子の人生劇場...Keiko's Theatre of Life）. Her take has a bit more of an epicness to it and then about halfway through, the song suddenly veers more toward a jazzier Mood Kayo arrangement thanks to the introduction of a bluesy saxophone. With that version, I think that the setting goes from the lonely boatman all the way into a Shinjuku nightclub.
Even though I (luckily) didn't go all that crazy with the barhopping during those seventeen years in the Tokyo area since my friends weren't all that heavy into the drinking, I did get my education in the imbibing of alcohol while I was living in Gunma Prefecture for two years on the JET Programme. Whenever there was some sort of major event on the school calendar such as Sports Day or the end-of-year parties, teachers, the PTA or the town staff would get together at a restaurant for dinner before hopping to a couple of karaoke bars and the like in places like Numata City. I did have my share of the booze when I was in university but I really got to "learn" about beer, sake and shochu although somehow my liver remained intact.
It should then come as no surprise that I learned the expressions hashigo（はしご）and hashigozake（はしご酒）fairly quickly and placed them into my mental lexicon of Japanese. The first expression means "ladder" but both of them in the pop culture vernacular refer to barhopping or pub crawls. Yep, my first few experiences with the teachers and town hall staffers going out on the town did feel like going up a number of rungs on the ladder since it increasingly felt like gravity was tugging on me hard as I was dragged to the next watering hole.
And thus, we come to "Hashigozake" (Barhopping), Keiko Fuji's（藤圭子）26th single from November 1975. Fuji, having been the female kayo expert on all things bar-related, seemed like the perfect person to sing this story of a guy going to his favourite drinking establishments in Tokyo's shitamachi district. The J-Wiki article for "Hashigozake" even lists the various neighbourhoods which are given the shoutout by Fuji: Kinshicho, Kameido, Hirai, Koiwa, Oshiage, Kanamachi and my beloved Asakusa. Aside from Hirai, I've been to the other areas though not necessarily for drinking.
There are a few things that distinguish "Hashigozake" from other Fuji songs. For one thing, although that famous cigarette-and-whiskey voice still holds court, I don't think that this particular single which hit No. 43 on Oricon is the usual morose enka/Mood Kayo about a permanent resident of Shinjuku spending days and nights as a barfly. There is something that feels more upbeat because the song is really about what a lot of folks in Japan have been doing for decades. Another thing is that "Hashigozake" ended up being Fuji's final performance on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen in 1975 after a total of five appearances on the show.
Now, I usually would have already mentioned the lyricist and composer by this point but even within that, I did need an extra paragraph. The lyrics were provided by Nana Hazono（はぞのなな）which is the pseudonym for Yurio Matsui（松井由利夫）who would later become the mentor for one enka prince of the 21st century, Kiyoshi Hikawa（氷川きよし）. As for the melody, once again a possible pseudonym might be in play here, too. The name「赤坂通」does read as Akasaka Douri, aka Akasaka Avenue which actually exists in Kobe. However, checking things online, I couldn't find any songwriter that could be connected with that name. According to Jisho.org though, 「通」can be read as a first name in several ways including Ikariya or Kayo, but no light was shed on the identity. It could mean that any compositionally-inclined staffer at the RCA label responsible for the production of the song could have come up with the music.
A song this amiable has most likely been covered many times, and one such cover was recorded by kayo legend Hachiro Kasuga（春日八郎）for a 1978 album "Asakusa Ninjou"（浅草人情...The Asakusa Way）."Hashigozake", by the way, has been recognized as a go-tochi（ご当地...regionally referential） kayo for Tokyo.
The above 2016 YouTube video by Vinyl Guide Podcast shows off the Tower Records branch near the top of the massive Yodobashi Akiba electronics store in Akihabara. It's been a place that I frequented in the last few years of my time in the Tokyo area and it used to take up far more space, but because of the falling purchases of compact discs in the last several years, it's had to halve its capacity. I managed to visit the place again during both of my return visits there in 2014 and 2017 and the entire Akiba complex with its wealth of electronics downstairs and restaurants upstairs has made it a must-see each time. VGP's purpose for this video was to show the modest collection of LPs back then.
But as they say, that was then...this is now. When I woke up this morning, NHK News actually presented a feature focusing on the sudden skyrocketing in popularity of vinyl, and although it didn't show the old Akiba Tower Records, it did show my beloved Shibuya HQ branch and man, was I surprised to see an entire sea (or floor) of LPs! I used to go there when there were either no records at all or just a small bin of them. However, they've obviously multiplied like rabbits since then, and the reporter mentioned that the growing love for Japanese City Pop in the last few years has been one factor.
Along with the album covers showing folks like Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）, Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）, I also saw an LP for one of the most famous representatives of Mood Kayo/enka, the late Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）. It's been a while since I've put up an article here for her, so to hear her low vocals with their mostly smooth but slightly ragged edges once more was a nice feeling.
Her 4th single was "Inochi Azukemasu" (I Give You My Life) released in July 1970. Written and composed by Masao Ishizaka（石坂まさを）, and as is often the case with a Fuji ballad, the tempo is slow and lonely as she croons a tale of a forlorn woman who humbly offers herself to any man who would be willing to accept her. I can imagine Fuji singing this in some sort of seedy club in Kabukicho with half the audience listening to her while the other half is too busy nattering away drunkenly with a buddy or a date. However, she keeps that brave stoic face and does her gig for whatever she can get from the club owner.
The story behind the creation of the song is also quite interesting, according toJ-Wiki. Fuji and Ishizaka went out drinking to presumably some fairly swanky establishment and when they were at the cloakroom, the attendant politely asked them to leave any valuables. Fuji then responded "I don't have any valuables to leave but would my life suffice?". Ishizaka turned around and both grinned after which he complimented her on her remark and said that he would need to use it somehow in a song. Since I do love to snark, I could only imagine that the attendant must have muttered something later along the lines of "They don't pay me enough for this."
"Inochi Azukemasu" hit No. 3 on Oricon and sold just a little over a million records. Fuji also won accolades for the song including the General Public Award at the Japan Record Awards that year. With that voice and her serious demeanor in the video above, if her age hadn't been put out there on the screen, I would have guessed that she was far older than those 19 years. It just seems a tad odd to hear this particular song done by a full orchestra in front of a whole bunch of reporters, fans and photographers. "Inochi Azukemasu" is something that is more ideally suited in that small and smoky venue with a small musical unit and Fuji gently strumming the guitar.
At the end of 1970, though, Fuji made the first of her five appearances on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen, but not to perform this particular song but "Yume wa Yoru Hiraku"（夢は夜ひらく）.
First off, allow me to give a little bit of an explanation for both this article and the one that I did on the male enka singers last night for the Tokyo House Party label. I have left out the younger enka stars in the kayo sky such as Kiyoshi Hikawa（氷川きよし）and Kaori Mizumori（水森かおり）, and that's not to say that I don't like them. It's just that I was so focusing on the Showa Era veterans that I'd forgotten to include them and since I've already put in those male stars from that period of time, I may as well also focus on the female enka singers from that earlier time. But if you are interested in knowing about the more recent talent in that genre, let me know and I'll see if I can draw you to some of them.
I don't quite remember how I heard about Shinichi Mori's（森進一）"Saraba Tomo yo" (Farewell, My Friend). It could have been from a performance on "Uta Con"（うたコン）or I just simply came across it during my frequent forays on YouTube. Whichever the case may be, it is an interesting ballad that became Mori's 30th single from April 1974.
"Saraba Tomo yo" has been classified as an enka tune but there's a part of the intro just before Mori starts singing that kinda hits me like a ton of bricks since it doesn't sound like a typical enka arrangement. I'd say that the part in question sounds rather European as in some sort of melancholy passage from an epic bittersweet classic.
I may have mentioned this before in past Mori articles, but this is the fellow who seems to be the expert on melancholy kayo. That boyish look with the puppy-dog eyes and the quaver in his voice which always makes it sound like he's on the verge of a major bawl are Mori characteristics that have endeared him to his fans for decades.
Yu Aku（阿久悠）is behind the lyrics of a forlorn and defeated man who sees his beloved walk away for good without looking back before boarding that train due to some possible betrayal or other relationship-breaking conflict. Meanwhile, Kosho Inomata's（猪俣公章）music is the equivalent of a storm rising and lowering in tempo as it blows around the imminently ex-couple.
"Saraba Tomo yo" managed to peak at No. 5 on Oricon and ended the year as the 36th-ranked single.
Speaking of singers who have their hearts on their sleeves, there is also Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）who knows a thing or two about heartbreaking ballads. I couldn't find out when she performed "Saraba Tomo yo", but as usual, she puts out her all into her version, especially with that bitter growl in her delivery. Nice use of that oboe and trumpet, too.
I've been a bit heavy on the City Pop and J-AOR recently (sorry, I'm rather biased) so I felt that I needed to get back to some of the enka and Mood Kayo. So, why not get back to the one of the masters?
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the original recorded version of Hiroshi Itsuki's（五木ひろし）3rd single under his most famous stage name online, but his "Kamome Machi Minato Machi" (Seagull Town, Port Town) is a good hearty kayo. It's categorized as an enka on J-Wiki but frankly, I think the arrangement and melody by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）are such that it really strikes me as a very typical Mood Kayo. And with the really brassy horns in there, I couldn't help but feel the atmosphere of something a bit more urban.
Released in February 1972, "Kamome Machi Minato Machi" comes right on the heels of his breakthrough hit "Yokohama Tasogare"（よこはま・たそがれ）and successful "Nagasaki kara Fune ni Notte"（長崎から船に乗って）, both from 1971. This time, though, there doesn't seem to be any specific city mentioned in Itsuki's 3rd single but Yoko Yamaguchi's（山口洋子）lyrics lay the story right on the table of the setting for lovers to flock together only to separate bittersweetly. The fact that there are those migratory seagulls smack dab in the title hints at the flighty nature of love many a time. This time, the song didn't quite leap into the Top 10, stopping its rise at No. 11.
I couldn't find out when Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）sang a cover of "Kamome Machi Minato Machi" but as usual, she puts out a fine version with a brisk and heartfelt delivery. Overall though there is not much of a difference between her take and the original by Itsuki.
Came across this unusual Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）song today. I say "unusual" because "Aka Chochin Blues" (Red Lantern Blues) is pretty darn sprightly for a Fuji song, and an enka tune to boot, since I've been accustomed to her much darker Mood Kayo outings from the early 1970s. And although it does have the word "blues" in there, I'm not sure whether Fuji's bar mama-san is really all that down in the dumps as she describes the trials and tribulations of owning a watering hole for the variety of drunken fellows.
Words and music were provided by Daisaburo Nakayama（中山大三郎）and Toru Funamura（船村徹） respectively. The music by Funamura was especially notable in that with the skippy melody and the clarinet in there, I wondered whether he was going for something reminiscent of a chindon'ya（チンドン屋）, the Japanese traditional marching band. It definitely puts an interesting kick into the proceedings.
"Aka Chochin Blues" was released as the B-side to Fuji's 35th single from October 1979, "Kawaii Onna"（可愛い女...Pretty Woman）.
Looking at the cover for this 45 rpm record, I was rather intrigued by this picture of Ako Midorikawa（緑川アコ）, whom I had never seen nor heard of before, with the rose. I definitely did not consider this an enka record. Visions of bars and clinking glasses of whisky started dancing in my head.
"Yume wa Yoru Hiraku" directly translates as "The Dream Opens At Night". At first thought, I was thinking of translating the title as "The Dream Comes Alive At Night" but considering Tetsu Mizushima's（水島哲）lyrics at the back of the cover sheet about what seems to be a night of passion, perhaps the initial translation may be more appropriate if somewhat more salacious.
The original composer was Koumei Sone（曾根幸明）but it looks like there was quite a feeding frenzy starting from the song's birth year of 1966 among lyricists including Mizushima and record companies such as Polydor, Teichiku and Crown Records to release it. For example, in 1966, no less than 6 singers, including Midorikawa, who released "Yume wa Yoru Hiraku" as her debut song at around the age of 19, put out versions of the song: Mari Sono（園まり）,Herb Satake（バーブ佐竹）,Tatsuo Umemiya（梅宮辰夫）, and Isao Fujita & Machiko Ai（藤田功・愛まち子）, with Fujita actually being the pen name for composer Sone.
Listening to "Yume wa Yoru Hiraku", I was first surprised to hear how similar Midorikawa sounded to Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）, who basically cornered the market on down-and-out-in-Shinjuku Mood Kayo. This was a teenager who had the voice of someone much older and much more world-weary. Just for a bit more information on the singer, Midorikawa was born in Tokyo in 1947 and was the daughter of a Japanese mother and a Spanish father. She released a number of singles well into the 1970s after which she retired and managed her own nightclub. Currently, she runs her own clinic although the J-Wiki article doesn't go into any detail.
Mari Sono's version came out in September 1966 with Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）providing the lyrics. Debuting in 1962, she had already released 23 singles by the time of her "Yume wa Yoru Hiraku". Her version was a huge hit for her, and her vocals are a bit more in the delicate range. Although from what I heard from her version above, there still seems to be that feeling of smoldering love, the J-Wiki article for the song has Midorikawa's version hinting at a more love/hate situation than her take. Incidentally, an issue of a TV guide back in that year footnoted in J-Wiki has stated that Sono's "Yume wa Yoru Hiraku" is the original with all others being cover versions.
In January 1967, the song was the seed for a movie starring Sono.
Considering my comparison of Midorikawa to Keiko Fuji earlier, I guess it is no surprise that the latter did indeed cover the song under the official title of "Keiko no Yume wa Hiraku"（圭子の夢は夜ひらく...Keiko's 'The Dream Opens At Night'）with Masao Ishizaka（石坂まさを）providing lyrics. According to the Wikipedia article for the song, Fuji's cover is seen as being the most well-known version and one of her trademark numbers. Ishizaka's lyrics have Fuji singing about a melancholy life of transient flings without any sort of lasting love to anchor her down.
"Keiko no Yume wa Hiraku" was Fuji's 3rd single and a track on her very successful album "Shinjuku no Onna/ 'Enka no Hoshi' Fuji Keiko no Subete"（新宿の女/“演歌の星”藤圭子のすべて... "Woman in Shinjuku/ 'Star of Enka' All of Keiko Fuji"）from March 1970 that stayed at No. 1 on the album charts for 5 straight months and ended up becoming the No. 1 album of the year. The single didn't do too badly either; released in April 1970, it stayed at No. 1 for 10 consecutive weeks.
I went down the list of singers who have officially covered "Yume no Yoru Hiraku" over the decades and counted 54 folks. According to JASRAC records as of 2016, more than 20 lyricists have provided their stories under that same title. Perhaps the song deserves its own category here.
On the Midorikawa 45, there was an inclusion of her 3rd single in 1967, a cover version of Eto Kunieda's（エト邦枝）"Casbah no Onna"（カスバの女）which was a hit for the singer.
I gotta say...that album cover of Shinichi Mori（森進一）cradling that goblet there is priceless! Kudos to Steve in New York City for giving me the album of Mori's best work along with a lot of other kayo records. Just to get that photo in there, I decided to write about another one of his tunes.
Well, I found a classic Mori ballad...his 6th single from September 1967, to be specific, "Inochi Karetemo" which I believe translates to "Even If My Life Dries Up". I posit it as a classic Mori since my impression of his take on enka/Mood Kayo is that there is often a lot of suffering involved, perhaps more so than the average song from those two genres. Perhaps it's because of that near-weepy quaver in his gravelly voice.
The arrangement of "Inochi Karetemo" with the saxophone and guitar seems to place it solidly in the Mood Kayo territory but there is also that feeling of enka underneath as if the protagonist could have easily been living out in the countryside. In any case, Mori sings it from the woman's point of view. The woman has been done wrong by a guy but can't help but still be attached to him. That could explain the odd juxtaposition involved in the video I chose above with Mori singing while pictures of longest-serving Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）member Sayumi Michishige（道重さゆみ）pass by. Perhaps she "betrayed" the uploader by leaving the group.
Minoru Torii（鳥井実）provided the lyrics while Masao Saiki（彩木雅夫）came up with the gentle music. "Inochi Karetemo" became Mori's first million-seller while hitting No. 5 on Oricon (although Oricon didn't officially debut until January 4 1968). Not surprisingly, a little over a year after its release, a movie was made based on the song. Mori even had a small role as himself.
While listening to Mori, a thought came into my head that this would be the ideal song for Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）, who knew a thing or two about songs of suffering. Sure enough, she did cover it although I couldn't find out when her version got released. Her take has a bit more defiance in there.
Not ever being much of a drinker (although I have to thank the nation of Japan to at least introducing me to beer and sake) and, for that matter, a purveyor of some of the other sinful pleasures, I never really got to explore Shinjuku and its smaller sector of Kabukicho too deeply. Over the years, I have heard from some students that the place is rife with evil stuff and too dangerous to enter.
To be honest, I have walked through the streets of Kabukicho a number of times with friends after catching a movie at the Milano, and aggressive touts aside, I think Toronto has spookier areas at night.
Of course, there is Golden Gai, the famous alley in Shinjuku which has these old-fashioned bars crammed in cheek by jowl that provide plenty of libation. I never got that close to it but a couple of weeks ago, I passed by Omoide Yokocho（思いで横町...Alley of Memories）which has its own group of old-fashioned joints.
Even as a non-drinker (basically) though, there is a certain charm and attraction to East Shinjuku with all of the bright lights and big city. If my liver and other internal organs could have handled metabolic poison and nicotine, I probably would have gone into one of those joints, if only to get into the mood of some of those Mood Kayo singers.
There is one in particular that I'm thinking of now.
I hadn't seen veteran enka singer Shinichi Mori（森進一）in quite some time so I was glad that he did show up on the annual "Omoide no Melody"（思い出のメロディー...Melody of Memories）broadcast about a couple of weeks ago. I was a bit worried about his health.
Had a craving of sorts for some of that old-fashioned Mood Kayo from a time when I was still toddling around in my diapers so I went with what was probably his 7th single from December 1967, "Sakariba Blues".
When I first saw the term, I had no idea what sakariba meant. And at the relevant J-Wiki article for the song, there was a fairly comprehensive list of these sakariba areas in 7 major Japanese cities. Several of them were already known to me and so when I punched the term into jisho.org, I found out that it was another expression for "entertainment district".
In any case, Mori namedrops the whole lot of these places while he's crooning away. I know the Tokyo ones: Ginza, Akasaka, Roppongi, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro. "Sakariba Blues", despite the relatively fast pace of the ballad, is very much a blues song since the singer relates the hard-luck story of a woman, presumably a hostess working in one of those areas or even a frequent customer there, who is grieving at the loss of a relationship. There is probably no lonelier situation than crying in your beer while everyone else is living it up around you.
Although this was about a year before the Oricon rankings came in, "Sakariba Blues" did well enough so that there was a movie adaptation with the same title (with the English title of "Blue Neon"). According to the J-Wiki article, it was the second such adaptation following "Yanagase Blues"（柳ヶ瀬ブルース）the year before, and so the movie has been labeled as the second movie in the "Yoru no Kayo Series"（夜の歌謡シリーズ...The Night Kayo Series）. Mori even has third billing as an actor. Come to think of it, I have never seen the man in a movie or TV drama.
Saburo Fuji（藤三郎）and Chiaki Murakami（村上千秋）wrote the lyrics while Miyoshi Jo（城美好）composed the song. There was also a cover version by none other than the Queen of Kayo Blues herself, Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）although I couldn't find out when this cover came out. "Sakariba Blues" may have been made for Mori but with Fuji doing her version, I couldn't have asked for anyone better to handle the concept of loss deep down in the hard-bitten streets of Tokyo or any other city.
I recently found myself down a Youtube music hole, as I often do, and ended up on this video of Toshimi Togawa (田川寿美). >
As soon as the intro hit I knew I'd heard the song before, but sung by someone else. It took around 20 minutes of me going through my iTunes library before I found Wo He Ni by Teresa Teng.
The original Japanese song, Kitaguni No Haru (Spring in the north country) was first sung in 1977 by Masao Sen (千昌夫)and there seems to be versions in various Asian languages. The Teng version is in Mandarin and the lyrics are different (Wo He Ni translates as "You and Me".) Of course, Teresa was singing and releasing records in Japanese at the time, and there exists a recording of her singing the original Japanese version of the song as well. The Japanese lyrics are from the perspective of someone from a small town in presumably Hokkaido, who has since left for the big city. This is a common general theme in Enka songs of the era, of course during this time many Japanese were leaving small towns for cities. the string section flourishes and drawn out vocals really give the track a springtime longing sort of feel. And there's a great version by one of my favorites, Fuji Keiko (藤圭子.)
Since this is my first post, it seems a short introduction would do. I'm a young American man from Austin, Texas and currently living there. Music in general is my main passion and my love of Japanese music is a result of my broad interest in that culture and country. I hope my contributions are enjoyed.
I'll start by writing about one of my favorite Japanese vocalists, and also one of the first I came across; Fuji Keiko.
I think I can assume she is known at least by name to most of those interested in showa era japanese pop music. It seems most around my generation know her through her daughter Utada Hikaru, but I'm actually not familiar with any of Hikaru's music.
Most english language sources tend to refer to Keiko as an enka singer, but to me she is more just kayo kyoku, or as many a Tokyo record store categorizes her albums under, "Mood Kayo," though there is certainly an overlap, and some tracks of hers come pretty close to pure enka.
Here's her singing "面影平野” in 1978. It seems she is surprised before the performance by her grandmother from Hokkaido being brought on stage. A conversation follows that I understand maybe a quarter of.
a dynamic captivating performance, and those looks into the camera could pierce armor. her beauty is obvious.
I'm still kicking myself for being a cheapskate and talking myself out of buying the Fuji Keiko collected LP I saw during my last trip to Japan, thinking I'd find it somewhere else in tokyo cheaper. I did manage to snag some of my favorite singles of hers though.
It would seem impossible to write about her without mentioning her relatively recent death under unfortunate circumstances... of which I'm not sure what to say except what a loss. It's been addressed in other places more in depth and by better writers than myself.
Next time maybe I'll talk about an Idol, or a punk band, or Murata Hideo.
The record cover among the pile of old 45"s that has remained in my memory the longest is in the picture above. At the time that I had first seen it, I had no idea what it was about and why the old guy in the photo needed to expose his right shoulder like that. I couldn't read the kanji at the time but seeing some of the old videos at the Wednesday night VCR showings at the former site of the Toronto Buddhist Church on Bathurst had me thinking that this guy was some samurai warrior without the chonmage.
Well, as I would later find out much later, that rather dramatic-looking fellow was singer-actor Koji Tsuruta（鶴田浩二）. Noelle has already started the Tsuruta file with his 1953 song "Machi no Sandwich Man"（街のサンドイッチマン）, the ballad about the working man in postwar Japan. As my fellow writer would put it, the song had that certain jauntiness that was reminiscent of a score on an old-fashioned Walt Disney picture.
Tsuruta's biggest hit would come some 17 or 18 years later with his 16th single"Kizu Darake no Jinsei" (A Life Filled With Scars) which was composed by Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）, the same man who had created the melody for "Machi no Sandwich Man", and written by Masato Fujita（藤田まさと）. Supposedly when Fujita had first come up with some of the lyrics, he had Tsuruta in mind.
On that above point, I have to say that I barely know anything about the life and career of Tsuruta (1924-1987), but the lyricist must have seen in the late singer a time of struggle and hard work in his life. According to the Wikipedia bio for the Shizuoka-born/Osaka-raised singer, his parents had divorced and he ended up as an underachieving delinquent before getting drafted into the Imperial Army. When he entered show business, he gained a reputation as one of the hardest-working thespians around.
I'm not sure whether Tsuruta's life had been as tough but "Kizu Darake no Jinsei" certainly has its protagonist crying some major blues. Perhaps the hero was a world-weary warrior in the Edo Era or the Showa Era but Fujita's lyrics made it rather clear that he was pretty much at the end of his rope and wanted to relay his story to someone who would listen...maybe at some bar or at lonely stand serving oden. There were a couple of lines which particularly intrigued me:
It's said that the old guys in particular want to have the new things. Well, where are these new things?
I wonder if Fujita had been bearing in mind a certain group of people at a major change in Japanese history. Would it have been the tumult that accompanied the opening of Japan when Commodore Perry and his ships sailed in or was it when the nation went through its high-growth period after the war. Perhaps there were people who had felt left behind with the change in society. And especially considering the title, did the protagonist wonder if all of his efforts were for naught?
Although I'm not sure whether Tsuruta had done this with every performance on stage and/or in front of the camera, but according to J-Wiki, it was his habit whenever he sang to have a handkerchief in his right hand when holding the mike while his left hand would go to his ear. Apparently, his right hand got very sweaty during performances and his left ear had been injured while serving in the army so he needed that left hand in helping to hear the music.
"Kizu Darake no Jinsei" was not a happy ballad at all but it struck a huge chord with fans since it was his first song to break into the Top 10 when it was released on Christmas Day (of all days) 1970. In fact, it hit No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies and was the No. 4 song of 1971 as it stayed in the Top 10 for 3 months straight, selling close to a million records. Tsuruta also earned a Japan Record Award. And furthermore, two movies were made based on the song, both with the same title.
You would think that such a hit would have gotten Tsuruta a place on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen in 1971. However, all the national broadcaster got at the time was enmity from Tsuruta. For some reason, someone at NHK decided to make up a list of "Songs Not Preferred for Public Broadcast" and "Kizu Darake no Jinsei" was included. The singer was said to have become furious when he heard about this and boycotted any future appearances on the network for about 6 years. When Tsuruta and NHK finally buried the hatchet though, the former did perform the song on the various music programs.
Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）would perform a cover of the ballad on one of his albums in 1988.
And Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）also gave her version.
Even the crusty Dad from venerable anime "Tensai Bakabon" (天才バカボン...Genius Bakabon) addressed those two lines that I'd mentioned before launching into his cover of the song on a "Nodo Jiman"-like program. And he won a prize, too!
As has been the case since I started "Kayo Kyoku Plus", whenever I hear of a death in the Japanese music world, it's always been in the morning, specifically through NHK's "Newswatch 9", and this morning was no different. Composer Toru Funamura（船村徹）passed away at the age of 84 the day before. According to J-Wiki, he may have created more than 5,000 songs in a career that lasted over 60 years.
Unfortunately, I can't really impart any deep insights off the top (although in writing this article, that may change) about his musical style but his genres were most definitely enka and the somewhat poppier kayo of a past age. Just from some of the hits that he was responsible for, though, Funamura's enka melodies ranged from the poignant to the proud with the common point being the rich Japanese-ness of it all.
Funamura was born Hiroo Fukuda（福田博郎）in Tochigi Prefecture in 1932 and studied piano at what is now the Tokyo College of Music. His university days were during the postwar period when US military forces were frequently seen on the streets, and so he participated and even led a band which toured the US bases. He also collaborated with another budding composer, Kimio Takano（高野公男）, to create music but tragically, Takano would pass away at the age of 26 in 1956.
The last time I saw Funamura on TV was on an episode of NHK's "Kayo Concert"（歌謡コンサート）early last year, I believe. And I think he also performed one song himself on stage. During the 1950s, he had his time behind the microphone, and according to his bio on J-Wiki, one of his four singles was "Shinjuku Jouwa"（新宿情話...Shinjuku Love Story）although I couldn't find out the exact year of its release. Composed by Funamura and written by Ryo Inomata（猪又良）, it was the melancholy story of a man trying to comfort a young woman in distress in the titular neighbourhood of Tokyo.
I couldn't find an original copy of Funamura actually singing "Shinjuku Jouwa" but according to YouTube, it has been covered by a number of singers including Eisaku Ohkawa（大川栄策）, one of his apprentices who would become one of the premier enka singers. That lone guitar expresses the tenderness of the situation and it would be one of those fine ballads to be sung by that traveling balladeer who used to walk the side streets of Shinjuku.
Officially, though, his debut as a composer came in 1953 when he made "Tasogare no Ano no Hito"（たそがれのあの人...That Man At Sunset）, although I couldn't find out who the original singer was.
His first bona fide hit though came a couple of years later in 1955 when he composed "Wakare no Ippon Sugi"（別れの一本杉）for Hachiro Kasuga（春日八郎）. The video above has Funamura himself singing the song about longing for home. Noelle has already fashioned an article about it right here.
I wrote about a Funamura-penned song just a couple of weeks ago called "Odorou Boku to"（踊ろうぼくと）from 1963 with all-Japanese guy Kazuo Funaki（舟木一夫）. Revisiting this one and listening to some of the other hits, I've been getting the impression that Funamura enjoyed expressing aspects of the Japanese man's heart although he also made songs for female singers. This one was a bit less enka but there was that streak of gallantry in there.
In 1961, he composed one of Hideo Murata's（村田英雄）symbolic tunes, "Osho"（王将）, a muscular enka that made the game of shogi into an epic battle.
Another one of his manly-man songs was his 1982 hit for Ichiro Toba（鳥羽一郎）, another one of his apprentices, the ode to a couple of fishermen brothers battling the elements, "Kyodai Bune"（兄弟船）. No matter if it's a single piercing trumpet or a whole orchestra, the song packs a wallop of an impression. I can smell the sea salt from here.
Then a year later, "Yagiri no Watashi"（矢切の渡し）became one of the biggest hits for 1983 for Takashi Hosokawa（細川たかし）although it had first been sung by Naomi Chiaki（ちあきなおみ）as a B-side back in 1976. For me, it's one of the most recognizable enka.
Another kayo legend that Funamura created songs for was the one and only Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）. In 1962, she released "Hibari no Sado Jouwa"（ひばりの佐渡情話...Hibari's Sado Love Story）. As far as I know, Misora may be the only singer who had kayo titles with her name on them. Although the lyrics by Sou Nishizawa（西沢爽）may have had Misora femininely lamenting a lost love, Funamura's melody still reflected a strength of character that was part and parcel of the Misora mystique...the same mystique that was rumoured to have often terrified her fellow singers at any of the Kohaku that the Queen of Kayo appeared on. And yes, she also performed this song on the NHK New Year's Eve special.
Speaking of another famous singer from the old days, Funamura created a Mood Kayo for Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）as her 40th single in February 1987, "Shinjuku Banka"（新宿挽歌...Shinjuku Elegy）. And it sounded like the composer crafted the ballad perfectly for his client: that late-night bluesy music paired with Rei Nakanishi's（なかにし礼）lyrics of shattered dreams that had exemplified Fuji's songs from the very beginning.
As I said at the top, Funamura composed over 5,000 songs since 1953. So if my descriptions here are a bit chintzy, I'm sure the articles that have already been written for some of his hits will be more illuminating and there will definitely be more Funamura-penned songs coming up in the future. I might even end up writing up on "Shinjuku Jouwa", "Shinjuku Banka" and the Misora ballad since they have yet to get their own articles as of this writing (but Noelle, if you want to give them a shot, please be my guest).
To finish, I managed to find one interesting story from the J-Wiki bio of Funamura. The original source is a Japanese webpage showing a conversation between him and fellow songwriter Eiichi Ohtaki（大瀧詠一）. In 1959, an animated movie for which Funamura was responsible for the score had won a grand prize at a London-based movie festival, and the composer somehow was able to attend an audition for bands. After seeing the whole lot, he was then asked which groups were good. Funamura answered, "That slovenly group of four was the most interesting."
What floored Ohtaki was who that group was. Funamura may have thought the four were slovenly...and interesting, but the world kinda found out later that they were actually quite fab!
April 4th 2017: On the above paragraphs concerning Funamura's alleged encounter with The Beatles, I received word from a commenter below that he couldn't find any information about this online so I decided to do a bit of research myself. His comments and my response are below. As such, I am providing this disclaimer but not erasing the paragraphs since Funamura did indeed give those comments in that webpage interview. However, if there is anyone out there who can offer further clarity to this matter, I would appreciate it.
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