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 haven't been to Osaka in many, many moons so my remembrance of the streets there is woefully lacking compared to my knowledge of some of the thoroughfares in Tokyo. However, Midosuji seems to pop up a fair bit especially when it comes to kayo kyoku. In fact, I'm wondering if I ought to provide an Author's Picks list of songs that pay tribute to what has been called Osaka's Champs-Elysees. But I'll leave that for further thought. Off the top of my head, though, there is Feifei Ouyang's（欧陽菲菲）"Ame no Midosuji"（雨の御堂筋）from the early 1970s. Anyways, the above video is provided by Japan Walking Tours on YouTube.
Well, yesterday, we were watching the weekend "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌...Songs of Japanese Spirit）as usual, and The Cool Five's Kiyoshi Maekawa（前川清）appeared to provide one of his old group's classics "Saikai Blues"（西海ブルース）from 1977. Since his Cool Five members have basically retired or passed away, some of the other male guest singers provided the backup chorus. I figured that I must have already written on "Saikai Blues", and sure enough, I had done so back in December 2023.
But I wasn't going to be deterred by that, and it didn't take me long to track down another Hiroshi Uchiyamada & Cool Five（内山田洋とクールファイブ）Mood Kayo song. That was their 26th single from December 1975, "Futari no Midosuji"(A Couple in Midosuji), and it fits the typical Cool Five Mood Kayo feeling of love gained and lost in a famous part of a Japanese city. Of course, there's plenty of rain and mournful chorus to emphasize the bittersweetness of romance. Written by Shinichi Ishihara（石原信一）and composed by Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）, it did OK by hitting No. 44 on Oricon.
Kasuga performing at the Kurashiki no Hito promotional recital. The band conductor (extreme right) is likely Hayashi. From Mikasa, 14 April 1968 Issue
It goes without saying that a singer's voice is their main attraction... Well, most of the time I would think it is. It certainly is one of them for me. I tend to favour the smoother, resonant vocals of singers from the 1930s and immediate postwar era, and value the singer's ability to convey emotion without having to go over the top - I'm looking at you, do-enka singers. I suppose it's no surprise by now that the one who is the perfect intersection of everything I like in a singer's voice is Hachiro Kasuga (春日八郎).
Hachi ordinarily delivered his songs according to the music sheets with little to no room for adlibbing, for this seemed to be a hardline expectation for artistes in the old kayo world (approx. late 1920s to early 1960s). Such an expectation began to fade by around the 60s or so as more and more amateur singers came on to the scene. By the time enka the genre sprouted (1964-65), conveying anguish/sadness/drama, as well as not sounding "perfect" nor singing according to the (music) books seemed to take priority - in enka, at least. Nevertheless, Hachi still mostly sang as he did when recording songs, though on the rare occasion he does surprise me. One of such times is in Kurashiki no Hito (Woman of Kurashiki).
Part of Kasuga's late-to-take-off "Onna Series"* (女シリーズ), Kurashiki no Hito hit the shelves in March 1968, was written by Takashi Tsukasa (司太可志), and composed by Isao Hayashi (林伊佐緒). I got to know this song several years ago when I was still testing the waters with Hachi. I was on board with it fairly quickly with it being a romantic blues Mood Kayo with the saxophone blaring away and all. Topic-wise, its your standard enka and Mood Kayo fare, i.e. our song protagonist is reminiscing and pining for the titular woman from Kurashiki - a love that wasn't meant to be. However, at the time the Hachiro Kasuga whom I knew as generally sounding measured if not somewhat gloomy seemed to let loose and essentially cried out in anguish at the song's crescendos. So emotional is this cry that his voice was on the cusp of breaking. I was floored. I don't know why, but it sent my heart racing. "Kasuga could sound like that??" I thought. Admittedly, I still feel the same way now, despite it being at least 6 years from that very moment. I suppose there's something attractive in him straying from his usual, rather placid demeanour and expressing more primal-sounding emotion.
I don't think Hachi ever reprised the same vocal style in recordings since then, and I did wonder why this sudden anomaly with Kurashiki no Hito. This is pure speculation on my part, but this song emerged around the time when blues Mood Kayo singers like Shinichi Mori (森進一) and Mina Aoe (青江三奈) made it big. Both were known not just for their unique, husky vocals, but also heavily emotive cries or sighs of anguish - particularly Mori. Considering Hayashi sensei's melody was made in a similar vein to the younger singers' hits, I wonder if Hachi decided - or was instructed - to take on a style not unlike them.
Moving on, Kurashiki no Hito is a go-tochi song that is set in Kurashiki, a quaint town in Okayama prefecture where the vestiges of the Edo era remain. It seemed like it was made with the Kurashiki town council's support with hopes that it'd boost tourism - one of the pluses that come with being featured in a go-tochi songs. To that end, the song was also quite heavily promoted in the town/the prefecture, enabling it to perform fairly okay in terms of sales. Unfortunately, it didn't really stand up to the test of time, and it wouldn't be wrong to say that it's mostly a deeply buried gem.
I got this at a a used book flea market in Shinbashi for 200 yen
I've not been to Kurashiki yet, but I have in my mind's eye only what photos, videos, TV shows, have shown me, and the romantic picture Tsukasa had so vividly depicted in Kurashiki no Hito: traditional houses with snow white walls and ash grey tiled roofs, waterways lined with willows hanging lazily over the water's surface, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was considered Japan's answer to Venice. I think it's high time I heed the call of this go-tochi song and head down there for one of my solo trips. I'm also a big fan of author Seishi Yokomizo's detective Kosuke Kindaichi series, where several instalments were set in Okayama. There's a little museum exhibition in a town around Kurashiki where Yokomizo had evacuated to during WWII and served as the setting to the series' first tale, so that'd definitely be on my must-visit list.
I would've loved to see Hachi singing Kurashiki no Hito live. From Mikasa, 14 April 1968 Issue
Anyway, let's circle back to Kurashiki no Hito to end things off. Despite it being a relatively unknown Kasuga Bushi, it's sung fairly regularly at the Kasuga Enka Denshokai. I decided to give it a go for myself during my first visit of the year. Ordinarily, I'd be shaking from the nerves, or being too self-conscious with singing the songs "right," but I thought that if Hachi could let loose and put his all into conveying Kurashiki..., so could I. I think it was the only song that I was able to sing with no inhibition. And by golly, that felt so good! And to sing it with/for people who enjoy Kasuga bushi as much or even more than I do felt so good.
*A series of songs with the word "onna"(女) but read as "hito"(ひと) in their titles. It was technically kickstarted by Kasuga with Nagasaki no Hito (長崎の女) in 1963. However, it became associated with Saburo Kitajima (北島三郎), who more consistently released songs of this theme since his Hakodate no Hito (函館の女). By the time Kasuga began to be more consistent with the "Onna series" in the late 1960s, the series' association with Kitajima essentially became almost set in stone.
First off, thanks go to The history man on YouTube for providing this video on the life and career of kayo kyoku songwriting legend Yu Aku (1937-2007) who apparently remains the 2nd-most prolific lyricist in Japan following Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）. Yesterday, the return of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）after the Olympic break was a big one for all of the kayo fans since a good chunk of the program was a tribute to the works of Aku who would have been 89 back on February 7th..
This isn't an Author's Picks because I wasn't the one who came up with these songs for performance on the show last night. Of course, it was the NHK producers who did that but I still wanted to acknowledge the Aku songs that had been sung on the Shibuya stage since they have remained part of the bread and butter that make up a lot of this blog. You can also take a look at a Creator article that I wrote up back in 2015 regarding Aku and his constitution on writing those lyrics.
One of the earliest Mood Kayo-based articles that I ever put up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" was Yujiro Ishihara's（石原裕次郎）1977"Brandy Glass"（ブランデーグラス）which was about as dramatic as one could get with that cigarette-and-whiskey-soaked voice along with the background chorus and trumpet. It didn't open the door wide for my jump into the bar-and-tryst-filled Japanese music genre at the time that I first heard it in the early 1980s, but it did stick to me for many years until I finally admitted my liking for Mood Kayo.
Of course, with "Brandy Glass" being the typical 45" single, there was a B-side to be heard as well. So, I finally listened to "Ashiato"(Footsteps) which was the flip side to the original single when it was released in April 1977. Somewhat more lighthearted than the A-side, it was also a different genre: more old-style club jazz standard that would attract someone like Nat King Cole to do an English version of it. It was the same songwriters behind "Brandy Glass" who tackled "Ashiato": lyricist Yoko Yamaguchi（山口洋子）and composer Mitsuru Kotani（小谷充）with the song being about Ishihara musing about a wistfully lost opportunity: seeing the lady she loved getting married to someone else without him being able to express his opinions to her. All he can do now is to wish her well. The song would be perfect for a 50s or 60s nightclub aside from a weirdly inserted twee synthesizer or something like that.
"Ashiato" was the original B-side to "Brandy Glass". However, in a later reissue of the single in 1979, the B-side ended up being "Koi no Machi Sapporo"（恋の街札幌）which was a 1972 single by the Tough Guy.
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.
I'd like to interrupt this broadcast of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for a weather announcement. Toronto is currently being pummeled with a foot of snow with the temperature at around -14 degrees Celsius with a wind chill factor of -25. Autos are skidding off the roads and a lot of institutions are closing due to the weather (including schools; yay, Snow Day!😊). It'll probably be one of the rare days that I don't step out of the house, period.
But hey, it's January in my hometown and this sort of stuff is expected. And I've decided to put up an emergency Author's Picks based on storms.
December 28th was the birthday of Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）, often known as the Tough Guy. If he had still been with us, he would have been 91 right now. The above photo, according to Wikimedia Commons, is in the public domain and it shows him back in 1957 as a man in his early twenties.
I was just looking through the Tough Guy's Top 20 singles in terms of sales via J-Wiki. Now, usually when I think of his top songs, my mind often goes to his 1977 "Brandy Glass"（ブランデーグラス）which actually came in at No. 10. But this one, the 1964"Ore wa Omae ni Yowainda"(I'm No Match For You), scored No. 8 with 1.75 million records sold. Never heard of this one before.
Well, listening to it a few times, it's evident that the title isn't referring to some sort of fist fight between Ishihara and a movie rival. It refers to him falling in love with a young woman but can't confess his feelings due to his troubled past and his great reluctance to end up pulling her into his sordid world. However, during the narrative parts of "Ore wa Omae ni Yowainda", it's obvious that he has been the perfect gentleman on what has been a regular series of dates with the lady.
The lyricist and composer for the song were Souichiro Ishimaki（石巻宗一郎）and Buckie Shirakata（バッキー白片）respectively. Whenever I tried to look up for one of them, I invariably saw the two together on other things so they've been a songwriting team evidently. Shirakata was actually a Nisei born in Hawaii who became a steel guitar musician and the leader of his own band, the Aloha Hawaiians, and one of the things about the genre of Mood Kayo in Japanese music is that Hawaiian influences were also notable. There is something very melancholy and poignant about Ishihara's narration along with the steel guitar and the haunting keyboard; the romance may not last too much longer.
Hiroshi Uchiyamada & The Cool Five（内山田洋とクール・ファイブ）with stoic main vocalist Kiyoshi Maekawa（前川清）were once Kohaku stalwarts, so it's quite nostalgic to remember a time when Mood Kayo was once a genre that was recognized on the NHK special (well, to be fair, Junretsu is there). However, I'd noticed that for the 32nd edition, The Cool Five sang a tune that I had never encountered before.
August 1981 saw The Cool Five release their 42nd single, "Onna - Konuka Ame" (A Light Rain to Make Her Cry) and it's right from their Mood Kayo playbook. I can see Mae-Kiyo standing ramrod straight as he exhorts Eiji Takino's（たきのえいじ）lyrics of a lady breaking down over a lost romance while the Five give a lighter touch to their backup vocals. Takino was also behind the music which, under Kei Wakakusa's（若草恵）arrangement, includes a bit of blues piano, a sharp horn and a wailing electric guitar.
Just to be sure, "Onna - Konuka Ame" isn't to be mistaken for Ginji Ito's（伊藤銀次）New Music"Konuka Ame". By the way, my translation of the title comes from what I could interpret from Takino's lyrics.
I was a little surprised on Sunday that there was an episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）on Jme since it's the Holidays. I'd assumed that the program was going on New Year's hiatus, but as it turned out, they had one more in them to get out before the New Year which is fine for my parents especially.
A Los Primos song was covered in that last episode which had me thinking. The Mood Kayo group really loved their go-touchi（ご当地）songs especially with the term "blues" in the title. There have been "Ginza Blues"（銀座ブルース）, "Niigata Blues"（新潟ブルース）and "Asahikawa Blues"（旭川ブルース）, and that's for starters. How many more do they have?
Well, as it turns out, Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos（黒沢明とロス・プリモス）did release their 17th single in February 1970 titled "Yoru no Blues"(Night Blues). Yes, no geographical reference point here...at least not in the title. But as it turns out, those Los Primos guys pulled off a three-in-one. That's right. The three verses in "Yoru no Blues" stake claims to Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki, all major port cities in Japan. And it looks like the guys in those verses just can't seem to make the best of their opportunities, but dang, isn't it all very atmospheric, just like any Mood Kayo song should be?
Written by Kyosuke Kuni（久仁京介）and composed by Masakazu Mizushima（水島正和）, it feels like a fairly lighthearted tune for a Mood Kayo although there is the classic posture of Shoji Mori（森聖二）as the main vocalist at the time while the others were on instruments and haunting chorus, even with some languid scatting. The only thing that struck me was hearing the mellow horns provide the final harmonized note instead of the voices of Los Primos themselves.
I figure that with the Holidays now in full swing in Japan, folks may be having their share of parties including those that occur at the karaoke boxes and bars of the nation. Maybe franchises such as Big Echo are doing volume business this week which may be quite long for people...perhaps as long as a week (yeah, I'm being a little sarcastic there). Of course, depending on the size and the average age of the group along with the type of songs that they tend to sing, there will be the duets to tackle.
Perhaps for the younger generation, that doesn't happen so often, since a lot of those duets occur in the enka and Mood Kayo genres. Plus, there is the matter of harmonizing which isn't all that easy. Not being a particularly great singer in my karaoke days in Japan, I don't think I ever dared ask any lady for a duet. However, listening to those duets on the stereo and now on YouTube is more my speed. Here are some of my favourites.
(1959) Frank Nagai and Kazuko Matsuo -- Tokyo Nightclub （東京ナイトクラブ）
(1982) Hiroshi Itsuki and Nana Kinomi -- Izakaya （居酒屋）
The final regular Reminiscings of Youth article lands on Christmas Day today and it will be on the theme song for "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" from December 1966. It's a special, just like "A Charlie Brown Christmas", that I used to see every year on CBS on the old tube telly. By this point, pretty much everyone in North America knows about the green Grinch with his heart being two sizes too small (initially at least) and his willingness to ruin everybody's Christmas.
As a little kid, I didn't know who the narrator was and wouldn't finally find out for quite a few years. At first thought, I'd assumed that it was Dr. Seuss behind the narration but then I discovered it was Boris Karloff, Frankenstein's Monster himself, behind the mike when I'd known about his time many decades earlier as a horror movie icon. And dang it! He had a great voice for the theme song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" which was given lyrics by Dr. Seuss and composed by Albert Hague as this classic comically villainous composition. Karloff chewed the heck out of this tune like a zombie on bone.
I never saw the Jim Carrey version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" from 2000, but he one-ups Karloff in his rendition of the song. Some fine Canadian ham there!
Anyways, we have a couple of singles in Japan that got released at around the same time as the original cartoon.
When it comes to Japan Railways, there has been one campaign of theirs that has stood out because of the glorious beauty of Kyoto and that one song which has accompanied the commercials for over thirty years. I'm hoping that whoever in the JR advertising department was behind the idea of using "My Favorite Things" got a major bonus for the idea. The cinematic version of "The Sound of Music" from where "My Favorite Things" originated is practically essential viewing in the junior high schools of Japan, so that particular song among the many others in there is well known to everyone. But now, the Japanese probably relate the song more to Kyoto than the original movie.
Of course, before Julie Andrews and the movie version became the huge hit, "The Sound of Music" originated as a stage musical in 1959 with Mary Martin in the starring role of Maria. I never knew all that much about Martin but I knew her son, Larry Hagman, as the infamous JR Ewing in the show "Dallas". And of course, there was his earlier role as the far nicer military man Tony in "I Dream of Jeannie".
For the record, I'll have you know that from the lyrics, my favourite things would be apple strudel and schnitzel with noodles. If these were available at a buffet, I would be a happy man. Now, the reason for me choosing this one is that although it wasn't specifically made for the Holidays, "My Favorite Things" has been a staple on the radio and mall speakers during the Xmas season. Personally, I used to remember my kindergarten teacher always playing this on the record player...most likely to sedate us.
I figure that if Rodgers and Hart have a ROY entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", then Rodgers and Hammerstein should get a shot as well. Anyways, what were the big hits in 1959 in Japan when "The Sound of Music" made its debut on Broadway?
Although I still hear new enka singers and new enka singers making their debut on shows such as NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, its city cousin Mood Kayo isn't something that I see and hear all that much unless the current crop of singers are covering the old classics from the 1960s. So it was with some surprise that I saw this fellow Hiroya Hama（浜博也）come on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta" the other day to do just that...sing a Mood Kayo. "Ichibangai Blues"(First Street Blues) is perhaps his latest single from August 2025.
Hama is singing solo but he's backed up by a female chorus and it's got that snazzy Latin swing in there so those old memories of Mood Kayo are coming back along with images of Akasaka and Ginza bars selling drinks by the thousands of yen. Nice to hear that someone is keeping the genre's torch burning. "Ichibangai Blues" was written by Ryusei Sameshima（鮫島琉星）and composed by Akihiro Ohtani（大谷明裕）.
The crazy thing is that I had never seen nor heard of Hama before. And yet, according to his J-Wiki profile, the man born as Hiroya Suzuki（鈴木浩也）has been singing since 1982. In fact, he was brought in that year to be the third vocalist for the veteran Mood Kayo group Masayoshi Tsuruoka and Tokyo Romantica（鶴岡雅義と東京ロマンチカ）. Leaving the group in 1994, he then began his own solo career.
Over the years, I've come to believe that there has been a long love affair between France and Japan, culturally and diplomatically speaking. The French seem to have enjoyed manga, anime and cosplay for decades; some of the first anime I saw back in Canada were in French thanks to CBLFT-25. Meanwhile, the Japanese have often gone ga-ga for all of that haute couture and cuisine. I think even the late French president Francois Mitterand once had a dog named Sumo.
Well, the idea was only percolating in my mind over the last several hours but I was thinking for my next Author's Picks, I would bring over some of that kayo kyoku with French titles. But these songs aren't covers of French originals...just tunes whose singers and songwriters thought that a title in French would be c'est si bon. And so, without further ado:
(1981) Circus -- Petit Dejeuner ~ Nichiyoubi no Choushoku（日曜日の朝食）
Being Friday, I would usually be putting up my spate of urban contemporary tunes onto the blog, but I hope you'll permit me one change here. Singer and actor Yukio Hashi passed away at the age of 82 yesterday on September 4th. My parents and I were watching an NHK news flash when the announcement came out which garnered a joint gasp from all of us. In the last couple of years, we had seen him announce his retirement from show business in 2023, even going to the extent of searching for a young singer to take on the name of Yukio Hashi and continue his music. But due to popular demand, the original Hashi rescinded that retirement exactly a year later. I don't know if many of us who've enjoyed enka and Mood Kayo knew that he was sick but he had been diagnosed with an Alzheimer's-type disease earlier this year and that may have been a factor in his passing along with pneumonia according to the latest report on J-Wiki.
Hashi's death is especially poignant as he not only was one of the three young Turks in Japanese pop culture's first Gosanke trio alongside Kazuo Funaki（舟木一夫）and Teruhiko Saigo（西郷輝彦）, but in our household, I came to realize that a number of his records were part of my father's collection. So, his voice was a familiar one on the stereo although I wouldn't know who he really was until many years later. The Tokyo-born singer was mostly known for his enka and Mood Kayo classics but he could also put out songs that were outside of those traditional genres...songs that would also become very popular over the decades.
I'm going to put up the songs that I knew as a kid at home. My condolences go to Hashi's family, friends, and many fans.
It's been several years since I put up the previous article regarding the late singer-actor Koji Tsuruta（鶴田浩二）. For me, the most recognizable song by him will be his most famous hit, the 1970 "Kizu Darake no Jinsei"（傷だらけの人生）.
Well, last night on NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, one of the guests sang a moody kayo titled "Aka to Kuro no Blues"(The Red and Black Blues). Not surprisingly, it has been categorized as a Mood Kayo, probably one of the first of the genre, and it was indeed recorded by Tsuruta as a single in 1955. Tsuruta had already been making waves as a primo movie star who could sing; "Aka to Kuro no Blues" cemented that reputation as another hit.
Written by Tetsuo Miyagawa（宮川哲夫）and composed by Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）, it's also another ballad of woe as the protagonist of the piece is probably schlumping in some alley watering hole while bemoaning his lot in life with the hint that a lady in a red and black dress whirled him into a sucker's deal of romance. The horns are there of course, but I also picked up on a bit more jazz than usual in this Mood Kayo.
With "Aka to Kuro no Blues" becoming one of the first big Mood Kayo hits, it was inevitable that some of the other big singing stars would take a swing at the song. Frank Nagai（フランク永井）was one such person with another being the Tough Guy himself, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）.
Welcome to the weekly Reminiscings of Youth (or toddlerhood as it is here) where I will once again dive deeply into the vaults of TV theme songs this time. This week is the 1965 "Green Acres" which had premiered about a month before I arrived on Earth. I wasn't a precocious kid at all (more undercooked, actually) but my impression of the show when I was a baby was that it was about an odd old couple who bought a terrible farm and the husband was pretty much angry all the time at the locals. In the years since, I have been surprised lawyer-turned-farmer Oliver Douglas didn't end up needing his own lawyer because he could have easily murdered the entire populace of Hooterville from frustration.
In my early years of TV viewing from the late 1960s, America's CBS was famous for having a lot of rural-based sitcoms such as "Green Acres", "Petticoat Junction", "The Andy Griffith Show" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" (yes, I know that for that last one, the setting was the titular Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, but the main characters were still down-home folks). Viewers must have wondered whether CBS stood for Cornpone Broadcasting System instead of Columbia Broadcasting System. However, when the 1970s arrived, the powers-that-be decided to go on a rural purge and all of the above sitcoms were cancelled with the focus being on more city-based and socially aware fare such as "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show".
But getting back to "Green Acres", I still remember the opening credits and the theme song by Vic Mizzy. My mother used to tell me (and perhaps everyone within earshot) that I used to bounce on my diapers whenever "Mission: Impossible" came on (that was actually a CBS action drama...nothing countrified there) with its legendary theme song, so there was no way that I wasn't going to do the same with the theme from "Green Acres". At the time, I couldn't quite get the lyrics that main actors Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor sang, but I did get a kick out of the catchy arrangement and got a laugh out of Eddie tossing the pitchfork and then clapping his chest with a straight face. It would also be a while before I realized the irony of Eddie's Oliver driving a dirty tractor while wearing a full business suit.
So, in comparison, let's see what songs were winning the Japan Record Awards back in 1965.
It's Monday once more on KKP and therefore I'd like to get some weird stuff off my chest. When I remember a very young Shinichi Mori（森進一）decades ago, I internally remarked that this enka singer basically looked like a Japanese Pavel Chekov from "Star Trek"; as if the USS Enterprise's beloved Russian had been merged in a transporter accident with his fellow bridge officer, Hikaru Sulu. Mori had that short stature, the pinchable cheeks and those adorable brown eyes. Not sure if he was quite as voluble as young Pavel, though.
Anyways, I found this No. 1 hit by Mori from Christmas Day 1970 titled "Bokyo" (Homesickness). It's one of the first enka songs to reach the top spot in the Oricon era (started in 1967 or 1968) although the melody and arrangement by Kosho Inomata（猪俣公章）has me also thinking of drowning one's tears in drink in a watering hole just like in any Mood Kayo tune (the sax helps). Jun Hashimoto's（橋本淳）lyrics talk of someone dearly missing the hometown and also that significant other left behind there. His gravelly voice sounds almost on the verge of tears. And if we're talking about sound effects, the sound of a train and the mournful woman's chorus really help with the homesick punch.
Most likely, there were a lot of people in the big cities of Japan who could relate which would explain its popularity. Over a year later, Mori's 18th single actually became the 9th-ranked single for 1971. Interestingly enough, a movie based on "Bokyo" would be produced in 1971 starring the singer himself as Shinichiro Morikawa（森川信一郎）. Not exactly the biggest leap in imagination when it comes to naming characters, but I hope it did well.
I haven't covered a Mood Kayo in many weeks on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", so I decided to pluck one out. Usually when I think of an old kayo kyoku covering the drinking beat, my mind unearths Tokyo neighbourhoods such as Akasaka and Ginza, the areas filled with expensive bars and nightclubs.
Harajuku? Not so much. For one thing, this particular area of Tokyo is known for its cutting-edge fashion and fashionistas tending toward the younger Tokyoites...not salaried types in sober suits and dresses looking to wet their whistles with whiskey and gin. And when it comes to Harajuku, the only food I think about is crepes.
That's why I had a few question marks revolving around my head when I saw that famed Mood Kayo group Los Indios & Silvia（ロス･インディオス&シルヴィア）recorded a 1980 song titled "Sorezore no Harajuku"(To Each Their Own Harajuku) as one of their trademark tunes. I certainly couldn't see these guys buying strawberry-and-cream filled crepes and hitting the nearest McDonalds.
However, as written by Yoko Nakahara（中原葉子）and composed by the late Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）, "Sorezore no Harajuku" is indeed a Mood Kayo fortified with even more upscale refinement. It did get me to thinking that Harajuku, especially Takeshita Street, may have begun catering to the teens from the 1980s but there probably were lots of expensive bars in that area, too. Plus Los Indios & Silvia take it even further out from Harajuku, extending through the tony street of Omotesando to the truly ritzy neighbourhood of Aoyama with Aoyama Avenue being the border. The whole area is milling with past and present and future lovers and just like a soup of chemicals, it's interesting to see what catalyzes, socially speaking.
Of course, Los Indios & Silvia would have an even bigger hit the following year with "Uso yo Konya mo"（うそよ今夜も）.
Well, it's a hot and steamy Monday out there and Toronto will be facing at least one more 3H day before things finally start cooling down on Hump Day. But I've got a feeling that this summer will be made up of a series of alternating heat waves and cool downs going well into September.
Working folks downtown will most likely want to grab a nice cold drink or two once work is done for the day, so I figure that it's good to have a Mood Kayo to break the ice. So, why not have the premium band Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos（黒澤明とロスプリモス）provide some old-fashioned kayo classiness to the proceedings? Their 1966 debut single, "Love You, Tokyo"(ラブユー東京）, probably remains as their most recognized hit.
However, when they first premiered, that debut single had as its A-side"Namida no Tomo ni"（Together with the Tears) with "Love You, Tokyo" as the B-side. But as I mentioned in the article for the latter over a decade ago, "Love You, Tokyo" got the bigger accolades so some time down the line, record company Crown Records flipped the sides and the rest is history as the new release sold around 2.5 million records.
As it is though, "Namida no Tomo ni", which follows the Mood Kayo trope of having that final dance before breaking up for good (supposedly having that affair isn't particularly good for a marriage), is a perfectly fine example of the genre with the soft Latin rhythm, the tender vocals and the mournful backup chorus. Hiroyuki Nakagawa（中川博之）, as he did for "Love You, Tokyo" provided the melody and arrangement but this time, Shin Kimura（木村伸）was the lyricist.
