Mineko Nishikawa -- Guitar Nagashite Konbanwa（ギター流して今晩わ）

 

Well, how about that? Kayo Grace Kyoku has decided to be a nagashi（流し）and stroll through the bar-filled streets to play old-style ballads on her guitar (might be more profitable than manning the cash register at a konbini). I just hope that she's legally of age to do that although frankly her age can vary from her late teens to her early twenties on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". 

Anyways, allow me to introduce "Guitar Nagashite Konbanwa" (A Good Evening To You As I Stroll With My Guitar), enka singer Mineko Nishikawa's（西川峰子）February 1977 11th single. It would seem as if I always hear of a new song from the Fukuoka Prefecture native via old copies of the Fuji-TV music program "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）, and this isn't any different. I was watching a March 1977 episode last night and sure enough, Nishikawa appeared to sing her latest at that time.

"Guitar Nagashite Konbanwa" is some bouncy enka; it's bouncy enough that I had first assumed that it was one of the singer's examples of madros kayo（マドロス歌謡）, one of the small kayo genres that I had described in my last article on Nishikawa, "Mineko no Madros-san"（峰子のマドロスさん）, her 9th single, before all of those little genres finally got merged into the big traditional one known as enka in the 1970s. But actually, Hiroshi Yamada's（山田宏）lyrics merely describe that aforementioned nagashi balladeer doing his job visiting various bars to see if any customer would like to hear a tune. My usual impression of a kayo kyoku regarding a nagashi is of a sad Latin-tinged ballad in the style of songwriter Masao Koga（古賀政男）. "Guitar Nagashite Konbanwa" is absolutely brimming with perky cheer thanks to Kosho Inomata's（猪俣公章）melody.

I actually saw a clip of that "Yoru no Hit Studio" episode with Nishikawa singing "Guitar Nagashite Konbanwa" on YouTube last night, but it appears that it has gotten that strike by the powers-that-be.

Mineko Nishikawa -- Mineko no Madros-san（峰子のマドロスさん）

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Noelle Tham has been our resident expert on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" on the older Showa era music for close to a decade now, so it was quite revelatory when I found out from her that the genre of enka only became known officially as enka in the early 1970s. The songs that I had known as enka from before that time had once been scattered among different genres before the great amalgamation took place, and then when everything was put under the enka umbrella, all those tunes were retrofitted as enka songs.

One such genre in kayo kyoku was madros kayo（マドロス歌謡）or "sailor pop" and sure enough, such songs were often about seamen shoving off to the great blue, leaving their loves behind. The Japanese predilection for gairaigo（外来語...foreign loan words） continued here as "madros" came from the Dutch or Flemish word for "sailor", "matroos". Some of the more famous singers sang madros kayo such as Takeo Fujishima（藤島桓夫）and his "Kaeri no Minato" (かえりの港) with the singer often putting on that old-fashioned sailor uniform.

I was watching another grand old episode of "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）the other night when I came across enka singer Mineko Nishikawa（西川峰子）who I first wrote about back in 2016 with her 1974 hit "Anata ni Ageru" (あなたにあげる). She performed her own tribute to the sailors with "Mineko no Madros-san" (Mineko's Sailor) which was her 9th single from July 1976. A very happy-go-lucky enka song that fulfills the requisite of what an old madros kayo was, it's all about a sailor blowing a kiss to his girlfriend before heading out to sea. It was written by Yoko Yamaguchi（山口洋子）and composed by Kosho Inomata（猪俣公章）; there's nothing melancholy about this at all, and it seems as if the young lady is good with her boyfriend enjoying the marine life.

I'm not sure how well "Mineko no Madros-san" did on the charts but she did get her second invitation to NHK's Kohaku Utagassen to sing the song at the end of 1976.

Mineko Nishikawa -- Anata ni Ageru (あなたにあげる)

Noelle and I were talking about how much we enjoyed last week's "Uta Kon" (うたコン). And for me personally, I can listen to Ayaka Hirahara's（平原綾香）rendition of "Moon River" over and over again. There was also the musical digest of "Miss Saigon" near the end of the show; not quite sure whether it made for a perfect fit for the audience but, dang, was it spectacular!

Earlier on, enka singer Konomi Mori（杜このみ）performed an old kayo chestnut that pricked my ears. She was doing a cover of an enka tune which was released back in July 1974 titled "Anata ni Ageru" (Giving Myself to You) originally performed by Mineko Nishikawa（西川峰子）.

Nishikawa was in her mid-teens when she entered the 3rd Annual All-Japan Kayo Contest in 1973 with "Anata ni Ageru" and won the championship. Several months later, this would be her debut single after she had just turned 16.

Listening and reading the lyrics, I realized that it was all about a girl or a woman who was declaring her love for someone who I suspect was quite older, and considering Nishikawa's age at the time of its release, I figured it was an ode to a teacher. The words seemed to read like the perhaps petulant protestations of a high school kid who insisted that she was the right woman for the fellow instead of that older woman he was dating. But there was indeed a lot of brio in her feelings with her stating in full voice that her love would not be of the demure or innocent variety. She wanted lust, baby! Haha, kids...yeah, this was definitely not something like "Sensei"（センセイ）by Masako Mori（森昌子）which had come out a couple of years before.

In fact, I would say that it was more akin to Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）"Hito Natsu no Keiken"（ひと夏経験）whose release was just a month before "Anata ni Ageru", and not surprisingly so. It happens that both songs were written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也）, and Yamaguchi's hit caused a fair amount of stir due to its racy lyrics from a teenage girl who was about the same age as Nishikawa. However I didn't read of anything which caused the same sort of controversy on J-Wiki's article for "Anata ni Ageru". Perhaps there was a double standard when it came to writing racy songs depending on the genre; it was OK for the enka genre but maybe slightly too much in the aidoru realm of things. In any case, Takashi Miki ( 三木たかし) took care of the music.

"Anata ni Ageru" took its sweet time but it finally broke into the Top 10 at No. 8, exactly four months after release and then a few weeks after that, it hit No. 1. Selling over 500,000 records in total, it ended 1974 as the 95th-ranked single of the year but then kept on hanging about in the Top 100 for many more months until it flew up to No. 17 at the end of 1975. It won Nishikawa Best Newcomer honours in both the Japan Record Awards and the Japan Kayo Awards with the cherry on the top being her invitation to the 1975 Kohaku Utagassen. It would become her biggest hit.

Nishikawa would come on the Kohaku three consecutive times immediately following her inaugural appearance. Along with her long list of singles, she also became an actress mostly on TV with roles up to the late 2000s. Although her name would still be pronounced in the same fashion, sometime ago, her kanji changed to 仁支川峰子.