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've had this song in the backlog for some time so I'm happy to finally profile it on KKP. However, it comes at a rather sad time for singer-songwriter Naomi Nomoto's（野本直美）fans because I've been seeing a few websites mention that the native of Ishikawa Prefecture had passed away on August 26th. My condolences to her family, friends and fans.
Back in 2021, I posted an article on her debut single from October 1981, "Kanashimi Doori"（かなしみ通り）, which features an owner of some bar willing to lend an ear to a bereft guy down on his luck. The B-side is "Ukareiro" (Make Merry), a more melancholy but melodic song about someone just wanting to be left alone to stew in their dark existential miasma while everyone else makes merry. As Nomoto sings it, her lyrics may be describing the person's plight but her vocals seem to be filled with compassion and care.
Usually when it comes to singer-songwriter Ken Takahashi（高橋研）on this blog, I've usually included him as the songwriter behind the scenes but up to this point, I'd only had one article about one of his songs, "Natsukashi no Yon-go Sen"（懐かしの4号線）, in which the Iwate Prefecture-born Takahashi was behind the mike. Well, here is his second KKP article with him actually singing as well as creating the song.
In "Natsukashi no Yon-go Sen", I likened Takahashi to singers such as Motoharu Sano（佐野元春）and Shogo Hamada（浜田省吾）in his good ol' rock-n'-roll approach. Well, I did find a blog posting by someone named Takashi Ikegami in which the singer is compared to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band. And perhaps there is a particular connection with Dylan here when it comes to this track "Bucket Ippai no Ame" (Buckets of Rain) because the legendary singer-songwriter behind classics including "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" actually created a song titled "Buckets of Rain" for his January 1975 album"Blood on the Tracks".
Although Takahashi's "Bucket Ippai no Ame" is straight ahead rock-n'-roll (and basically a different animal) compared to Dylan's folk-rock"Buckets of Rain", I can't help but hear a bit of that rhythm from the Dylan song grafted into Takahashi's song as perhaps a tribute (maybe someone can confirm this). In any case, I also hear the Sano and Hamada feelings in Takahashi's creation which was a track on his third album from December 1986, "Freedom". It's definitely a feel-good song as Takahashi sings that every life has its buckets of rain falling down but there is also sun breaking through the clouds, too.
(I'm sorry but the video has been taken down.)
Up to this point, I had two entries on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for Naomi Nomoto（野本直美）including her "Kanashimi Doori"（かなしみ通り）, and my impression was that she was into the folk/New Music genres. Well, with her 1987 "The Fire" album, Nomoto decided to check out her own inner rock-n'-roll as well. In fact, the above-mentioned Ikegami has likened her to an Osakan version of pop-rock singer Ayumi Nakamura（中村あゆみ）, and strangely enough, Nakamura's big hit from 1985, "Tsubasa no Oreta Angel"（翼の折れたエンジェル）was created by Takahashi.
Nomoto did a cover of Takahashi's "Bucket Ippai no Ame" for "The Fire" and it actually leads off the album. It's got that same motorcycle-on-the-road-friendly arrangement although it doesn't have that brassy E Street Band sensation from the original. However, Nomoto makes it quite clear that she can also provide the good ol' rock-n'-roll chops.
Not to accuse of the street in the above photo as being a sad one, but I put it up there for the atmosphere. It happens to be an area in Asakusa, by the way.
Indeed, the topic of this article is "Kanashimi Doori" (Street of Sadness) by singer-songwriter Naomi Nomoto（野本直美）. I had introduced Nomoto to the pages of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" last year, thanks to Scott's recommendation around the Xmas period since he has his own podcast based on J-Xmas tunes, and I first found out about her "Eve no Yoru"（イブの夜）.
As I also mentioned in that article, Nomoto's presence on the Internet is rather sparse in terms of historical information, but from one website, I did find out that she hails from Ishikawa Prefecture, and "Kanashimi Doori" happens to be her debut single from October 1981. Writing and composing this jaunty folksy tune, she actually had created "Kanashimi Doori" back in 1978 when she appeared at the 15th annual Yamaha Popular Song Contest to perform this very number.
Just from the bouncy melody, "Kanashimi Doori" is obviously not a love-done-me-wrong ballad. Looking at the lyrics by Nomoto, she plays what I think is a pretty crusty proprietress of a local watering hole (must be a Kansai lady) who practically berates a sad sack off the street of sadness where she works to lend an ear and make him forget the woes of the world which probably includes romantic troubles. Do love those guitars plucking away.
Well, some good news to start off Hump Day in that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has not only welcomed in a new contributor, Oliver, but also as of yesterday, we have exceeded 2019's total number of articles of 901. In other words, this is Article No. 906!😄 I can only wonder whether we may even hit the big 1000 before KKP turns 10 in 2022.
(24:24)
Article No. 906 is on a Xmas song that I believe was relayed to me by Scott the J-Xmas song expert, and the singer-songwriter behind it, Naomi Nomoto（野本直美）, may fall into what Oliver was talking about: that artist who pops up for a few or several years but then disappears off the show business radar seemingly forever.
So, it's a foregone conclusion that I couldn't find out very much about Nomoto. However, I was able to pick up some informational scraps here and there. On one Japanese blog titled "Folk Song Café", the author also addressed the observation that the singer was a bit of a mysterious figure but I could glean that she was active in the 1980s as one of the few Japanese acts who made the successful leap from folk into rock (another act was ALFEE). In fact, the author posits that Nomoto could have inspired a number of other singers and bands including Takako Shirai（白井貴子）, Mari Hamada（浜田麻里）, Princess Princess（プリンセスプリンセス） and SHOW-YA.
However, with "Eve no Yoru" (Christmas Eve Night), which was released as a single in 1984 according to a site specializing in female singer-songwriters between 1972 and 1999, this is a very calming soft-as-fluffy snow Xmas ballad written and composed by Nomoto. However the lyrics, which are incompletely provided on another blog, relate the story of a woman who's trying to reach someone from a phone booth on a snowy Xmas Eve to tell him of her feelings but the line is busy. The clock may be ticking.
The country lilt in Nomoto's melody reminds me of Ruiko Kurahashi's（倉橋ルイ子）"Winter Rose" although as I mentioned in the article for that one, "Winter Rose" perhaps wasn't specifically meant as a Xmas tune. Of course, for City Pop fans, whenever Kurahashi's name is mentioned, "December 24" comes quickly to mind. I can imagine one of my favourite singers easily covering this Nomoto tune, though.
