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.
A little over a month ago, I noted that enka veteran Sachiko Kobayashi（小林幸子）is celebrating her 60th anniversary in show business, which is why I posted an Author's Pick regarding her discography. I then discovered that another singer of the genre, Miyako Otsuki（大月みやこ）, is also celebrating the big Six-Oh this year after beginning her career with "Haha Koi Shamisen"（母恋三味線）in 1964.
As such, earlier in March, Otsuki released her 129th and most recent single in the form of "Koibito no You ni..."(Just Like Lovers...) which describes a story of two former flames encountering each other again after a span of many decades and perhaps re-igniting something (hope it isn't the Voltaren). Written by Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）and composed by Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）, it's quite the boisterous enka tune with even a bit of soul worked into the arrangement as if to reflect the revived energies in this couple.
Good ol' Kuga's Travel. Taking those rail and ferry trips when we can't easily do so. About a year ago, he took the five-hour Soya Express from Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido, all the way up to Wakkanai, a city which is at the northernmost tip of the prefecture and therefore the northernmost tip of Japan itself.
Looks like it wasn't just Kuga who wanted to pay tribute to Wakkanai last year. Enka veteran Miyako Otsuki（大月みやこ）made use of her opportunity to sing of the area though her own go-touchi song, "Kita no Hate..."(The North End). Released in March 2022 as her 135th single, it's an enka with a pretty illustrative arrangement thanks to composer Chiaki Oka（岡千秋）and arranger Norio Ido（伊戸のりお）, reflecting the harsh winter climate while Otsuki, through Suzuko Sawada's（さわだすずこ）lyrics, in alternating soft and then emotional tones, sings of her pursuit of a loved one all the way north. It makes for an interesting lyrical switch since whenever I hear enka, it's usually been the impression that the woman heads somewhere to get away from a broken romance. In a way though, it's quite similar to Saburo Kitajima's（北島三郎）famous "Hakodate no Hito"（函館の女）where a guy is tracking down his lady love in a Hokkaido city.
I've also noticed that Otsuki will soon be celebrating her 60th anniversary in the singing business, so allow me to send some advanced congratulations to her.
2/22/22 at 22:22. Just about perfect for the phenomenon known as Twos Day today. Yep, within some minutes, we'll be reaching that exact time so I'm hoping that I'll be able to finish this article by 10:22 pm. It would have been even more perfect if today was actually February 22, 2222 at 22:22 but I'm not quite willing to wait another couple of centuries. And incidentally, I brought the above image in but I forgot the source so I do apologize if the owner does see it. Let me know if you'd like me to take it down or at least have me acknowledge the originating website.
Well, I was thinking about how I would commemorate Twos Day tonight and so I thought about kayo involving the word two in the title. I quickly figured that a lot of such kayo would involved romance with the protagonists being a couple, and sure enough, I did find one via Miyako Otsuki's（大月みやこ）"Osaka Futarizure" (Osaka Party of Two) which was released as the enka veteran's 60th single in December 1982.
"Osaka Futarizure" is quite the gallant and peaceful enka as the titular couple in love stroll somewhere in downtown Osaka under an umbrella. Of course, sharing an umbrella in Japan has that huge connotation of romance blossoming. With Mizuho Ashihara（芦原みづほ）providing lyrics and Yukihiko Ito（伊藤雪彦）as the composer, it's buoyed by Otsuki's strong yet silky vocals and that Latin guitar.
A few weeks ago on "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, I saw veteran enka singer Miyako Otsuki（大月みやこ）make another appearance on the show where the hosts mentioned that she was now in her 55th year in show business. In fact, I discovered in her J-Wiki bio that the official 55th anniversary will be achieved in about a month.
Otsuki sang her most recent single which may be the 128th in her career but in a display of Mother's Day-like charm, bidanshi singer Keisuke Yamauchi（山内惠介）gave tribute to her by performing one of her older classics, "Onna no Minato" (A Woman's Harbour).
Charmed by the song itself, I decided to look for any videos of Otsuki herself actually performing this ballad which was her 57th single released in August 1983. I found the above video and I wasn't disappointed. Plus, the enjoyment was further enhanced since I knew from the narration and the set that the clip originated from the famed TV Tokyo series "Enka no Hanamichi"（演歌の花道）.
"Onna no Minato", the wistful ballad of a woman pining for the love of her life separated from her probably due to work is once again one of those entries that's hard for me to distinguish in terms of whether it is an enka tune or a Mood Kayo song. The lyrics by Tetsuro Hoshino（星野哲郎）and the slower tempo make it feel like the former but I couldn't help but feel that the melody from Toru Funamura（船村徹）as arranged by Masahito Maruyama（丸山雅仁）is fairly similar to songs by The Tough Guy, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）in the 70s and 80s. Perhaps "Onna no Minato" is as much of a song to raise an ochoko of sake to as it is one to lift a tumbler of whiskey to.
I couldn't find out how well it did on Oricon but considering that it sold 300,000 records, it did well enough indeed. Anyways, many congratulations to Ms. Otsuki!
Enka singer Miyako Otsuki（大月みやこ）is most likely recognized as one of the grande dames of the genre but there is surprisingly not a whole lot of information about her on J-Wiki outside of her discography. There is a nice website devoted to her, though.
From what I've read is that she was born Setsuko Wakita（脇田節子）(although that first name has a number of different readings) in 1946 in Osaka. Her stage name originated from a famous record shop in that city called Otsuki Gakkiten（大月楽器店...Otsuki Music Shop）with someone throwing in the first name of Miyako. She's been releasing records since 1964 up to the present day but it wasn't until 1986 that she finally got her chance to get onto the Kohaku Utagassen, and this was for a single that had become a hit for her three years earlier, "Onna no Minato"（女の港...The Harbour of a Woman）.
However, let's go back to the beginning here. I was going through my Doraemon's Pocket that is the Canada Dry bag of enka 45s when I came across the original record of Otsuki's debut from June 1964, "Haha Koi Shamisen" (Shamisen of a Mother's Love). She had just turned 18 when she sang this very sad song about a young woman, perhaps not that much older than Otsuki herself, working somewhere on the back streets of Tokyo, while her mother is pining for her back in the ol' hometown.
Written by Yukio Tanaka（たなかゆきを）and composed by Eiichi Kawakami（川上英一）, perhaps the song could be relatable to anyone who had left their homes in the countryside to work in the big city in the 1950s and 1960s. And maybe looking at the karaoke video below, the woman of note in the lyrics didn't necessarily have to be a shamisen performer but someone working in any of the establishments within those back streets. The feelings of loneliness and pangs for family and home are pretty strong. Incidentally, in the video above, it is Otsuki and Ichiro Toba（鳥羽一郎）doing the duet of the song.
Dug up this old 45" from the kayo vaults this past week and tried it on the stereo. On first listen, the music is proud and festive and represents what I used to hear all those years ago.
(karaoke version)
This is "Meoto Zenzai" which gave me a fair chase through the Internet as to how it would be translated. However, I tracked it down to Wikipedia's entry on a 1955 movie with the same title about "...a couple, a spoiled son and a down-to-earth girl, in Osaka in the early Showa era". The entry translates the title as Hooray for Marriage or Sweet Beans For Two. I'm not sure what the connection is between the bowl of sweet bean soup that I often have for New Year's breakfast and marriage, so I will go with the former translation. I've never seen the movie but I'm fairly certain that this initial mismatch in matrimony gets molded down into marital bliss by the end.
"Meoto Zenzai" the song, however, was recorded and released in 1965 by Hachiro Kasuga（春日八郎）with spoken vocal by Miyako Otsuki（大月みやこ）, who was still a teenager at the time although she had already released four or five singles as a singer. While native Osakan Otsuki speaks her lines in her Kansai dialect about having to go through the trials and tribulations with her husband, it seems as if Kasuga as the feckless fellow is probably more attracted to the drinking establishments of Osaka, although by the end, it's possible that he is devoted to his wife. I'm hoping that the festiveness of the melody is hinting that all of what was recorded by Kasuga and Otsuki is more tongue-in-cheek than real.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not 100% on those lyrics so perhaps one of you readers with a better grasp on Japanese may be able to prove or disprove my interpretation. Those words, by the way, were written by Yasuji/Yasuharu/Yasuo Akita（秋田泰治...a number of readings for that first name and he has no J-Wiki entry）while the music was composed by Toshikazu Nishiwaki（西脇稔和）.
