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.
I'm not sure how often it happens during the year, but my family managed to watch a variety special last night featuring some of the star sumo wrestlers and some singers together to perform songs and games. Current ozekiTakayasu（高安）was one of the performers and as you can hear him above, he's no slouch in the karaoke department either.
The folks here in my household watch examples from both the worlds of sumo and music a lot and we are looking forward to the spring tournament in Osaka starting next week. What I hadn't been aware of, though, was that Takayasu, someone that we are familiar with in the dohyo, has been married to enka singer Konomi Mori（杜このみ）since 2020. Mori is also a singer that we've become familiar with on the usual kayo kyoku shows such as "Uta Con"（うたコン）. I never made the connection, although of course, I know that sumo rikishi and entertainers have gotten married such as former 1970s aidoru Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）and the former Wakashimazu（若嶋津）.
Mori has been mentioned once on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in Noelle Tham's article on Takashi Hosokawa's（細川たかし）"Bokyo Jonkara" (望郷じょんから) since Mori was a student of the veteran Hosokawa. But I wanted to feature her via her most recent single from July 2024, "Yuugiri Minato"(Port of Evening Mist), a song that she performed on that variety special. Written by Kyouno Madoka（円香乃）and composed by Chiaki Oka（岡千秋）, it is a typical enka of love gained and lost with a pier as the site of reflection with a lot of fog rolling in. It reached No. 48 on Oricon.
When it comes to Takashi Hosokawa (細川たかし), I believe that the best way to get acquainted with this seasoned enka singer would be via his debut and revival hits "Kokoro Nokori" (心のこり) and "Kita Sakaba" (北酒場), more so if you're uninitiated to enka because they lean more to the genre of pop. In other words, they're easier on the ears on a whole. On the other hand, in my case, the then not-so-initiated-to-enka me had "Bokyo Jonkara" to do the introduction. All I can say is, was I lucky I was patient with it! I was actually very close to clicking out the back icon about a few seconds into watching that very video up there when all I heard was the strumming of the shamisen - I disliked anything too traditional in the early days - but for one reason I managed to stop myself from doing so.
That reason was: I wanted to see the bit that monomane champ, Korokke (コロッケ), had been spoofing. As I've said before a number of times (I think), the impressionist was responsible for introducing me to many enka singers that I now love, Hosokawa being one of them. Whenever Korokke were to do an impression of the minyo practitioner, he would more often than not just be wailing away to a little excerpt of music. I got myself to look up what he was "singing", which happened to be "Bokyo Jonkara" and I promptly went to search for that. This brings me back to where I stopped in my first paragraph, finding Hosokawa's 25th single...boring.
Well, Korokke sang most of it here.
It begins slow with just the shamisen and Hosokawa's forlorn delivery with the shakuhachi coming in from time to time. I was glad when he finally went, "Ah ah ah aaaaaaaaaah ah aaaaah aaaaaaaaaaaaaah..." in his powerful, enka-vibrato-filled voice. And then the chorus portion came on to change my views on the song completely. Unlike its start and for that matter its later part, "Bokyo Jonkara" at its chorus has got a pop-like melody made cool and dramatic by its combination strings, the electric guitar slicing in, and the shamisen in the background. I enjoy this interesting transition a lot and it kind of reminds me of "Amagi Goe" (天城越え), just more forlorn and not so much scorn. The music was brought to you by renowned composer, Keisuke Hama (浜圭介). It took me a while to get past the very minyo bits of "Bokyo Jonkara", but when I did it became one of my top Hosokawa-favourites.
Going off on a bit of a tangent here - about Hama, I'm still unable to pick out his style of music and it's bugging me more than it should. He's been creating such a variety of songs that its hard to pinpoint exactly what he's most known for. My guess is - this only came to me just - that some of his melodies will incorporate the electric guitar.
Dang, he really improves with age... His voice, to be exact.
Moving on, Ryuichi Satomura (里村龍一) penned the lyrics and since this is a bokyo song - this is where I coined the term, by the way - as you can already see, it has Hosokawa singing about missing home (which happens to be in the rural area of Tsugaru, Aomori) after leaving to work in the city far, far away. The protagonist also faces the perennial problem of feeling torn as to whether he should go back to his hometown which he so dearly misses or continue toiling away and earning money. Tough choice.
"Bokyo Jonkara" was released on 21st August 1985 and not surprisingly it did well, allowing Hosokawa to win the Gold prize at the 27th Japan Record Awards. In total, he sang it 4 times on the Kohaku Utagassen - 1985, 1995, 2000, 2009. I'm hoping that I'll be able to catch him sing "Bokyo Jonkara" on the Kohaku. I think I would be even happier than I was when he sang "Kokoro Nokori" on the most recent edition (66th).
To end this article, here's Hosokawa's student, Konomi Mori (杜このみ), giving her rendition of her mentor's hit. Not a bad attempt, I must say. There are times where I can hear the "Hosokawa-ness" in her voice.
