John Williams -- Superman

 

I figure that with me seeing the new "Superman" last week and then "Fantastic Four" coming out in the next several hours, I should bring this particular work onto KKP as a ROY entry. 

As I have probably mentioned in the past, "Superman II" was the first in the franchise that I caught in 1981. It certainly started with a bang with the most epic Reader's Digest version of an opening credits montage sequence reviewing the first movie that I had ever seen. I never caught the first "Superman" in 1978 on the big screen due to various reasons including the fact that my family was never all that much of a moviegoing family. 

Along with the first "Back to the Future", that was one of my big regrets: not catching "Superman" at the theatre. The Christopher Reeve part of the franchise may have gradually ended up going over a cliff but that first movie for the most part was a magical experience. After having seen "Superman II" five times at the theatre (I really did love those credits and the final battle between Supes and General Zod), I finally got to see the original "Superman" on CTV separated into two parts over one weekend, and when I saw those soaring jaw-dropping opening credits (including the Superman logo) with John Williams handling the iconic theme, I realized I missed out on something special, especially with the intro by that kid at the beginning.

The weird thing is that the first time I had ever heard of Williams' "Superman" theme in its entirety, it wasn't on anything connected with the movie but on an episode of "Battle of the Network Stars" which involved television celebrities from various shows competing with each other through events including obstacle courses. The director apparently decided to bring in the theme, and at first, I wasn't all that impressed because I thought it just sounded as if Williams had opted to copy "Star Wars" and its amazing overture.

But of course, the pure epicness of "Superman" with its mashing of the fanfare (that rises to Sousa levels by the end), the march and the love theme into one big overture finally won me over and it got me to buy the original soundtrack whose cover you see at the top. And at this point, among all of those amazing Williams soundtrack themes including those for "Star Wars" and "Jaws", I have to say that the "Superman" theme is my favourite, and I had expressed a bit of disappointment even when the composers for the new "Superman" score brought in just that tiny smidgen of Williams' work although I realize that the original theme was for Reeves and that John Murphy and David Fleming had the prerogative to bring in something new to musically reflect the new Man of Steel.

But with John Williams' "Superman", I could believe that a superhero theme could truly fly!

As crazy as this may sound, "Superman" in 1978 wasn't a summer blockbuster, it was a Christmas one. Released on December 15th in the United States, that must have been some present for superhero fans, and it could explain why the version of the love theme used during the Kal-El-and-Lois flying sequence sounded so Yuletide. In any case, what was up at the top of the charts in Japan a few days later on the 18th?

1. Pink Lady -- Chameleon Army (カメレオン・アーミー）

2. Chiharu Matsuyama -- Kisetsu no Naka de （季節の中で）

3. Muneyuki Sato -- Aoba-jo Koi Uta （青葉城恋唄）

Muneyuki Sato -- Ai no Melody（愛のメロディー） ~ Once More Smile

 

Up to this point on the blog, singer and actor Muneyuki Sato（さとう宗幸）has been known for basically one song to the general listening audience and that is his 1978 debut single "Aoba-jo Koi Uta"（青葉城恋唄）. It is a wonderful folksy tune to be sure, but the man has had many other singles and albums released over the decades, so perhaps we can look at another song of his.

For example, there is also his 1983 single "Ai no Melody ~ Once More Smile" (Melody of Love). I'm not sure whether it was used in any promotion or commercial but I think it would have made for a nice campaign for slowing down from the rat race and smelling the flowers once in a while. It's got a pleasantly jaunty pop beat and of course, there are those splendid Sato vocals which can warmly melt butter. I also have to give props to the chorus backing him up. Sonomi Ari and Yutaka Tanaka（ありそのみ・田中裕）took care of the lyrics while the composer was Masayuki Chiyo（千代正行）.

Go-Touchi Songs（ご当地ソング）: Hokkaido and the Tohoku region

 

When we were watching the venerable historical TV drama "Mito Komon"（水戸黄門）as kids, I noticed that each episode followed a set pattern. It would start out with the disguised former vice-shogun Tokugawa and his heroic party entering a certain area in which by coincidence, someone was being victimized by evil officials. Then, there would be the gradual infiltration and investigation of the crimes being committed before the final sword-flashing mayhem takes place. Then, Tokugawa's samurai retainer would whip out the inro case near the end showing the villains and victims alike that justice has arrived and will be served.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find that particular scene on YouTube, but I'd like to go back to one of those tropes of "Mito Komon". I'm not sure if this had been the case with every episode, but whenever Tokugawa and his band entered a region, one of them, the ever-famished Hachibei, would always remark (or swoon) that the area was famous for some sort of food. And this was where I got my first hint that the prefectures and territories of Japan prided themselves on some aspect that set themselves apart. Yup, food was and is one example.

But of course, this is a music blog and not a foodie-based one. Watching the most recent episode of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, the theme was go-touchi kayo or songs that made the case for a certain city, region or prefecture, often with the name of such place as part of the song's title. I've been hearing the term for years now, but last week's episode finally sparked within me the idea of putting up some of those geographically based tunes up here. By the way, the above video by YouTuber Roman Hiko gives a full rundown on the go-touchi songs for the entire country so that ought to give you folks a good grounding of what we're talking about here.

Let's consider this particular article the first of a short weekly series of go-touchi songs representing areas of Japan, and for this week, I'm going to cover the northern area including Hokkaido（北海道）and the Tohoku（東北）region (Aomori, Akita, Miyagi, Iwate, Yamagata and Fukushima Prefectures). Obviously, my humble list is way too small, but I just wanted to display some of the songs. As well, you can check out the J-Wiki link to see the whole kit and kaboodle of go-touchi tunes.

1. Hibari Misora -- Ringo Oiwake （リンゴ追分）for Aomori (1952)

2. Saburo Kitajima -- Hakodate no Hito （函館の女）for Hakodate in Hokkaido (1965)

3. Masayoshi Tsuruoka & Tokyo Romantica -- Otaru no Hito yo （小樽のひとよ）for Otaru in Hokkaido (1967)

4. Masao Sen -- Kitaguni no Haru (北国の春）for the Tohoku region in general (1977)

5. Sayuri Ishikawa -- Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki （津軽海峡・冬景色）for Aomori (1977)

6. Muneyuki Sato -- Aoba-jo Koi Uta （青葉城恋唄）for Sendai in Miyagi (1978)

7. Yuji Mori and Southern Cross -- Suki desu Sapporo（好きですサッポロ）for Sapporo in Hokkaido (1981)

I'll go into the Kanto area next week. By the way, I know that I said above that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" isn't a foodie blog, but I will simply leave this article with a couple of dishes from Hokkaido and the Tohoku region: jingisukan（ジンギスカン）and kiritanpo（きりたんぽ...Akita, to be specific） respectively.

Muneyuki Sato/Dark Ducks -- Aoba-jo Koi Uta （青葉城恋唄）

Singer-actor-TV personality Muneyuki Sato（さとう宗幸） first came to my attention in the early 80s as his songs got fairly frequent airplay on "Sounds of Japan". However, the one song that will always come to mind to me and just about everyone who listens to kayo kyoku is his debut, "Aoba-jo Koi Uta". The literal translation for the title is "Aoba Castle Love Song", but I rather like how one page on www.drillspin.com translated it: "A Love Song to Sendai".

Sato was born in 1949 in Gifu Prefecture and had an early career as a semi-professional folk singer, releasing one album that he produced himself in 1976 titled "Bara Iro no Jinsei"（バラ色の人生...Rose-Coloured Life）. A year later, he started a stint as a DJ on "FM Request Hour" for the NHK affiliate radio station in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. In June 1977, during one episode of the show, a listener by the name of Senichi Hoshima（星間船一） provided a poem about lost love in Sendai for which Sato added a melody. Thus "Aoba-jo Koi Uta" was born. Aoba Castle, by the way, is the alternate name for Sendai Castle.

(Unfortunately the Dark Ducks video
got taken down but you can enjoy Chieko Baisho's version.

Uh, actually, I did find one by DD below.)

The song was released in May the following year. However, at around the same time, word about the existence of this song reached the powers-that-be managing a vocal group by the name of Dark Ducks which was formed in 1951. There was a bit of a race between Sato and Dark Ducks to find out whose version would win out (if it was actually successful). The Dark Ducks version came out a month after Sato's debut, with the conventional feeling that the vocal group had the edge since they were a famed veteran team compared to Sato who was basically an unknown. Then, just 11 days following the release of "Aoba-jo Koi Uta" by Dark Ducks, the Miyagi Earthquake struck the Tohoku area creating widespread damage to homes and the surrounding environment. In order to boost spirits in his adopted prefecture, Sato did a live performance of the song; a month later, sales for his version started soaring to ultimately reach 1.1 million records. Meanwhile, the version by the Ducks sold a relatively smaller 300,000 copies. Below is their performance of the song on "Yoru no Hit Studio".

The Ducks' version is perfectly fine, but there is just something about Sato's rendition of "Aoba-jo Koi Uta" that will always have me imagining bright green woods and fresh clean air whenever I hear it. And although the lyrics mention about the yearly Sendai Tanabata Festival and the covered shopping arcades, it will always be a countryside song to me. According to J-Wiki, it was labeled indeed as such a song during the 1970s, a time that was famous for having the catchphrase, "Chiho no Jidai"（地方の時代...The Countryside Era）. By the way, according to the video outline above, the Dark Ducks' version is the 4th one after Sato, Kaori Mizumori and Yuzo Kayama.

The song peaked at No. 3 on Oricon and became the 31st-ranked song of 1978. It also won Sato the Newcomers' Prize at the Japan Record Awards, and an invitation to that year's Kohaku Utagassen. And finally, it hit further immortality by becoming the departure song at several tracks at JR Sendai Station. Not surprisingly, whenever Sato appears anywhere on television, everyone knows it will most likely be to perform that song.

Of course, the song has been covered by many other singers such as Masako Mori（森昌子）and Chieko Baisho（倍賞千恵子）.