Mieko Hirota -- Kanashiki Heart（悲しきハート）/Yasuo Tanabe -- Kumo ni Kiite Okure yo（雲に聞いておくれよ）

 

First off, for everyone in Japan: 「新年あけましておめでとうございます。今年もよろしくお願いします。」🎍

Here in North America, we're still in New Year's Eve and awaiting our own clock to strike midnight in several hours. It's been the usual December 31st with my family...quiet, getting things cleaned up and of course, I woke up this morning a couple of hours into the live broadcast of the 74th edition of the Kohaku Utagassen on NHK. Now, the thumbnail aside, I will give my own thoughts on the Red-and-White Song Festival when I get to see the whole she-bang over the next week or so and I have a feeling that a few more of us on the blog will do the same. However, to begin the final blogging on KKP for 2023, I'd like to go back in the Kohaku's history...60 years back, to be exact.

Yup, to keep within the theme of the New Year's Eve special, I'm heading back to the 14th edition at the end of 1963. It was a very different time and circumstances since the Kohaku that year scored an average rating of over 81%, the very peak of its popularity. In those days, there wasn't quite as much to do and see outside of the home as there is now, and music access wasn't nearly as widespread. 

For the 74th edition, we had this year's media darlings Atarashii Gakko no Leaders（新しい学校のリーダーズ）and JO1 leading things off. However, according to the J-Wiki account of the 14th edition, that show's top two batters were teenage sparkplug Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）and new Mood Kayo singer Yasuo Tanabe（田辺靖雄）which is why I'm doing the two-in-one today. Hirota, who was coming to the Kohaku for the 2nd time, launched the show off with her rendition of Susan Singer's 1963 "Lock Your Heart Away", titled in Japanese as "Kanashiki Heart" (Sad Heart) and released in July that year as her 13th single with Kazumi Minami（みナみカズみ）handling the Japanese lyrics over John Schroeder's original melody.

As I said, she was quite the sparkplug with that 60s girl pop. She looked like she could rival Wild Child Suzuka of Atarashii Gakko no Leaders in spunk. 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1201807704807911

Yasuo Tanabe is someone that I'd mentioned in his first article that has had quite the show business connections, including the fact that he is the son of Masaharu Tanabe（田辺正晴）who actually hosted the first two editions of the national network's Kohaku Utagassen on radio in 1951 and 1952. So I gather that he may have been quite nervous making his debut onto the special in 1963. He sang "Kumo ni Kiite Okure yo" (Go Ask the Clouds), a song written and composed by Seiji Hiraoka（平岡精二）and one of those finger-snapping jazz orchestral standards that were common back in the day. The song has been attributed to him but I haven't been able to find it as a single or even as a B-side in his own J-Wiki discography so perhaps it was on one of this early albums or J-Wiki simply forgot to add it in.

Anyways, I'll be seeing if I can catch the re-broadcast of the 74th edition later tonight.

Machiko Soga/Ego-Wrappin'/Seiji Hiraoka -- Nazo no Onna B（謎の女B）

 

"Obake no Q-Taro"（オバケのＱ太郎...Q-Taro The Ghost） was an old anime that my brother and I caught when we spent that summer in 1972 on my grandfather's farm in Wakayama Prefecture. We couldn't quite understand at the time what type of creature Q-chan was but we later realized that the squeaky-voiced character was indeed a ghost. Plus, he and his good buddy O-Jiro entertained us greatly.

The thing is that the series that we had seen was a sequel to the original TBS black-and-white series that ran from August 1965 to June 1967. Back then, Q-Taro had been played by actress and seiyuu Machiko Soga（曽我町子）, a Tokyo native and a graduate from the Tokyo Announcers' Academy. She also provided the show with a number of songs including the main theme.

However in September 1967, Soga released something quite different in the form of "Nazo no Onna B" (Mystery Lady B). Q-Taro may have been a mischievous sort but Soga has a different sort of mischief with this hip-swiveling swing jazz. She sounds very sultry and naughty in this story of Mr. A nearly being drawn into seductress Lady B's spider web of iniquity, especially with an angry Mr. C lurking nearby. Seiji Hiraoka（平岡精二）was behind the words and music for "Nazo no Onna B" which could fit an exciting episode for Matt Helm, Peter Gunn or Derek Flint.

Soga would continue appearing in anime but also in tokusatsu programs as a villainous character for a number of decades. However, she passed away at the age of 68 in 2006.

The band Ego-Wrappin' provided their own cover on a BEST compilation of their material, "Route 20 Hit The Road" from April 2016 which peaked at No. 9 on Oricon.

Jazz musician and songwriter Hiraoka himself would do a slightly more orchestral cover of his own creation in 1969 as an insert song for the movie "Hanayaka na Mehyo"（華やかな女豹...The Gorgeous Leopardess）. I'd say that this version could be one that Nancy Sinatra could have covered herself.