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.
Showing posts with label Komadori Shimai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Komadori Shimai. Show all posts
Met up with fellow KKP co-administrator Larry Chan along with a fellow translator and another good friend of 30 years' standing earlier today for a lunch at Sansotei, one of the ramen restaurants at the intersection of Yonge and Eglinton that make up what is basically now Ramen Central in Toronto. Yup, we've got representative branches of the major ramen joints in our fair city in that area: Sansotei, Santouka, Kinton and Touhenboku. I went for the Spicy Tan Tan and it worked out very nicely. It did have a kick but it didn't linger well into the afternoon. Sorry no photos of that culinary adventure today; I guess I was too engrossed into slurping up my noodles, so we'll have to settle for the instant Wakayama Ramen that I had on New Year's Eve.
So, on getting home tonight, I was wondering if there were any other ramen-themed kayo kyoku out there. Of course, there is Akiko Yano's（矢野顕子）slurp-worthy "Ramen Tabetai"（ラーメン食べたい）but I already posted that one over ten years ago.
However, I did find one from even farther back. "Namida no Ramen" (Ramen of Tears) was one-half of a single released by enka sister duo Komadori Shimai（こまどり姉妹）back in September 1963 with the other side of the 45" being "Ukikusa Shamisen"（浮草三味線...Duckweed Shamisen）. I haven't really written on Eiko and Yoko Namiki（並木栄子・並木葉子）since 2017, so it's nice to see them back on KKP, and with "Namida no Ramen", the iconic noodle dish seems to have replaced the tokkuri of sake as the libation that heals in this particular song. Having the delicious bowl of ramen brings back the memories of home and perhaps past romances and friendships which of course will hit the heart quite hard (mind you, the cholesterol will hit the arteries in the same way).
Veteran songwriter Minoru Endo（遠藤実）took care of both words and music for "Namida no Ramen". There is a lullaby aspect to the melody and the sisters sound as if they are the mama-san of a neighbourhood nomiya, as they coddle and reassure the uncertain customer about his status in life. As a ramen lover, I haven't exactly cried in my soup but I do appreciate the joy of having the bowl, especially during the winter.
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.
Ought to be slapping myself upside the back of my head like the Gibbs Slap since I totally omitted this part of my visit to Tokyo last month. I got my reminder after just reading about Noelle's own return to Asakusa.
As with Noelle, my visit to Asakusa was a homecoming of sorts since between 1995 and 1997, that was where I used to work as an English teacher at the local branch of NOVA, on the 3rd floor over the neighbourhood KFC (on Xmas Day, I could work and have my special dinner all in the same building!) just across from Asakusa Station.
It was good seeing the old streets again filled with a whole lot of overseas and Japanese tourists.
Again, my friend Danny and I were exploring the area. One of my old friends from Tokyo suggested that I try a place called Asakusa Menchi（浅草メンチ） which served small versions of menchikatsu, which is a deep-fried loose hamburger (the ultimate comfort food). So we dropped by and ordered one for 200 yen each. Once again, my friend was spot-on. Asakusa Menchi is just a stand so we just ate standing in front of the place, and it looks like our presence didn't go unnoticed by some other tourists so they started to take interest and buying some of the mini-menchi. Hey, anything to help a small business make some income, eh?
Of course, a visit to Sensoji Temple was a requirement.
Of course, as has been the nature of Tokyo as a whole especially in the last three years, there have been some changes. A huge Richmond Hotel has been plunked down into Asakusa, and then there has been the rise of a massive Don Quixote (think a Dollarama on acid) at one edge of the neighbourhood. It was about as glitzy as Las Vegas but then again, it would be difficult to imagine buying some of those special Japan-only bags of Kit Kat in a casino.
When it comes to Asakusa, though, I can think of one song that is about the area, "Asakusa Shimai"（浅草姉妹）by the Komadori Shimai（こまどり姉妹）.
Back in the postwar period, there were a lot of songs recorded and released about regular folks having to come into the big city or elsewhere away from their hometowns to find work. They may be working hard and saving up for their families but they truly miss their furusato. One big representative of that type of song is "Ahh, Ueno Eki"（ああ上野駅）from 1964 by Hachiro Izawa（井沢八郎）who sang about the young people flowing into Tokyo's Ueno Station from the various regions.
Another similarly-themed song came in a bit earlier. That would be "Souran Wataridori"(Souran Migratory Birds) from April 1961 by the Komadori Shimai（こまどり姉妹）, Eiko and Yoko Namiki（並木栄子・並木葉子）. I caught an episode of NHK's "Itsuki Sensei no Utau! SHOW Gakko"（五木先生の 歌う！SHOW学校...Itsuki-sensei's Singing Show School） on Tuesday..."Uta Con"（うたコン）has been on summer hiatus...in which the theme was Hokkaido songs, and "Souran Wataridori" was on the playlist.
The thing about "Souran Wataridori" is that the melody by Minoru Endo（遠藤実）and the the lyrics by Miyuki Ishimoto（石本美由起）are very familiar to me especially the chorus of "yaaren, souran, souran, souran"（ヤーレン、ソーラン、ソーラン、ソーラン）that the sisters chant out. Unlike "Aah, Ueno Eki" with its setting of a major station in the capital, I think "Souran Wataridori" is more likely set at one of the larger but regional port cities employing fishery workers who may have come south from Hokkaido or moved to one of the coastal cities in Japan's northernmost prefecture.
What I found out from jisho.org is that a souran bushi（ソーラン節）is a "traditional work song of Hokkaido herring fishery workers, performed by school students in modern choreographed interpretations". So, perhaps the workers didn't actually sing and bring in the fish in a rhythmic fashion but the teachers and kids interpreted their work that way.
In the first verse, though, there was a mention about someone plucking away at the shamisen so maybe the song wasn't just devoted to the migrant port workers but also to all those who left their hometowns (labourers, entertainers, etc.) to find work in the big cities. The Komadori Shimai themselves were born in Hokkaido and came to Tokyo to work as strolling musicians on the streets.
Being able to remember the song is probably not so surprising considering that it has probably been covered countless times since the 1960s. Above we have Toshimi Tagawa（田川寿美）and Aya Shimazu （島津亜矢）among othersproviding their version. The songwriters, by the way, also provided the Komadori Shimai with their first single, "Asakusa Shimai"（浅草姉妹）back in 1959.
Asakusa is quite the fine shitamachi neighbourhood. I had the pleasure of working there for 2 years when I was teaching at the local NOVA branch just across from Asakusa Station over a KFC and around the corner from a McDonalds (guess what I usually ate most of the time). And when I stayed at the Toyoko Inn in the area during my 2014 trip back to Tokyo, I was reminded how very convenient it is in terms of pretty much everything from food to shopping to transportation. Plus, it does have all those festivals including the Sumida River Fireworks Festival on the final Saturday of July.
This article will be talking about the 1959 enka song "Asakusa Shimai" (The Asakusa Sisters) as sung by Komadori Shimai（こまどり姉妹）, a twin sister act from Hokkaido featuring Eiko and Yoko Namiki（並木栄子・並木葉子）. Born in 1938, they grew up in poverty and early in their lives, they began their careers as street musicians. In 1951, their family moved down south to Tokyo where they lived in cheap accommodations in the San'ya area right next to Asakusa. And there they continued to stroll the entertainment districts as musicians with their shamisen.
Several years later in 1959, they were scouted after which the Namiki Sisters took on the stage name of the Komadori Shimai (Japanese Robin Sisters) and debuted with "Asakusa Shimai". Initially, the song was to have been another song known as "Shamisen Shimai"（三味線姉妹）but to illustrate the sisters' lives in the Asakusa area, "Asakusa Shimai" was chosen. "Shamisen Shimai" would become their 2nd single which came out the following month.
Written by Miyuki Ishimoto（石本美由紀）and composed by Minoru Endo（遠藤実）for release as their debut in October 1959, "Asakusa Shimai" is a somewhat sad tale of the two sisters toiling away in the neighbourhood as entertainers in the hopes that someday they will see their mother again. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few tears were shed by folks in the audience whenever they performed that particular ballad.
The rags to riches story did come to the sisters fairly quickly after that. In 1961, Komadori Shimai received their first invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen after which they appeared 6 more times in a row up to 1967. In addition, they not only appeared quite a few times in movies, they also had their own TV show for a year on NTV from 1962 to 1963. Pretty heady stuff for the sisters, I gather, since they were still in their early 20s at the time. Of course, their singing career also flourished with most of their output being heard during the 1960s, although there was a small renaissance from the mid-1980s into the 1990s. Their latest song was released in March 2014, their first release in 18 years. The sisters even still pop up on shows such as "Uta Kon"（うたコン）from time to time.
Note about that video just above...it looks like Yoko on the right there may have changed her stage name back to her original name of Toshiko（敏子）.
