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.
The above is a shot of a menchi katsu（メンチカツ）shop on one of the back streets of Asakusa in Tokyo. One of my friends had recommended it to me as one of the best in town. Considering how big Japan's capital is, that's saying quite a lot, but getting a freshly deep-fried one in that paper sleeve and taking a bite, I could understand my friend's endorsement. Basically, think of a croquette without the mashed potato and just a loose conglomeration of ground beef. It makes for a nice snack before dinner.
Now, this song's appearance on the blog all came about from a request from commenter YMOfan04 who had asked me whether I knew some 70s or 80s kayo kyokuwith an Eastern European flavour; perhaps something with a polka rhythm. I pointed her toward some of the Fashion Music and exotic kayo songs, but at the same time, I also plugged in a request into the Yahoo Japan search engine.
One of the songs that popped up was Koji Tsuruta's（鶴田浩二）"Uramachi Polka" (Backstreet Polka). Just from listening to it, I knew that this wouldn't fit into YMOfan04's parameters since it sounded quite old. And that was the problem there...I couldn't track down when this jaunty kayo was first released. My first attempt was met with failure since the song apparently didn't show up in Tsuruta's J-Wiki discography and the YJ search engine couldn't give me any answers either.
However, I wouldn't take NO for an answer and I gave it another go. This time, I could find out from the images shown in the search engine that "Uramachi Polka" had been the flip side to another Tsuruta song "Ame Shitatare Chanson"（雨滴れシャンソン...Raindrop Chanson） which had been released in July 1954. It isn't 100% proof but I'll take it. In any case, "Uramachi Polka" sounds like a 1950s kayo about the sweet magic of a polka to massage the spirit and soul of a person who's suffering from heartache. Written by Tetsuo Miyagawa（宮川哲夫）and composed by Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）, it certainly has that jaunty rhythm of a polka but also has that familiar kayo melody.
It's been several years since I put up the previous article regarding the late singer-actor Koji Tsuruta（鶴田浩二）. For me, the most recognizable song by him will be his most famous hit, the 1970 "Kizu Darake no Jinsei"（傷だらけの人生）.
Well, last night on NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, one of the guests sang a moody kayo titled "Aka to Kuro no Blues"(The Red and Black Blues). Not surprisingly, it has been categorized as a Mood Kayo, probably one of the first of the genre, and it was indeed recorded by Tsuruta as a single in 1955. Tsuruta had already been making waves as a primo movie star who could sing; "Aka to Kuro no Blues" cemented that reputation as another hit.
Written by Tetsuo Miyagawa（宮川哲夫）and composed by Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）, it's also another ballad of woe as the protagonist of the piece is probably schlumping in some alley watering hole while bemoaning his lot in life with the hint that a lady in a red and black dress whirled him into a sucker's deal of romance. The horns are there of course, but I also picked up on a bit more jazz than usual in this Mood Kayo.
With "Aka to Kuro no Blues" becoming one of the first big Mood Kayo hits, it was inevitable that some of the other big singing stars would take a swing at the song. Frank Nagai（フランク永井）was one such person with another being the Tough Guy himself, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）.
Welcome to another edition of Reminiscings of Youth where I present some of the non-Japanese songs that I grew up with as a kid, teen or even young adult. And this time, I would like to go with another example of a negative being turned into a positive...at least, where marketing of a product is concerned.
When it came to condiments, I think that there were a fair share of people who couldn't stand having to wait for mustard or ketchup to slowly drag itself out of the bottle and onto the hamburger or hot dog. For me, that was indeed the case until I learned the inertia method many years later. However, the good folks at Heinz Ketchup took that logistical weakness and made it into something to be savored...anticipated, you might say.
Yes, it was the waiting that was part of the joy of having some of that ketchup on your burger or dog, and what helped it was the usage of a classic 1970s pop song, appropriately titled "Anticipation" by Carly Simon. What I was surprised about was that "Anticipation" had been released so early in the 1970s...November 1971, to be exact...since those Heinz commercials were more of a late 1970s/early 1980s phenomenon. However, listening to "Anticipation" a few times, I can now understand that it was an early 1970s tune with the laidback rhythm and piano.
"Anticipation" reached No. 9 in Canada while in the United States, it hit No. 13. The original song may have been about the giddy and nervous feelings about how a romance might play out, but for me, it'll always be about the ketchup. So, now I've got a Bond movie and a fabric softener plus a ketchup ad that has helped me cotton onto Carly Simon.
At the Japan Record Awards that were handed out at the end of 1971, there were two songs that won for Most Popular Kayo.
I'll be doing the weekly Reminiscings of Youth post today rather than the usual Thursday because there are some plans for tomorrow, and I did want to focus on one particular folk singer-songwriter. Roger Whittaker passed away about a week ago although I didn't find out about his death at the age of 87 until yesterday. I've often mentioned about seeing those old K-Tel record commercials hawking those disco hits on television when I was a child. Well, Whittaker was another subject of K-Tel as you can see above and yep, that's how I got to know him.
There was one song that I will always remember Whittaker for. "The Last Farewell" was a song that was released in 1971 and it stood out at that time among all of the sunshine pop, psychedelic rock and Motown soul that was inhabiting music. Created by the singer and Ron A. Webster, it was a heroic ballad about a man leaving the love of his life to head out to sea and to go into battle hundreds of years previously...with the hint that he probably won't be coming back home. Now, how did a song like that become a hit?
Well, reading the Wikipedia article about "The Last Farewell", I found out that Whittaker had hosted a radio programme in his native UK, and one of the things that he did was ask listeners to send any poetry or lyrics to him so that they could be made into songs. Silversmith Webster was one of the lucky ones to get through and "The Last Farewell" was created, becoming "...one of the fifty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) physical copies worldwide".
I was in elementary school when I first heard the ballad and the part that always got me was the intro and the outro when those French horns played. It really felt like a heroic ship was about to weigh anchor for the voyage into glorious combat. Not surprisingly, a lot of people felt the same way. After that, I've placed French horns alongside the Fender Rhodes and a cool bass (wood and electric) as my favourite instruments to be heard. It's ironic then that my own personal experience with the French horn was so horrible in junior high school band class. I couldn't blast enough air through that miniscule mouthpiece to make any sound whatsoever and so I made my transition to the clarinet instead.
The other great instrument on display in "The Last Farewell" was Whittaker himself. His voice was so warm and oaken that it was the musical equivalent of a Normal Rockwell painting, and he could have rivaled Burl Ives over who would read "The Night Before Christmas" on Xmas Eve in my mind. That's probably why I had assumed that he was American instead of British for many years. As for the song, it hit No. 9 in Canada while in the United States, it reached No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 but it did reach the No. 1 spot on the Adult Contemporary chart there. My condolences to Whittaker's family, friends and fans.
There were a couple of kayo kyoku from that year which earned Popularity Awards at the Japan Record Awards.
Well, I would like to send my best birthday wishes to the United States of America. If I'm not mistaken, the nation is 242 years old today. Will definitely be looking forward to its 250th anniversary...strangely enough, the same year that the 2026 World Cup will be taking place in Canada, Mexico and AMERICA!
I was kinda thinking about what kayo I could put up which would be representative of our neighbour down south, and the 50th State, Hawaii, came to mind. Mind you, the song that I've put up here was created in 1952, about 7 years before Hawaii achieved statehood.
Anyways, "Hawaii no Yoru" (A Night in Hawaii) was the 5th single that the late singer/actor Koji Tsuruta（鶴田浩二）released for Japan Victor. It was used as the theme song for the movie of the same name, and the man is at his crooning best as he gives his loving tribute to Hawaii. Mood Kayo has a good chunk of Hawaii-based songs with the perquisite steel guitar but my impression is that a lot of them have a certain amount of mourning as if someone had lost a love there. With "Hawaii no Yoru", the sense here is that of Hawaii being that exotic land beyond the sea and perhaps with the entire group of islands being the new love. Certainly, Tsuruta makes it enticing with his delivery.
Takao Saeki（佐伯孝夫）provided the lyrics with Junkichi Shi*（司潤吉）as the composer. The ballad makes me wonder what Hawaii was like in the days preceding its entry into the United States.
*The kanji for the composer's last name has at least a couple of readings, so his name could also be Junkichi Tsukasa. However, I have just discovered that this was one of a few pen names for the Korean composer Mongin Son（孫牧人）. One of his other pseudonyms was Akira Kugayama（久我山明）under which he made "Casbah no Onna"（カスバの女）in 1955.
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 much as I would've liked to hear the Meatball Sub and Philly Cheese Steak or any kind of sandwich in existance being mentioned in Koji Tsuruta's (鶴田浩二) "Machi no Sandwich man", this song has got nothing to do with the food itself and 'Sandwich man' is just a term for a human billboard...bummer. Nevertheless, it still makes me envision a hoagie every time I listen to it.
I came across this song just about a week ago while feeling bored and a little more adventurous in the music department. While on this YouTube channel by the name of 'subaru enka' that uploads Enka and Kayokyoku from the 50's (or even farther back) to the 70's from time to time, I decided to just pick a random video from the unfamiliar lot and listen to it, and hopefully like it. So I ended up choosing Tsuruta's first big hit (unbeknownst to me yet) since I recognize the fellow's name and the title sounded fascinating.
The 1979 performance I first watched.
"Machi no Sandwich man" occurred to me as quite a catchy, slightly jazzy tune with the trumpets, the sharp, high notes of the violin (I think), and the prominent bass in the background, or at least it does in the 1979 version where I had first heard of the song. The original from 1953 doesn't have such a full arrangement, and it sounds a little like one of those Disney tracks from the 50's... I can just see one of those walking brooms/mops marching away to this. It was composed by Yoshida Tadashi and written by Tetsuo Miyagawa (吉田正.宮川哲夫).
