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.
Showing posts with label Sachiko Nishida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sachiko Nishida. Show all posts
I heard this one last night on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）for the first time, and it was originally sung by Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）. "Acacia no Ame ga Yamu Toki"(When the Acacia Rains Stop) was Nishida's 13th single from April 1960 with Kaoru Mizuki（水木かおる）as lyricist and Hideyuki Fujiwara（藤原秀行）as composer. Delivered in a sad and resigned tone by Nishida, it recounts the story of a lady whose paramour has suddenly left her bereft of love and hope. The horns led by a crisp trumpet sound forlorn and melancholy.
Strangely enough, through a 2003 magazine article via J-Wiki, the story goes that "Acacia no Ame ga Yamu Toki" was the song that a lot of young folks protesting the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty ran to like a buddy giving solace when things didn't go their way. Perhaps they were crying in their beer as this song was playing in the bars and izakaya. Another tidbit from J-Wiki is that Nishida had been struggling with singing the song until lyricist Mizuki helped out by saying that it had been based on famed author Kojiro Serizawa's（芹沢光治良）1947 novel "Paris ni Shisu"（巴里に死す...A Death in Paris）. Nishida would then record it while thinking of images from the City of Lights.
Eventually, "Acacia no Ame ga Yamu Toki" would hit the million-record mark in sales by 1968. Nishida would also sing the song at her second appearance on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen in 1962, a year after she'd performed her more famous rendition of "Coffee Rumba"（コーヒー・ルンバ）on the same stage. She also sang "Acacia" on the 1969 edition of the Kohaku. In 1963, a cinematic adaptation of the song was produced which had Nishida in a supporting role.
Partly inspired by my previous article on Naomi Chiaki's（ちあきなおみ）"Waltz"（円舞曲）and also thinking it would be nice to begin the work week with something a little different, I've opted to complete my Monday entries with some of the dance-titled kayo kyoku and J-Pop out there since it seems as if the Japanese also enjoyed cutting a rug if vicariously for most people.
We were watching the final episode of the kayo music program, NHK's"Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌...Songs of Japanese Spirit） which included up-and-coming teenage enka/kayo kyoku singer Kokoro Umetani（梅谷心愛）. I've mentioned her once before in a Sites article about a couple of interesting shops in Asakusa earlier this month, and I'm going to have to write about at least one of her singles in the new year. But in any case, for a 17-year-old, she certainly took on a moody and pretty mature song on that episode. It reminded me of adolescent Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）recording "Shishuuki"（思秋期）back in 1977.
The original recording of "Onna no Iji"(Pride of a Woman) was done by Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）back in October 1965. Written and composed by Domei Suzuki（鈴木道明）, it was the B-side to her "Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete"（赤坂の夜は更けて）which is a bit more jazzy (ironically, I wrote about that one exactly nine years ago). "Onna no Iji" is a straight melancholy Mood Kayo and enka mix about the complicated emotions a woman is going through after a relationship goes sour, and it all probably takes place in a bar community in Shinjuku, Ginza or Akasaka. The same musical tropes of a Mood Kayo are there, but I have to say that the tenor saxophone in "Onna no Iji" really stands out.
According to the J-Wiki article on the single, "Onna no Iji" was one of Nishida's favourite songs and around the beginning of the 1970s, it got a second look as its own single. It then became a favourite of many listeners to the extent that "Onna no Iji" managed to sell about 400,000 records. At the end of 1970, Nishida was invited to the Kohaku Utagassen that year to sing it. Her tenth appearance on the NHK New Year's Eve special, it would also be her final appearance on the show after getting married.
Because of the new Jme regime, our weekday viewings of "Asaichi"（あさイチ...Morning Market） on NHK have become more "Yoruichi"（よるイチ...Night Market） since we're getting the program live in the midst of a current 13-hour time difference. Thursday mornings are usually set aside for features on specific areas of Japan under a certain theme, and as it turns out, the area du jour for "Asaichi" was Osaka and its famous dishes such as the famous okonomiyaki. Couldn't ask for anything better.
So, figuring my viewing for tonight, perhaps it's time to put up another Osaka-themed kayo kyoku. We've got plenty of those up on KKP such as Masaki Ueda's（上田正樹）"Osaka Bay Blues" and Senri and Mari Unabara's（海原千里・万里）"Osaka Rhapsody"（大阪ラプソディー）. For this article, it's Sachiko Nishida's（西田佐知子）"Osaka no Yoru" (A Night in Osaka).
By lyricist Takashi Umemoto（梅本たかし）and composer Fujio Mizutoki（水時富士夫）, this was the B-side to Nishida's 59th single from February or December 1964 (depending on which J-Wiki article associated with Nishida you look at), "Meriken Blues"（メリケン・ブルース...American Blues）. I can hear the cocktail shaker going at warp speed by the bartender as this cha-cha-infused Mood Kayo is playing. Nishida is wistfully singing about walking on the streets and alleys of downtown Osaka lined with lots of drinking establishments while remembering lost loves. She probably has a very good idea of the geography since she herself is from the area.
Well, after all of the technological sturm und drang that I've had to go through this past week, and it seems as if every electronic device had wanted to gaslight me in some way, I'm ready for that stiff drink now. However, I don't really drink.
Therefore, I will settle for the music version of a good tasty cocktail. That would be in the form of Sachiko Nishida's（西田佐知子）song "Anata no Kurai Jounetsu" (Your Dark Passions). A track on her July 1977 album"Itsumo no Gogo"（いつもの午後...The Usual Afternoon）, this combination of 1970s City Pop, Mancini-esque jazzy lounge and light pop, does make for a pretty potent mixture to calm down one's nerves. Time to contemplate one's fortunes on that balcony at sunset.
Created by that wonder duo of lyricist Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, the story is a tad more bittersweet as Nishida sings languidly about a woman begging her paramour to let her go since she feels that she would never be able to ultimately satisfy him in the long term. Plus his wife may be an issue as well. I'd probably say that this is another kayo kyoku example of a beautiful melody supporting some sad lyrics.
Although I realize that Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）had been singing (she's now retired) since the mid-1950s, I kinda pegged when this particular single of hers was released just from hearing the arrangement without knowing anything else about it.
"Namida no Kawaku made" (Until the Tears Run Dry) possesses that big downtown brassy sound with the beefy sax and rumbling percussion, so I figured that it must have come out in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Sure enough, it was released in December 1967 with the legendary Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）behind the melody. Shigeru Tsukada（塚田茂）provided the lyrics of a woman who's beside herself with desperate grief and hate over the impending death of her relationship with a paramour.
The song earned Nishida her 7th appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1967 and it ranked in at No. 27 on the yearly chart for the newborn Oricon in 1968.
There were a number of singers who covered "Namida no Kawaku made" including Mood Kayo specialist Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）. Fuji's version came out in 1973 and has more of a psychedelic rock buzz.
Before "The Simpsons", there were "The Flintstones", that modern Stone Age family. It was a daily ritual for me and my brother as kids to watch the antics of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble as they got through the daily grind in Bedrock while sometimes taking on side gigs which would usually end badly in front of their long-suffering spouses, Wilma and Betty respectively. Fred and Barney's favourite pastime of bowling wasn't lost on me since my father was also a fan of hitting the pins.
I always got a kick out of the snarky comments out of the animals that were used as appliances. Hanna & Barbera wouldn't get anywhere near the toilet though.
Of course, the other running gag on "The Flintstones" was how they brought on the celebrities and named them in their own hilarious way. The first time that I got to actually see Ann-Margret was through her appearance on the show as Ann-Margrock. And there were Stony Curtis and Cary Granite. If I had got onto the program, maybe my name would have ended up as J-Canucklestone.
A good chunk of my childhood was spent watching "The Flintstones" and I had assumed that I pretty much knew everything there was to learn about this program. But I was wrong. It was only in the last decade that I discovered "The Flintstones" had been the first animated program to get a prime-time slot on ABC; that's quite something considering that I had only seen Fred and Barney as afternoon cartoon characters.
On top of that, I only found out in the last few months that there had been a very different opening and closing sequence and a different theme song for "The Flintstones" in the first two seasons of its 1960-1966 run. The theme song used for both the opening and the ending was "Rise and Shine", a jazzy and upbeat instrumental by Hoyt Curtin. It was actually a song that I had heard as background music in the episodes but I never knew that it was the first theme. I also have to give thanks to YouTube and the uploader Steven Brandt for showing me the opening and ending credits for the very first time in my life.
Ah, as of Season 3, this was the opening credit sequence that greeted me after getting home from school or finishing off lunch. It was the swing jazz orchestra by Curtin and the Randy Van Horne Singers behind one of Western animation's most famous theme songs "Meet the Flintstones" right when Fred happily screams "Yabba-dabba-doo!" when work is done and it's time to head home.
Although "Meet the Flintstones" wouldn't become the official theme until late 1962, Wikipedia has reported that its composition by Curtin along with Hanna & Barbera had taken place in 1961 so for this ROY, I'm gonna go with that latter year and find out what were the big hits in Japan during that time.
Most of Sachiko Nishida's（西田佐知子）songs represented on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" have been of her bluesy Mood Kayo outings in the 1960s, such as "Tokyo Blues"（東京ブルース）from 1964. However, going further into the 1970s, I think that she also gave some of the other genres a shot.
A couple of years back, I wrote about her "Hajimete no Machi de"（初めての街で）whose 1979 version mixed in jazz, country and even some folk in comparison to the original 1975 take that was more of the conventional Mood Kayo. Well, in between those two versions, Nishida released a July 1977 album "Itsumo no Gogo"（いつもの午後...The Usual Afternoon）, and to echo one Japanese commenter said under the YouTube video above, I would like to hear more of the tracks.
The one reason is that I heard Track 4 on Side B of the original LP, "Sakeyoigusa", which is very different from either the original 1975 and the multi-genre 1979 version of "Hajimete no Machi de", although one commonality among the three songs is the drinking. In fact, there is nothing Mood Kayo at all in "Sakeyoigusa", and nothing of jazz or folk in there either. There's some hint of country through the guitar but I'd say that the song is pure New Music along the lines of Yumi Arai（荒井由実）.
But the song was arranged and composed by one of the pillars of City Pop/J-AOR, Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, and it was actually a cover of Mayumi Itsuwa's（五輪真弓）7th single from October 1974 with Itsuwa herself providing the lyrics. Furthermore, from the sound of "Sakeyoigusa", it does mesh very well with how Itsuwa must have sung it originally; regrettably, I couldn't find her version of the ballad...otherwise, I would have had it here as well.
As for the meaning of "Sakeyoigusa", I couldn't find anything at my usual sources but looking at Itsuwa's lyrics which only mention the title once, I think the closest definition might be barfly as in someone who just hangs about at the local watering hole making small talk with any of the other customers. Indeed, both the melody and the vocals by Nishida herself paint a very woozy picture as the supposed tipsy barfly invites a fellow drinker for some convivial conversation over mass quantities. It's quite the different feeling from Nishida and as mentioned above, because of this particular song, I'd be interested in how the other tracks on "Itsumo no Gogo" come across.
A few days ago, I came up with some suggestions for those folks who were curious about what the traditional Japanese music genre of enka was all about with the male and female singers. Well, tonight, I offer the curious another genre in the Tokyo House Party series: Mood Kayo...the bar/nightclub genre as I identified it on the show back on February 27th.
According to J-Wiki, Mood Kayo supposedly originated from the late 1950s from musical interactions among native entertainers and members of the Occupation forces (mainly American forces), gradually moving to the nightclubs in the entertainment districts of the big cities such as Ginza and Akasaka in Tokyo. The dance music with its Latin, jazz and Hawaiian influences was observed to have generated a certain mood in those establishments thus the music gaining its genre name.
Mood Kayo was often but not always characterized by male groups with a lead vocalist and perhaps a backing chorus of three or four men. But there were also solo artists consisting of both men and women, notably with some pretty smoky voices. Moreover, another trait of the genre was that song titles frequently pinpointed a certain geographically famous area such as the aforementioned Ginza and Akasaka.
Of course, as I've said all along for this series, there are plenty of other examples from this genre that I couldn't get on here, and that includes a number of enka singers who have also dabbled into Mood Kayo from time to time.
Merry Christmas in Japan and Merry Christmas Eve here!
This is not only a collaboration between the Labels of Reminiscings of Youth and Xmas here on the blog, but it's the farthest back that I've gone for a ROY article. In fact, I should correct the category here and say that it's more of a Reminiscings of Babyhood or Just-Graduated-From-Foetushood because I was only born some weeks before "A Charlie Brown Christmas" made its debut on CBS on December 9th 1965. Certainly, there's no way that I can remember the first time that Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and the rest of the bunch made their way onto television screens together for the first time, since in all likelihood I was in the crib getting my 18 hours of beauty rest (which failed utterly) but I know that I've been watching it since I was a little kid.
I've enjoyed the whole thing over and over and I even bought the DVD for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" about a decade or so ago in Japan. Of course, a lot of things debuted for the first time including the characters and the famous "Linus & Lucy" theme which is arguably the theme song for the entire she-bang known as "Peanuts" (geez, ol' Chuck can't even catch a break there). One of my favourite scenes in the special is most of the characters boogying away to "Linus & Lucy" with Schroeder on the piano, Snoopy on the guitar and Pig-Pen on wood bass. My brother and I always giggled at Frieda's dancing.
Of course, if I got the DVD for the special then I just had to get the classic soundtrack with the Vince Guaraldi Trio. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and the music are absolutely inseparable and at the time that I saw it annually, I heard and treated the soundtrack not as jazz but just "Charlie Brown music" because of that distinct Guaraldi piano. From what I read about the production of the special back in 1965, though, was that inserting wistful jazz music into a kiddie program was thought to be downright insane at the time.
Happily, braver heads and ears prevailed. But along with "Linus & Lucy", "Skating" and all the rest, there is the opening theme "Christmas Time Is Here" by Guaraldi and television producer Lee Mendelson with the chorus from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael, California. I cannot imagine the introduction for the show without this song, and whenever I get introduced to a jazz pianist that I hadn't heard before, I immediately compare that artist with Guaraldi via "Christmas Time Is Here". That was the case when I first heard the velvety tones of Bill Evans back in Japan. I listened to Evans' trademark "Waltz for Debby" and found the lilting and romantically swinging melody reminiscent of Guaraldi's "Charlie Brown music" (although I know that Evans started his career before Guaraldi), and internally remarked, "Yep, he's my guy!" and ended up buying a number of his albums.
The soundtrack is a must-play at this time of year, and I will listen to it again later tonight just before Christmas Eve gives way to Christmas Day. Wow! That's something...55 years since it was released. But what was released in Japan back in December 1965? Thanks again to "Showa Pops" for the answers.
Digging into my Trekkie geekiness, I always had some sympathy for USS Enterprise Nurse Christine Chapel because she held a long-burning torch for First Officer Mr. Spock. Perhaps the torch finally burned out by the time of the first few movies, but in the original series, Chapel had a huge heart for Starfleet's star Vulcan which probably distracted him to no end since he could never return any love to her.
Listening to this light Mood Kayo ballad by Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）, "Dou Sureba Ii no"(What Should I Do?) reminded me of that tension between Chapel and Spock right from the lyrics by Takashi Umemoto（梅本たかし）. I think the protagonist in this song may be a hostess in Ginza who's been trying her hardest to melt that icy heart of her client through dancing and drinking but to no avail. He's like a Vulcan after Kolinahr. She's now stuck for solutions. Glad the music by Shizuo Nakano（中野静雄）is pretty jaunty considering the situation. I do love the organ and Nishida's resonant voice.
"Dou Sureba Ii no" wasn't part of a single but it was a track on the September 1969 album "Hoshi no Nightclub"（星のナイト・クラブ...Star Nightclub）.
In terms of soothing myself down after some unanticipated glitches in my day (you can take a look at my last article, "Damatte Ore ni Tsuite Koi"（だまって俺について来い）that I whipped up a few hours earlier), there was another song from "Uta Con"（うたコン）last night that I had cottoned onto for the first time.
Guest Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）sang this lovely ballad called "Hajimete no Machi de" (First Time in Town) which the hosts pointed out was a successful commercial song for Kiku-Masamune sake（菊正宗酒造）. Of course, I did not know this and even my parents had been unaware of this famous ad.
Ahhh...such a mellow song to go with some mellow sake and I did see some nice dishes to go with the famous Japanese libation in the ad above.
The original singer was Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）whom I've usually associated with the 1960s, but "Hajimete no Machi de" was a single that she released in November 1979. In fact, her 104th single was her 2nd-last single to date. However, "Hajimete no Machi de" had been used as the reliable Kiku-Masamune jingle since 1975, and if I read the J-Wiki article correctly, Nishida was always the singer although she apparently wasn't the first choice for the gig.
For one of her final singles, Nishida couldn't have asked for a more prestigious songwriting pair than lyricist Rokusuke Ei（永六輔）and composer Hachidai Nakamura（中村八大）since among many of their many kayo for other singers, including presumably Nishida, they were the ones behind the legendary "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (上を向いて歩こう) back in 1961 for the late Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）. The above video features the commercial version of "Hajimete no Machi de", so I'm assuming this is the original take from 1975. Listening to it, it has that old-fashioned Mood Kayo statement with a proud trumpet among the brass starting things off but the rest of the tune seems to take on a milder pop kayo flavour from the previous decade. Of course, the commercial song had to include the Kiku-Masamune name in the lyrics.
The fascinating thing about the 1979 single of "Hajimete no Machi de" is that it takes on even more musical influences. It starts off with some bluesy jazz but then it progresses into a small potpourri of genres including folk, New Music and even country. And immediately, I thought about another singer perhaps tackling this version and that would be chanteuse Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）. But this is no slight on Nishida who does a great job on both versions. However, if I had to choose one over the other, I would have to go with the 1979 take. The Nakamura melody arranged by City Pop/AOR keyboardist Akira Inoue（井上鑑）is very comforting but so are the Ei lyrics as Nishida sings that no matter how many times a person might find himself in a first-time situation (town, love, heartbreak, etc.), he/she will never be alone and there will always be sake to help smooth some rough edges (drink responsibly, though!).
Getting back to Ishikawa's performance last night, though, she did great which is why I looked up "Hajimete no Machi de" in the first place. Incidentally, she also took on a commercial song for a certain kind of liquor many years ago herself, and I've also taken a long shine to it.
Decades after the Bubble burst on Japan's economy, Tokyo's Ginza still remains a vibrant area. I can only imagine what it must have been like in the late 1980s. The vast majority of its establishments would be off-limits to me but there was that one time in 2017 when, thanks to my former student/friend, I did get my chance to witness what it was like in a Ginza nightclub. I only wish that I had been attired more appropriately since I did feel acutely under-dressed in a Polo shirt and jeans. Still, true to their reputation, our hostesses and the bartender were nothing but truly professional and courteous. Of course, I wasn't the one who paid for our evening.
I was having a conversation with my friend, Jerry, earlier this afternoon on the point that the both of us have been listening to Japanese music for so long that we're beginning to recognize the songwriter for particular tunes simply from the arrangement of the melody. He could do that with Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. But the song of this article is not in Tats' wheelhouse. It's actually in the Mood Kayo sector, and as soon as I heard the opening notes for "Hoshi no Night Club" (Night Club of the Stars), I could pick it out as a late 1960s Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）.
This was Sachiko Nishida's（西田佐知子）title tune from the 1969 album"Ai no Sasayaki ~ Hoshi no Night Club"（愛のささやき 星のナイト・クラブ...Whisperings of Love）. It was also released as a single in August of that year. As I was saying, I could pick it out as a Tsutsumi tune right from the get-go due to the fairly quicksilver strings and the calm and assured nightclub guitar. Basically, the arrangement is very similar to the veteran composer's big hit for Ayumi Nishida（いしだあゆみ）, "Blue Light Yokohama"（ブルーライト・ヨコハマ）that had come out the year before. As was the case for that song, Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）also provided the lyrics for "Hoshi no Night Club".
And even Nishida sounds like Ishida here with some of that nasality in her delivery. It's quite a soothing delivery...almost on the level of getting that tumbler of whiskey-on-the-rocks and good conversation at the Ginza nightclub. It does have that feeling of Tokyo back in those days and nights. As for the album itself, unfortunately it's never been put onto CD format, according to the J-Wiki article, so tracking down that rare LP on the auction sites or watching it on YouTube might be our only hope. Hopefully, it won't be nearly as expensive as a night on the Ginza.
One of my first experiences having dessert in Tokyo was at a branch of the Cozy Corner franchise. Although I don't think that I have ever seen one of those sweet shops in the suburbs or bedroom towns of which my Ichikawa was one, Cozy Corner is pretty much everywhere in the main city (for example, there is one of the Ginza shops as you can see at the right of the above photo).
I remember being in a Cozy Corner with friends for the first time after landing in Japan to start my second stint as an English conversation teacher at NOVA. Let me say, first of all, the sizes of cakes vary greatly in Canada and in Japan. Without too much exaggeration, I was accustomed to getting a dangerously large wedge of Black Forest or Strawberry Shortcake which could easily be 1/5 or even 1/4 of a whole. However, when I got my first slice of Strawberry Shortcake at that Cozy Corner, I took a look at it and remarked "Do I eat this or do I inhale it?". Let's say that it was rather petite. However, as the years went by during my life in the Kanto, me and my stomach not only became accustomed to the massing down of cake but by the end, we actually were quite happy for the downshift.
Also, I gather that depending on where a Cozy Corner is located, the clientele can be quite different. My friend and I were sitting in one branch deep in Ginza having our cake and coffee, and we just noticed a lot of very high-class women varying in age between 20 and 40 all around us, knocking back the joe and taking drags on their cigarettes. I would say that approachability was effectively zero. Good cake, though.
On that note, I wanted to introduce a perfectly Mood Kayo tune right from the title itself, "Ginza Blues". A love letter of sorts to one of the world's most expensive neighbourhoods, this apparently has been quite the favourite for singers of the genre over the years. Written by Takeshi Sagara*（相良武）and composed by Domei Suzuki（鈴木道明）, the first recording of this was by the perennial Mood Kayo combination of Kazuko Matsuo & Hiroshi Wada and Mahina Stars（松尾和子・和田弘とマヒナスターズ）back in May 1966. The above performance video also included crooner Frank Nagai（フランク永井）. I don't know what the original recording sounded like but if it's anything like the stage performance, then the Mahina Stars' original had some of the Hawaiian part of the genre. Everyone here also got together to record "Dare Yori mo Kimi wo Aisu"（誰よりも君を愛す）several years previously.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find out when this recorded duet between Nagai and Matsuo was released, but considering their "Tokyo Nightclub"（東京ナイトクラブ）from 1959, these two just had to get back together to do "Ginza Blues". This version keeps the Mood Kayo flavour of course but this time, it veers a bit more toward the jazzy side if that clarinet is any indication. Jazzy and classy.
And of course, The Tough Guy had to get in on some of that "Ginza Blues" action, too. Once again, this was one of those recordings that I couldn't track down a date, but from the sound of Yujiro Ishihara's（石原裕次郎）voice, his cover may have been come from the late 1960s or 1970s. Finding out about all these different covers of this song, I've come to realize that despite all of them being in the same genre of Mood Kayo, they can each have their own individual arrangement. In Ishihara's case, there is quite the nightclub feeling, thanks to that boozy sax and the caressing/echoing vocals by The Tough Guy. The tumbler of Old Parr is on its way!
Last but certainly not least, there is Sachiko Nishida's（西田佐知子）cover of "Ginza Blues". This time, according to the notes for the YouTube video, I was able to find out that her version was a part of her 1969 album"Koi wo Utau"（恋を唄う...Sing of Love）. Plus, her vocals lend a refreshing and "the night is still young" lightness to the proceedings, as if the setting were a pre-dinner visit to a bar instead of the after-dinner nightclub. The songwriter Domei Suzuki had also provided Nishida with another Mood Kayo classic, the 1965 "Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete"（赤坂の夜は更けて）, a tribute to another swinging area of Tokyo nightlife.
Because of money and the fact that I remain a very light drinker, I never really imposed myself into bar culture anywhere in Tokyo including Ginza and Akasaka, but at least, there were still a number of good cafes to inhabit, including Cozy Corner. Still appreciate the cakes there.
*The lyricist's name has a number of readings for both family and first names so I've taken a wild guess here. If someone knows the correct reading for him, please let me know. Also, Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos（黒沢明とロス・プリモス）have also given their contribution to this song.
I wrote about this singer, Nami Hirai（平井菜水）, in the beginning of this year, because I was entranced by her brand of elegant pop music which seemed to stretch over the pop, City Pop and Mood Kayo genres. Yep, as for that last genre for those who know the stuff from the 1960s, perhaps it's a bit too much of a stretch, but listening to her "Tayumanai Yoru ni"（たゆまない夜に）, I couldn't help but feel that there was that surrounding atmosphere of shining lights and bars such as would be found in the sophisticated Tokyo district of Akasaka.
For that same article, I also noted that a few of her singles (although not "Tayumanai Yoru ni", which wasn't even an official single) were used as the ending theme for the NTV variety show "Shitteiru Tsumori?!"（知ってるつもり?!）. Well, this song for this article is one of those singles. "Kagayakitai kara"(Because I Want to Shine) was her 2nd single from September 1991, and as with that other number I wrote about, it has that sheen of urban and urbane gentle elegance. However, I think that Mood Kayo element isn't quite as noticeable here alongside the other two genres when compared with "Tayumanai Yoru ni".
Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）was the lyricist here while veteran composer Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）came up with the dreamy night melody that could use with a glass of well-made sherry. I was surprised that "Kagayakitai kara" hadn't been chosen to adorn a commercial about jewelry or cigarettes instead. I mention the latter since all those Parliament cigarette ads often used those urban contemporary ballads. Anyways, this would be the song to decompress to after a long and fun night in Tokyo.
To finish my list of parallels, "Tayumanai Yoru ni" was the final track in Hirai's 2nd album"Te no Hira no Tanpenshuu"（てのひらの短編集）, and similarly, "Kagayakitai kara" turned out to be the last song in her debut album, "Yume no Silhouette"（夢のシルエット...Silhouette of a Dream）from October 1991.
For me, as much as the female rock bands and Shibuya-kei signified the early 1990s, I think this genre of classy urban music has also acted as a musical signpost for that time.
Not quite sure if the above building is actually a hotel. It is located next to the ocean in the city of Ito in Shizuoka Prefecture and that bright colour of crimson was such that I just had to grab a shot.
So when I found this song by Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）, "Kurenai Hotel" (Crimson Hotel), I was automatically reminded of that photograph from my trip to Japan. The song itself was Nishida's 86th single from April 1969, and it's an intriguing ballad which seems to weave a bit into Folk through that harmonica and then what would have been considered Shibuya-kei if it had been created 20 years later because of those plucky violins. This was one of Kyohei Tsutsumi's（筒美京平）early creations and I guess the song kinda showed that he was quite interested in pushing his abilities in different directions. Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）provided the lyrics about this mysterious hotel shrouded in fog which has been the source of many a sad end to romance. I guess the titular place was truly a place just to sleep or cry.
At the same time, there was something to Nishida's delivery of "Kurenai Hotel" that had me thinking along the lines of that mix of Folk and even enka. The song didn't become a hit, only peaking at No. 81 on Oricon. However, according to J-Wiki, it has been covered by artists such as The Peanuts and Chiyo Okamura（奥村チヨ）, and songwriters Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）and Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）have praised it as one of their favourite Tsutsumi compositions.
Plus, I did find a number of videos showing folks doing their own karaoke version of "Kurenai Hotel" as above. Also, there is even a true Kurenai Hotel located near Kumamoto Station.
Usually when I see the word furusato in a kayo title, I think of a sentimental ballad with the singer warbling emotionally about heading back to the old hometown after years toiling away in the big city. However, such is not the case here with Sachiko Nishida's（西田佐知子）"Furusato no You ni" (Just Like My Hometown).
Released in March 1963, Nishida goes through this like a boogie-woogie march on the same level as anything by the Andrews Sisters back in World War II. "Furusato no You ni" was created by the same duo, Rokusuke Ei and Hachidai Nakamura（永六輔・ 中村八大）, who had come up with the classic "Ue wo Muite Arukou"（上を向いて歩こう）...aka "Sukiyaki"...for the late Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）a couple of years earlier in 1961. Nishida sings about how much she wants to hold onto her guy like her memories of home, and dang it, if that arrangement is any indication, she will probably end up asphyxiating him in the process.
If I understood the J-Wiki article on the song correctly, the song got its fame during its introduction on a segment of the old NHK program "Yume de Aimashou"（夢であいましょう...Let's Meet In A Dream）.
The Force may be with me tonight. Just hours away from the 66th edition of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen（紅白歌合戦）, I decided to take a time trip back 50 years and see what was going on with the 16th edition in 1965, 2.5 months after my birth. In the lineup for the Red Team from that year, I came across Sachiko Nishida's（西田佐知子）name and the title "Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete"(Akasaka After Dark) written and composed by Domei Suzuki（鈴木道明）. And boy, is it a winner for me!
When it comes to the tony Tokyo district of Akasaka and Mood Kayo, I always had the impression of Latin music. However, "Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete" is a lovely jazz ballad that came out as a single for Nishida and several other singers at around the same time near the end of 1965, but it looks as if Nishida was the winner of those sweepstakes. And I would say no wonder. Her evocative and echoing delivery breathes life into those lyrics about a woman pining away in some ritzy bar in the title area for her lost love. I can imagine the sadness, the diluted glass of scotch-on-the-rocks, the ashtray filled with plenty of lipstick-stained butts and a tousled head on the counter. This is what Mood Kayo is all about. For Nishida, her performance of "Akasaka" marked her 5th consecutive time on the Kohaku.
Since then, I think "Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete" has become a Mood Kayo standard of sorts considering how many other artists have covered it since its release 50 years ago. The Big Man himself, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）, has also given the song its due, but his version has that Cool Cat Jazz arrangement compared to the Akasaka nightclub atmosphere evoked by Nishida's original. As someone as I've seen as the Japanese equivalent of Frank Sinatra as the leader of the Rat Pack, he and this version fit hand-in-glove.
Then we have Keiko Fuji's（藤圭子）take on "Akasaka no Yoru wa Fukete" which also has its own intriguingly different arrangement. With the accordion in there, the setting seems to be somewhere in some lonely bar in Paris with a bit more anguish from Fuji. All of the versions here are fine and there are quite a few more covers on YouTube as well.
For the first time in the history of this blog, I feel totally uncertain about the name of an artist or group. I believe the name of this Mood Kayo outfit is Akira Nakai-Masaru Takahashi & Coloratino（中井昭・高橋勝とコロラティーノ）but the readings of the given names of the two leaders were giving me some fits, so if I offend any of the fans out there, forgive, and more importantly, correct me (and it's been corrected). One reason for the uncertainty is that the topic of this article is listed in J-Wiki but not the group itself...another first for me since it has often been the other way around.
In any case, "Shianbashi Blues" (Shian Bridge Blues), was the debut song by Nakai, Takahashi and Coloratino, and incidentally their only big hit, which was released in April 1968. Written and composed by Hiroshi Kawahara (川原弘...the trumpeter for Coloratino), it follows that tried-and-true kayo trope of some rather sad lyrics (another romantic breakup) accompanied by fairly more cheerful music. And within the enka/Mood Kayo genre, it follows the penchant of basing the song in some particular region within Japan; this time, it's Nagasaki. From what I read in the J-Wiki article for "Shianbashi Blues", the 1960s were a good decade for promoting the city in western Japan as ballads like "Nagasaki no Onna"（長崎の女）by Hachiro Kasuga（春日八郎）and the representative Mood Kayo for the city, "Nagasaki wa Kyou mo Ame Datta"（長崎は今日も雨だった）by Hiroshi Uchiyamada & The Cool Five became hits.
The romance may have been coming to a bittersweet end, but boy, was it ever nice to take that final stroll through Nagasaki including the titular bridge. Melodically speaking, although it was fitting for Mood Kayo, there was a bit more of a softness to it since there was no trumpet in there (I believe I said Kawahara was the band trumpeter); instead, the flute and strings held reign, and the vocals by everyone reminded me more of the Hawaiian-tinged songs of the genre.
As for how the song did, it got as high as No. 3 on Oricon and finished the year as the 15th-ranked song. The group Akira Nakai-Masaru Takahashi & Coloratino was discovered at a cabaret called Juu-Ni Ban Kan（十二番館...The No. 12 Building） in Nagasaki where they were playing as the house band. Of course, free enterprise being what it is, there were rival clubs for Juu-Ni Ban Kan, one of which was Ginbasha（銀馬車...Silver Carriage）. Guess the house band there? It was Uchiyamada & The Cool Five.
There have been cover versions of "Shianbashi Blues", one of which was done by veteran kayo chanteuse Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）. I'm not sure if her version had been recorded shortly after the original by Coloratino but it is a track on her 2007 "Nishida Sachiko Kayo Daizenshu"（西田佐知子歌謡大全集...Sachiko Nishida Great Collection of Kayo）. The arrangement is similar to the original, but I think I may end up liking Nishida's version even better because of that clear-as-a-bell voice of hers.
And speaking of the Cool Five, Kiyoshi Maekawa（前川清）and the guys performed their rivals' song as well in that distinctive Five fashion.
My memories of 1970s television was often punctuated by those commercials for K-Tel Records. Usually, it was a compilation record of the latest disco hits, but the one oldies star that got her own special album by the good folks at K-Tel was none other than Connie Francis. So I got to hear excerpts from her hits like "Stupid Cupid" and "Who's Sorry Now", but the one big tour de force number was "Where The Boys Are", the absolute paean to pining for that guy. The original writers for the song were Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, and they made it the theme for heartfelt sighs.
Since the song was released back in 1961, there have been a number of cover versions by folks such as LeAnn Rimes and Tracey Ullman. And that was the case as well in Japan. In fact, back in the postwar years before Group Sounds and New Music, a lot of the non-enka singing pop singers were given to performing Japanese-language covers of the Western hits from the USA and the UK.
With the somewhat saucier title of "Boy Hunt", one singer who covered it was Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）. Listening to her version, I imagine her performing it as the finale of a night in a small smoke-filled bar instead of on the beach where I think Francis would be singing her magnum opus. I wasn't able to find out when Nishida's cover was released but knowing how quickly a hit American song could get covered in Japan, I wouldn't be surprised if it had been released in the same year, and considering that the original came out in January, there would have been plenty of time to get the Japanese take out by springtime. I found the Nishida cover on her 2007 5-disc BEST album, "Nishida Sachiko Kayo Dai Zenshu"（西田佐知子歌謡大全集...Sachiko Nishida's Great Kayo Collection）.
Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）may just be the Queen of Covers. I bought a double-CD album of her BEST material when I was back in Japan with one disc of original tunes while the other disc had all of her cover versions of non-Japanese stuff. According to one site, her take on the Connie Francis classic was released in 1971 but I'm not sure if that was a re-release. Considering that she debuted in 1958, I would have thought that the powers-that-be would have had her singing the song not too long after the original had come out. In any case, among the kayo kyoku singers who have done their version of "Boy Hunt", Ito is the definitive example.
However, if there were someone else who would be perfect for "Where The Boys Are", that someone would be Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）. Starting out her career back in the late 1970s with original songs done to melodies that seemed to have been woven out of the various incarnations of American pop over 3 decades, performing "Boy Hunt" was pretty much inevitable for her. And her take is absolutely luscious...she would be that girl in the poodle skirt looking out her bedroom window into the moon. I heard her cover through the last BEST compilation I got from her, "Expressions" from 2008, although it was originally on "Longtime Favorites", her album of covers from 2003.
Actually, this whole article was inspired by yet another cover version by the girl group Go-Bangs. But unfortunately, I couldn't find their take anywhere on the Net, although it was the coupling song to their biggest hit, "Ai ni Kite I Need You"（あいにきて I Need You） from 1989.
