The Brady Bunch -- The Brady Bunch

 

Today is Family Day and much of Canada is celebrating this regional holiday (under different names depending on the province), although since it's not a federal holiday, we should still be getting our mail. We did have our family get-together last night with some fine platters of sushi.

No matter the level of holiday though, it still means that it's time for a special Reminiscings of Youth article, and under the theme of Family Day, I thought it would be appropriate to bring in one of my fondly-remembered TV theme songs. "The Brady Bunch" was one of the many sitcoms that peppered my childhood through its first run and then reruns. If I recall, it was on Friday nights on ABC for the first half of the 1970s and from what I saw on the Wikipedia page for it, it was never a ratings winner despite its longevity but then Friday nights were usually seen as the death slot of TV shows.

"The Brady Bunch" was the quintessential family half-hour sitcom back in the day. There was nothing controversial about it...just each of the kids having their easily solvable problems and then getting help from the parents, Mike and Carol, and perhaps even their maid Alice. There were some plot lines that I remember from the series which lasted from 1969 to 1974 such as the gang heading to Hawaii and the Grand Canyon, the truth about Jesse James, the kids cutting their own hit songs, and the one depicted above where little Bobby gets his first kiss from a schoolmate portrayed by Melissa Sue Anderson who would become even more famous as one of the Ingalls' daughters on "Little House on the Prairie". In addition, the kids literally grew up right in front of our eyes and even Mike and Carol eventually got groovier with the times in their fashion and hairstyles.

Of course, there is the famous opening credits sequence with the nine squares showing off the parents, kids and Alice with the sweetly sung theme song which delivered how this blended family got together in the first place. However, my memories of "The Brady Bunch" began from the second season when the actors portraying the children sang the theme for the rest of the series. For some reason, reruns of the first season wouldn't start playing on TV here in Toronto until several years later, and it was pretty amazing seeing how young and 60s everyone looked back then. The first season's rendition of the theme was recorded by a sunshine pop band known as the Peppermint Trolley Company with series producer Sherwood Schwarz and prolific composer Frank DeVol (probably one of the great inspirers for Shibuya-kei to be born) creating the song. No matter who sang the theme, it still remains very hummable; I was doing some of that myself while typing this.

After "The Brady Bunch" got cancelled in the spring of 1974, the show was a regular rerun on many a channel, and it seems as if there were folks who wanted to bring it back in some shape or other. I remember "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" and the animated series starring the kids. And a decade later, there was even "The Brady Brides" and eventually a film franchise taking a parodic approach. There was even "The Bradys",  a dramedy sequel that lasted all of a month in 1990; I hadn't even heard of that one since I was in Japan that year.

"The Brady Bunch" did get aired in Japan on Fuji-TV between 1970 and 1971 under the title "Yukai na Brady-ke"（ゆかいなブレディー家）which translates into "The Happy Bradys", and yes, they certainly were. I couldn't find any footage of the Fuji-TV version; the only thing I could find was this Japanese-subbed commercial that aired during the Super Bowl of 2015. Yup, it was epic. And good heavens...there was that episode about Marcia getting her nose broken by a football!

So, with the show premiering on September 26th 1969, what was at the top of the Oricon list at around that time? Here are the Top 3 from September 29th.

1. Mina Aoe -- Ikebukuro no Yoru （池袋の夜）

2. Naomi Sagara -- Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba（いいじゃないの幸せならば）

3. Mieko Hirota -- Ningyo no Ie （人形の家）

Mina Aoe -- Anata ni Naita（あなたに泣いた）

 

Well, it is a Monday so I gather that a lot of folks out there are brooding about going into another work week. Then again, this is a holiday week for most of North America with my country celebrating Canada Day tomorrow and then the United States partying up the 4th of July in a few days. 

Anyways, the setting in this song has none of that. In fact, I'd say that there is a lot of moroseness in a Japanese bar somewhere when it comes to husky-voiced Mina Aoe's（青江三奈）14th single "Anata ni Naita" (I Cried for You). Released in March 1969, once again it's one of those songs that I can't really distinguish between an enka and Mood Kayo. I've always known Aoe as a Mood Kayo expert and the subject matter of heartbreak and loneliness is perfect for a song of that genre but at the same time, the rhythm of that melody also sounds quite traditionally enka. In any case, the songwriters here are lyricist Teruko Takiguichi（滝口暉子）and composer Toshio Miyagawa（宮川としを）.

Mina Aoe -- Sapporo Blues（札幌ブルース）

Wikimedia Commons
by Syced

My previous article some minutes ago had to do with one of America's most famous bars on television. As well, my good anime buddy has just returned from his annual pilgrimage to Japan, including a few days in Hokkaido, so I figure that it was time to search for a shibui Sapporo-based enka or Mood Kayo.

Looks like I may have hit the kayo kyoku trifecta here. To be honest, I couldn't distinguish whether Mina Aoe's（青江三奈）"Sapporo Blues" is an enka or a Mood Kayo (I can hear elements of both genres) and of course, it serves as a go-touchi (local or regional) song. The late singer released "Sapporo Blues" back in March 1968 as her 9th single and also as another entry in her "Blues" series which includes the much later 1983 "Osaka Blues"（大阪ブルース）. Written by Kohan Kawauchi（川内康範）and composed by Koumei Sone（曽根幸明）, the husky tones of Aoe (including those famous moans) deliver a story of longing and trysting in the capital city of Hokkaido where the cold can easily have people search for bodily (or drinkable) warmth. 

Just for Fun...The J-C AI Gallery -- Momoe, Yosui & Mina

 

Momoe Yamaguchi -- Yume Saki Annainin (夢先案内人）

Yosui Inoue -- Isso Serenade （いっそセレナーデ）

Mina Aoe -- Shinjuku Saturday Night （新宿サタデー・ナイト）

Jerry Goldsmith -- Theme from "Room 222"

 

I usually just provide three articles on a Thursday: one Reminiscings of Youth article and then a couple of kayo. However, I did realize that today is February 22nd, so of course, I'm thinking 2/22. I never thought about going as far as waiting until 2:22 pm today to put up an article but in the interests of whimsy and the fact that Japan is celebrating a national holiday in the form of the current Emperor's birthday on the 23rd, I'm putting up another ROY which will make it the third this week.

And yup, I'm going to be very cute here and post up the opening theme song for the American sitcom "Room 222". Sitcom?! All these years, I'd assumed that the show was a heartfelt coming-of-age drama about high schoolers and their teachers. But indeed, it was made for laughs. Its run lasted between September 11th 1969 and January 11th 1974. 

I don't recall ever seeing an episode but then I couldn't imagine someone like myself at my age of just under 4 years sagely watching "Room 222" for the insightful parables and gentle humour. Still, the opening credits of the students and teachers coming to school and the theme song have stuck with me all these decades, and isn't that what they're supposed to do to attract viewers? As for that theme, it was composed by none other than Jerry Goldsmith, a man who came up with a lot of famous theme songs including the one for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation". I'll probably be covering at least a couple more of Goldsmith's creations as ROY material.

Goldsmith's "Room 222" invaded my ears and brain right from the get-go in 1969. I guess it is because it has that cool contemporary pop rhythm overlaying periodic urgent drum rolls hinting at the academic lessons to come. What has it staying in my head is that the theme and the opening credits show off that certain innocence of life back then, even in the blackboard jungle.

Anyways, what was at the top of the Japanese song rankings back on September 8th 1969? I have Nos. 1, 5 and 6.

1. Mina Aoe -- Ikebukuro no Yoru （池袋の夜）

5. The Tigers -- Smile For Me

6. Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five -- Nagasaki wa Kyou mo Ame Datta （長崎は今日も雨だった）

Sally Mae/Mina Aoe -- Gincho Nagarebana（銀蝶流れ花）

 

Over the Holidays, podcaster and friend Rocket Brown let me know about a singer from the late 60s and early 70s who went by the name Sally Mae（サリー・メイ）. I then found a video that has been labeled "Sally Mae" on YouTuber SUKEBAN刄ZVEKO's channel which had this blonde lady in what seems to be a yakuza movie executing justice on a doomed ruffian. I'm pretty sure that this is indeed the same Sally Mae whose picture I saw on the single cover of the song that Rocket had sent me since the lady was also mostly a movie actress.

Looking at the name, single cover and the movie clip, I had assumed that Sally Mae was an American or European who was a perfectly fluent Japanese speaker, but apparently according to one Japanese blogger, she was 100% Japanese and her J-Wiki file states that she was born in Kyoto as Sachiko or Yukiko Kako（加古幸子）in 1948 with no English name added. The blogger also mentions that her hair was something that had been bleached out.

Well, whatever the case may be, the music part of her career began in 1963 when she was a member of the Group Sounds band Sharp Hawks（シャープ・ホークス）although she had left before they made their major debut. Then in 1969, Sally Mae made her own solo debut with an enka tune (with some bluesy Mood Kayo elements) titled "Gincho Nagarebana" (Silver Butterfly [or Ginza Butterfly] Flowers). Written by Kohan Kawauchi（川内康範）and composed by Reiji Hana（花礼二）, Sally Mae channels her inner Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）in her delivery of the lyrics about living alone and lonely (possibly as a hostess) in the cruel world of Tokyo. 

Sally Mae released a total of five singles and a 1970 album. Along with her singing and acting roles, she was also a model and a television program assistant before retiring in 1975. She had been married to a pitcher for the Hiroshima Carp but subsequently divorced. Unfortunately, she would pass away sometime in the late 1980s although the year has yet to be specified.

The late husky-voiced Mina Aoe（青江三奈）recorded a cover version of "Gincho Nagarebana" for her 1970 album "Mugi to Heitai ~ Aoe Mina Otokogokoro wo Utau"（麦と兵隊　青江三奈 男ごころを唄う...Wheat and Soldiers: Mina Aoe Sings of a Man's Heart）. Many thanks to Rocket Brown.

Mina Aoe -- Osaka Blues（大阪ブルース）

 

From the latest that I've been hearing regarding Typhoon No. 7, it seems to have shifted a few hundred kilometres to the west so that instead of Tokyo, it's now possible that Osaka may end up getting pummeled in the next several hours. So, I'm hoping that folks there and in the surrounding prefectures take care of themselves.

The late Mina Aoe（青江三奈）was a singer who kept her feet in both the enka and Mood Kayo genres, and she had her own series of go-touchi（ご当地ソング）"Blues" songs including "Morioka Blues"（盛岡ブルース）and her signature "Isezakicho Blues"（伊勢崎町ブルース）. It was all about romance gone wrong in the big cities.

Looks like Osaka was also not exempt from the blues, thanks to her November 1983 single "Osaka Blues". Written by Kaoru Mizuki（水木かおる）, the lyrics do the usual tale of a broken heart and the longing for just one more encounter in the famous Kansai city, but what's interesting is the melody by Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）with arrangement by Jiro Takemura（竹村次郎）. It has that languid if still go-ahead pacing of a Mood Kayo but the instruments, aside from that bluesy guitar, all fit an enka song. It's like having a Jack Daniels on the rocks in the middle of a sakura orchard. For that matter, "Osaka Blues" feels like Aoe tackling The Cool Five's territory.

If I'm not mistaken, the video below shows Aoe performing "Osaka Blues" on the 1983 Kohaku Utagassen.

Dolores Claman -- The Hockey Theme

 

Yup, I realize that Toronto, Canada has the MLB Blue Jays, the NBA Raptors, the MLS Toronto FC and the CFL Argonauts. But I think that even at this point in the 21st century, there will always be a special spot here for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League. The above video shows the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup in early 1967, maybe around when I was 18 months old, so I don't remember anything of that championship. We've been waiting since then for another Cup win, and I'm less than a decade away from retirement age.

Of course, anyone who was born and raised in the Great White North has at least heard of the CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada" on wintry Saturday nights. First started on radio in 1929, the first televised broadcasts of this sports institution began in 1952, and one of my earliest memories as a toddler when my family was living in downtown Toronto's St. James Town was watching Ward Cornell doing one of his interviews during the game. Maybe the above video is that interview, I'm not sure. But I sure remember his talking partner, commentator Bob Goldham who used to be a defenceman for the Leafs, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings.

What's another legendary sports institution in this nation? The theme song for "Hockey Night in Canada" which I only found out recently was officially titled "The Hockey Theme". I had always just known it as the "Hockey Night in Canada" theme all these decades and the song has been treated like the unofficial Canadian national anthem since its first appearance in 1968, next to the official one of "O Canada".

Composed by Dolores Claman, who specialized in commercial jingles and television theme music, and performed by the Jerry Toth Orchestra, the original version was created by Claman as if ice hockey were all a spectacle with Roman gladiators on skates. Considering that back in those days, bench-clearing melees were fairly frequent, the analogy was apt. But what I also liked was the part of the theme that ended each broadcast of "Hockey Night in Canada" which was done as a cool Mancini-esque swing jazz march.

Of course, changes had come for "Hockey Night in Canada" even before my long stint in Japan. It was no longer just the one game that Saturday night for two to three hours beginning from 8pm. It's now wall-to-wall games starting from 6:30 pm to well past midnight with other channels chiming in. The other major thing was that during my time across the Pacific, "The Hockey Theme", through some failed negotiations on the CBC's part, ended up heading over to its rival network, CTV and its sports channels, in 2008, news which felt like a bittersweet conclusion to the "The Twilight Zone". The song is still being used there but I'm hoping that it will someday return to the program that begat it.

Anyways, another hockey season is about to begin next week. So, which folks were getting the Japan Record Awards in Japan in 1968?

Grand Prize: Jun Mayuzumi -- Tenshi no Yuwaku （天使の誘惑）

Best Performance: Mina Aoe -- Isezakicho Blues （伊勢崎町ブルース）

Best New Artist: Pinky and Killers -- Koi no Kisetsu (恋の季節）

Tony Bennett -- Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town

 

First off, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone down in the United States. Hope the turkey and stuffing taste good. Secondly, since it is November 25th, it is time for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" to hit Christmas mode, so for the next month before the Yuletide finally arrives, I will be putting up some J-Xmas tunes from time to time. Coincidentally enough, today falls on a Thursday which is usually time for the weekly Reminiscings of Youth article, so why not mix a ROY and a Christmas tune?

So, let us begin. According to Wikipedia, the old chestnut "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" created by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie may have been first recorded in October 1934 thanks to banjoist Harry Reser and his band, and it became a humongous hit so I gather that the money came to town, too. For little ol' J-Canuck, most likely my first listening to the song came about from watching the 1970 Rankin & Bass TV special of the same name starring Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney and Keenan Wynn. Oh, how I hated the Burgermeister Meisterburger and how I rooted for the young red-haired Kris Kringle!

Some years later, my parents bought me the vinyl of "A Christmas Gift" by Ronco with all sorts of songs of the season performed by some of the best singers including Bing Crosby, Barbra Streisand and Julie Andrews. Now that I've had a record player for the past several years, I have been listening to the old LP again every year around this time, and Track 2 for me serves as probably my favourite version of the oft-recorded "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town"...the one that had been on Tony Bennett's "Snowfall: The Tony Bennett Christmas Album" from October 1968.

I can say with some confidence that my interest in jazz in general and especially my love for Big Band Swing arose because of Bennett's smashing take on "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town". There is that mix of jazz swing and seasonal orchestral strings working hard behind the smooth dulcet tones of the one and only Tony, and that intro won me over immediately. Most likely, my ears exploded on hearing that brass section tear out of the stereo speakers for the first time. It just feels like the singer was on the Las Vegas stage on December 24th, and again going to that mix, fellow listeners and fans like myself must have enjoyed the classy horns blasting behind Tony while the strings sounded like a melodic version of a Hallmark card. 

There have been other jazz takes on "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" with folks like Diana Krall, The Manhattan Transfer and Michael Buble, but my sentimental favourite will always be the one by Bennett. It is for that reason that it feels particularly poignant this year since on reading that the singer has hung up his tuxedo or suit for the final time after one last concert and one last album at the age of 95. I'm not sure even at that age or with his battle against Alzheimer's Disease whether he wanted his retirement but he's certainly earned it and he's left us a legacy of great music.

For the kayo comparison this time, I've decided to bring in some of the award winners from the 10th Annual Japan Record Awards from 1968.

Grand Prize: Jun Mayuzumi -- Tenshi no Yuwaku （天使の誘惑）

Performance Prize: Mina Aoe -- Isezakicho Blues （伊勢崎町ブルース）

Best New Artist: Pinky and Killers -- Koi no Kisetsu (恋の季節）

Mina Aoe -- Ginza Blue Night（銀座ブルー・ナイト）

 

What were some of my go-to places in Ginza? Actually, there were quite a few of them despite the famous expense that the Tokyo neighbourhood has hinted at. One of my favourite music stores, Yamano Music, was situated a couple of doors down from the Wako Clock that you see in the thumbnail above, and there was also Ito-Ya, the stationery shop with the huge red paper clip as a big landmark, heading down the main strip toward Kyobashi on the south side. The very first branch of McDonalds in Tokyo at least was set up just south of the main intersection and I remember with great fondness The Farm Grill right by the border between Ginza and Shinbashi. The Farm Grill was this big buffet restaurant that my friend and I visited from time to time. It cost about 3000 yen per person for all-you-can-eat, and yep, we ate all we could.

Well, a couple of days ago, I wrote about Mood Kayo group Los Primos（ロス・プリモス）and one of their tributes to one of the world's most expensive neighbourhoods, and now I've got another Mood Kayo tune about Ginza. However, this time, it's by the late sultry singing seductress Mina Aoe（青江三奈） and the title is "Ginza Blue Night".

Released as her 36th single in September 1974, Aoe was one of the earlier kayo singers to musically hop from place to place around Japan whether it be a quarter in Yokohama or up a northern city among other regions. For her placement in Ginza, the singer trills about the ups and downs of love in the area, presumably through the various swanky nightclubs with a mix of that Mood Kayo and swing. Jun Hashimoto and Tadashi Yoshida（橋本淳・吉田正）were lyricist and composer respectively for "Ginza Blue Night" which earned her another invitation onto NHK's Kohaku Utagassen for that year, although I don't know how it did on the Oricon charts.

If anyone is interested in tackling the song at karaoke, get that smokiness in your voice. Perhaps knock back some libations beforehand.

P.S. on Tokyo House Party: Mood Kayo

 

A few days ago, I came up with some suggestions for those folks who were curious about what the traditional Japanese music genre of enka was all about with the male and female singers. Well, tonight, I offer the curious another genre in the Tokyo House Party series: Mood Kayo...the bar/nightclub genre as I identified it on the show back on February 27th.

According to J-Wiki, Mood Kayo supposedly originated from the late 1950s from musical interactions among native entertainers and members of the Occupation forces (mainly American forces), gradually moving to the nightclubs in the entertainment districts of the big cities such as Ginza and Akasaka in Tokyo. The dance music with its Latin, jazz and Hawaiian influences was observed to have generated a certain mood in those establishments thus the music gaining its genre name.

Mood Kayo was often but not always characterized by male groups with a lead vocalist and perhaps a backing chorus of three or four men. But there were also solo artists consisting of both men and women, notably with some pretty smoky voices. Moreover, another trait of the genre was that song titles frequently pinpointed a certain geographically famous area such as the aforementioned Ginza and Akasaka.

Of course, as I've said all along for this series, there are plenty of other examples from this genre that I couldn't get on here, and that includes a number of enka singers who have also dabbled into Mood Kayo from time to time.

from Amazon.jp

Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）-- Tokyo Blues （東京ブルース）and Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete （赤坂の夜は更けて）

from Amazon.jp

Los Indios（ロス・インディオス）-- Como Esta Akasaka ?（コモエスタ赤坂）and Wakarete mo Suki na Hito （別れても好きな人）

from YouTube

Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos  (黒沢明とロス・プリモス）-- Love You, Tokyo (ラブユー東京）and Tasogare no Ginza (たそがれの銀座)

from Rakuten.co.jp

Frank Nagai （フランク永井）-- Tokyo Nightclub （東京ナイトクラブ）and Tokyo Gozen San-ji （東京午前三時）

From Amazon.jp

Mina Aoe（青江三奈）-- Isezakicho Blues （伊勢崎町ブルース）and Koukotsu no Blues （恍惚のブルース）

From YouTube

Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five（内山田洋とクール・ファイブ）-- Nagasaki wa Kyou mo Ame Datta （長崎は今日も雨だった）and Soshite, Kobe （そして、神戸）

Mina Aoe -- Morioka Blues（盛岡ブルース）

Happy Saturday! Nice to see some sun out there although it's pretty cold, too. According to my student, it's snowing in Tokyo and it looks like they might get as much as 5 centimetres of the white stuff...which would probably be regarded as a Red Alert over there. Here...more like mid-February.

Anyways, I would like to start off the Saturday round of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with something shibui. Once again, going from the "Anata no Melody" work list, I found another song that originated and was showcased because of the program. This time, it's a Mood Kayo number called "Morioka Blues" performed by the vivacious Mina Aoe（青江三奈）. The song became her 49th single from September 1979.

Written and composed by Yoshikatsu Tsunokake（つのかけ芳克）, I think the amateur songwriter did a great job in creating this tune which fits hand-in-glove with the Aoe aesthetic. The trumpet, the strings and the languid guitar are perfect for this tribute to the city in Iwate Prefecture up in the northern part of the nation. Listening to her again, it's too bad that she left this world so prematurely almost 20 years ago. And looking at the video above, "Morioka Blues" was good enough to get her another appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen.

If you're in the mood and have a tumbler of the good stuff in your hand, why don't you try some karaoke of "Morioka Blues"?

Mina Aoe -- Nagasaki Blues（長崎ブルース）

I know that I have written about kayo based on Nagasaki in the past, including arguably the most famous one, "Nagasaki wa Kyou mo Ame Datta"（長崎は今日も雨だった）by Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five（内山田洋とクール・ファイブ）. I've visited Nagasaki once back in 1991 in the dead of summer, and man, was I dead in that heat and humidity. Certainly was a beautiful city with the steep slopes filled with houses and buildings that made Nagasaki really distinctive when compared to some of the other major cities in Japan. Chinatown was also a lovely area, and I now regret that I only had that one day there. Doing all those travel article translations up until earlier this year, I discovered that there are so many things to see in that city and many others.

Tonight's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was based on the old-fashioned Showa kayo, so a lot of singers and songs that I've covered on the blog and I got to see the late Mina Aoe（青江三奈）again on the screen. I thought it would be nice to write about her again, and so here is her "Nagasaki Blues", her 11th single from July 1968.

Aoe sang a lot of those Kayo Blues including her most famous example "Isezakicho Blues"（伊勢崎町ブルース）and those geographically-based enka; in fact, I think a lot of her songs covered both types including "Nagasaki Blues" which name-drops sites in the city such as the amusement area of Shianbashi（思案橋）and Maruyama（丸山）while singing of the fragility of love. The feeling is Mood Kayo but that gentle lilt in the melody also makes it feel like an enka tune as well.

Shizuo Yoshikawa and Masanobu Tokuchi（吉川静夫・渡久地政信）came up with the words and music respectively. "Nagasaki Blues" went all the way up to No. 2 on Oricon and only missed the top spot due to the popularity of Pinky and Killers' "Koi no Kisetsu"（恋の季節）. It still sold over 750,000 records and ended up becoming the 10th-ranked single of 1969 almost a year and a half after its release. And eventually, Aoe finally got to perform "Nagasaki Blues" on the 1973 Kohaku Utagassen.

Going back to the theme for tonight's "Uta Con", it was nice of the program to show the revived interest in the old Showa music, and I'm not just talking about 1980s City Pop. Young Japanese and foreigners inside and outside of the nation have shown an affinity for kayo of the 1960s and 1970s also. I already spoke about this place in a past article, but NHK even showed Shibuya's Rhythm Cafe which has its monthly Kayo Nights.

Hiroko Ohgi/Mina Aoe/Meiko Kaji -- Shinjuku Blues（新宿ブルース）

Yes, it's indeed a Saturday night. Perhaps it's time for something a bit more shibui. So, get those tumblers and ice buckets out. Old Parr coming up!

I found a song on that compilation of Mood Kayo tunes photographed at the top of the article titled "Shinjuku Blues". Seeing a title like that, I would have immediately thought of Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）, the Queen of Kayo Blues, but actually I couldn't find any video on YouTube with her. And that is also because the original version was sung by a singer-actress from Hiroshima Prefecture named Hiroko Ohgi（扇ひろこ）.

Debuting in 1965 with "Aishuu Kaikyo"（哀愁海峡...Sorrowful Strait）, she had a huge hit in 1967 with "Shinjuku Blues", the story of a disconsolate lady slowly pacing through the streets of the area after losing a love. Ironically, there had been naysayers, presumably before its release, crowing that the single wouldn't sell outside of Shinjuku itself and that the lyrics were too dark. Well, it looks like the Japanese version of the cry-in-your-beer ballads was becoming the big thing in kayo kyoku at that time, so "Shinjuku Blues" made its mark.

The remarkable thing about Ohgi while performing "Shinjuku Blues" is her delivery which is mostly in the lower registers but then suddenly soars up high above the izakaya and bars. That slow steady performance accompanied by the organ really gives this song a elegiac feeling. I could imagine Ohgi in her kimono sadly walking through streets like Golden Gai holding a framed picture of her lost love as if he left this mortal coil suddenly.

"Shinjuku Blues" was written by Akiko Takiguchi（滝口暉子...not sure if that is the correct reading of the first name）and composed by Kanae Wada（和田香苗）. On the strength of the ballad, Ohgi found herself appearing on the 1967 Kohaku Utagassen for the first time. She would appear one more time the following year. Oddly enough, although she is listed as an enka singer on J-Wiki, there is no listing of her discography aside from this song and a couple of others.

I think another sign of success for a song is the number of times it has been covered. I'm sure that Keiko Fuji has covered it sometime but not finding her version anywhere, I did find other covers although I don't know when they were recorded. The late Mina Aoe（青江三奈）gives a slightly more upscale version with the bluesy sax and horns, and to be frank, I think this is the one that I like the most out of the three featured here.

Then, there is "Shinjuku Blues" by actress-singer Meiko Kaji（梶芽衣子）. Strangely enough, although I've had this image of Kaji as being a tough suffer-no-fools-period kickass character in the wilds of Shinjuku, her take on "Shinjuku Blues" is probably the sweetest of the three, thanks to the light piano and flute. It kinda takes things into a more pop vein.

Enjoy your scotch-on-the-rocks while listening to this one!

Mina Aoe -- Shinjuku Saturday Night （新宿サタデー・ナイト）

Happy weekend! Well, I'm still a few hours shy of the actual evening but it's still Saturday, so I've decided to put in a bit of Mood Kayo via the smoky vocals of the late Mina Aoe（青江三奈）. Her 13th single "Shinjuku Saturday Night" from December 1968 is another one of her geographically-based songs topped off with a small bit of her scatting. Kaori Mizumori（水森かおり）may be the current Queen of Regional Songs but I think Aoe may have worn the tiara some decades ago.

(karaoke version)

Written by Takao Saeki（佐伯孝夫）and composed by Yoichi Suzuki（鈴木庸一）, "Shinjuku Saturday Night" is that bittersweet ballad of lovers meeting up in the titular happening place to be in Tokyo only for one of them having to inevitably head back up to his hometown in Nagano Prefecture after the tryst. But the way the song sounds, it seems as if the parting is just temporary. It might be too bad that the night is over but the fellow will probably be back next week or the week after. That trumpet and the rest of the orchestra are just having too cheerful a time.

I may have already told you once on the blog but Shinjuku is basically split up into three parts now: the new commercial area of South Shinjuku centered around that new JR station annex and the nearly 2-decade-old Takashimaya Times Square, the hotel district of West Shinjuku and the oldest area of bars, restaurants and red-light facilities in East Shinjuku. Back at the time when "Shinjuku Saturday Night" was released, perhaps East Shinjuku with Golden Gai and Kabukicho was indeed the place to be, but it's hard to imagine the time when the district was devoid of those skyscrapers and hotels in West Shinjuku. Incidentally, the funky song playing in the above video of Shinjuku of the 1970s is Junko Yagami's（八神純子）"Omoide no Screen"（思い出のスクリーン）.

Shinjuku was sometimes the place that my friends and I would head to for a movie and dinner. I could get pretty much anything I wanted for food there....from Kumamoto ramen to Italian fare, although the branches of McDonalds in the area were probably the establishments that got most of my yen. Well, hey, I was a jobbing English teacher...going to a ryotei was simply not within my budget.

Fumiko Yotsuya -- Ginza no Yanagi （銀座の柳）

It's a pity that I couldn't get any photos of Ginza in the daytime during my last visit to Tokyo a couple of years ago but it was only just that one Saturday night I went to that expensive neighbourhood. When I was living there, I often visited the area a couple of weekends per month and perhaps even fit in a visit sometime during the weekdays if I had a good amount of free time between classes.

Yeah, there are establishments there (dining, shopping, etc.) that will make your credit card roll up into a fetal position. However, like any other area in the Big Sushi, if you get to know Ginza well and long enough, you will find some pretty reasonable places. Heck, Ginza has a McDonalds! Visiting Ginza on the weekends was great when the weather was good since vehicular traffic would be stopped for a period of 5 hours starting from about noon so that folks can enjoy the hokoten  (pedestrian paradise) with tables and chairs set up all along the main drag of Chuo Dori.

I've already written about a couple of favourite places in Ginza such as Ginza Yamano Music and Genkatsu on Chuo Dori which serves some fine tonkatsu. However, there is also the stationery shop Ginza Ito-ya (Japanese site only) with the huge red paper clip as its landmark; I used to go there to pick up calendars and greeting cards. I wasn't much of a department store purchaser but right on one corner of the main intersection of 4-chome, there is the Mitsukoshi Department Store which added a few more floors in the last couple of years of my stint in Tokyo for some pretty nice restaurants. But before then, I often went there to make use of their spic n' span washrooms (Yamano Music only has one set of washrooms and the ones at Ito-ya are surprisingly primitive..at least back then). And of course, just a little out of the way there is the Sony Building closer to Yurakucho.

Back on Monday, I was watching one of those myriad NHK documentary half-hours on TV Japan, and the theme for that show was on Ginza with the focus on some of those venerable shops that have managed to survive and thrive into the 21st century. There was one song that was playing during those 30 minutes called "Ginza no Yanagi" (The Willows of Ginza). Originally released in 1932 as the theme song for a movie with the same title, it was sung by Tokyo-born singer Fumiko Yotsuya（四家文子）. The song became a huge breakthrough hit for Yotsuya and was created by lyricist Yaso Saijo（西條八十）and composer Shinpei Nakayama（中山晋平）. It was a song in dedication to the willow trees in Ginza which had burned down in the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. And if I got my translation correct, I think it was also a reboot of sorts of the song "Tokyo Koushin Kyoku"（東京行進曲...Tokyo March） from 1929 as sung by Chiyoko Sato（佐藤千夜子）.

Although I couldn't see the song listed on any of her singles, Mina Aoe（青江三奈）gave her own swingy version of "Ginza no Yanagi". Unfortunately, I couldn't track down exactly when she sang her cover although from listening to the arrangement, it was most likely sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

There are no huge clumps of trees in Ginza, at least, certainly not along Chuo Dori aside from some individual trees placed at periodic intervals. This is too bad since having a good amount of green could alleviate some of that horrifying heat and humidity of a Tokyo summer especially since most of it is reflected from the concrete. Still, if you can just avoid the summer (I'll leave it up to you whether you decide to go over for the 2020 Olympics), it's a nice entertaining walk through Ginza.

Mina Aoe -- Ikebukuro no Yoru （池袋の夜）

As many people who have lived in Tokyo will attest, the megalopolis has a number of city centres. Shibuya is the Mecca of Youth, Akihabara is the Electronics Haven and Shinjuku has got that split personality of tall skyscrapers and tightly packed bars and red-light establishments. Ikebukuro, though, is that amalgam of city centres that could just be an overall downtown, albeit a fairly dense one. It has the youth, it has the electronics stores and it has that one big tower in the form of Sunshine City 60 plus its fair share of seedy bars. I've visited the area as much as I have the other centres and I think I can say that Ikebukuro comes across the jack of all trades compared to the specialists of Shibuya and Akiba. It's got a bit of everything.

Therefore, I cannot be surprised that this hustling and bustling area also has a kayo in tribute to it, and it's done by the husky-voiced lady of class, Mina Aoe（青江三奈）. "Ikebukuro no Yoru" (A Night in Ikebukuro), Aoe's 16th single from July 1969, has lyrics by Shizuo Yoshikawa（吉川静夫）which go over the usual pining over a lost love affair in the particular area.  However the music by Masanobu Tokuchi（渡久地政信）has more of an enka feeling than a Mood Kayo one although I can still envisage Aoe crooning away in some smoke-filled bar somewhere between JR Ikebukuro Station and Sunshine City 60.

"Ikebukuro no Yoru" became Aoe's biggest hit, selling over a million records and spending 6 straight weeks at No. 1. It would later become the 7th-ranked song for 1969 and it had enough push to even become the 30th-ranked song for 1970. Not surprisingly, it earned a spot for the singer on the 1969 Kohaku Utagassen as the top batter and also a Japan Record Award.

Mina Aoe -- Koukotsu no Blues （恍惚のブルース）

It's Hump Day...otherwise known as Wednesday; a couple of days away from Blue Monday and a couple of days away from TGIF. Not quite as depressing but not quite as exciting as well. So, most likely if I were a salaryman in Japan, I'd probably hit the nearby izakaya with some buddies to drink some of those mid-week blues.

Speaking of which, I wanted to bring in some of those Mood Kayo Blues. So I went with Mina Aoe's（青江三奈）"Koukotsu no Blues" (Ecstasy Blues), the lyrically suggestive debut single for the late singer with the breathy voice. Unlike the sensual gasp-punctuated "Isezakicho Blues"（伊勢崎町ブルース）which was arguably Aoe's most famous hit, this June 1966 release was a bit more mild-mannered in melody with the de rigueur laidback sax, guitar and strings by Kuranosuke Hamaguchi（浜口庫之助）, the same man who also wrote and composed "Yuuhi ga Naiteiru"（夕陽が泣いている）, a hit for the Group Sounds band, The Spiders, in the same year. The lyrics were written by Kohan Kawauchi（川内康範）who also provided the words to the aforementioned "Isezakicho Blues" a couple of years later. Strangely enough, those lyrics struck me as surprisingly unsuggestive, but he had certainly given a lot more charge to the words for "Koukotsu no Blues", as the title would indicate. A few lines from one verse was an innuendo either intimating that the heroine's lover brought her out of her shell and showered her with tons of blue pearls, or that he made her a complete woman.

As for the title itself, it was inspired by a short story serial, "Koukotsu" that had been written by lyricist Kawauchi for the journal "Shuukan Shincho"（週刊新潮）. Aoe, who had been working as a singer in one of those Ginza nightclubs under her real name of Shizuko Ihara（井原静子）, adopted the name of the protagonist (who was also a singer) from the story, Mina Aoe....and the rest, they say, is history.

"Koukotsu no Blues" sold 800,000 records which would have been a sure Oricon No. 1 if that ranking system had already been in place. Aoe merely had to settle for an invitation to the 1966 Kohaku Utagassen.

Mina Aoe -- Isezakicho Blues （伊勢崎町ブルース）

"Ahh....ahh..."

For paella, it's saffron. For the "Iron Man" franchise, it's Robert Downey, Jr. For this song, it's the late Mina Aoe's（青江三奈） throaty moans that spike it. "Isezakicho Blues"is all about style over substance, but that's not a criticism...it's a compliment. The lyrics by Kohan Kawauchi （川内康範） aren't suggestive at all; the words only describe a night in the commercial district of Yokohama. But the music by Yoichi Suzuki（鈴木庸一） (who also composed Mari Watanabe's "Tokyo Dodonpa Musume") is sexy and flirtatious, and paired with Aoe's sultry vocals, the song is the kayo kyoku equivalent of a striptease that never goes all the way but still leaves the listener/customer happy.

When my brother and I were kids, and we just happened to hear this song, we started getting the case of the giggles (as was our immature right) which only earned a half-admonishment from Mom for developing dirty minds. Hey, she was the one singing it, not us!

When Aoe appeared on television to perform one of her biggest hits, I think her looks helped to sell the song as well. She had that face which suggested a knowing expression of what was what in the mizu shobai (水商売....the nightlife business)...friendly and enticing at the same time. I could've easily envisioned her working at some hostess club, tying some drunk salaryman into a knot around her finger...and yep, I'm sorry if that sounds somewhat insulting to her. But that face, that melody and that voice....

"Isezakicho Blues"was Aoe's 7th single released in January 1968. Born in Tokyo's Koto Ward in 1941 as Shizuko Ihara（井原静子）, the singer took on her stage name from a character in a short story. Following her graduation from high school, she worked for a short while in a Seibu Department Store before starting her music career performing in clubs. Once she started recording, her career went into overdrive with her debut single "Koukotsu Blues"（恍惚ブルース...Ecstasy Blues). Her songs often had the name "Blues"in them....for example, "Koukotsu Blues", "Isezakicho Blues", "Sapporo Blues" and "Nagasaki Blues"...even "Blue Blues". Also, another trait in her titles were that they often gave a shout out to Japanese geography, but then again, back in those days, the names of cities and neighbourhoods were a treasure trove for enka/Mood Kayo songwriters. Yokohama was one of the big names.

The moaning certainly worked. "Isezakicho Blues" won Aoe a Japan Record Award (among other awards) and was a million-seller. In fact, her 4 singles in 1968 alone sold a total of 3.2 million records. This single peaked at No. 5 and eventually became the 11th-ranked song of the year. Kohan Kawauchi and Yoichi Suzuki （川内康範・鈴木庸一）wrote and composed the song respectively.

Aoe did get an appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen of that year on top of all of the other accolades accorded her. However, those sexy moans (euphemistically referred to as "sighs") had to be cleaned up a little during the performance on the national network (the indication was that kids would definitely be watching the special), which meant using a kazoo (!) in place of her voice when those sighs were made. Not sure what Aoe thought of that, but apparently Kyu Sakamoto, who was the captain of the Men's White Team, remarked that the "revisions" sounded not unlike "an ostrich's sighs". Ouch! And strangely enough, even in the 1982 Kohaku when Aoe appeared to perform her trademark song, the moans were apparently cleaned up again! I gather that Aoe didn't mind things too much, though, since she ended up appearing a total of 18 times with her final appearance in 1990.

Regrettably, about a decade later, Aoe would pass away at the age of 59 in 2000 from pancreatic cancer.

Not Isezakicho, but a part of the old Tokyo setup
in the Ramen Museum in Yokohama. Still,
the sentiments are there!