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 The Folk Crusaders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Folk Crusaders. Show all posts
Hard to believe but we are in the last few hours of August 2020. Mind you, for a lot of us, though, there is still plenty of summer to be had for a while longer.
Within my collection of the "Good Times Diva" series, I noticed that there was one singer who stood out from the others with her way of singing. Shizuru "Sizzle" Ohtaka（おおたか静流）is a Tokyo-born musician and singer who graduated from the humanities at Musashino University and made her official debut under that name in the 1990s covering a wide swathe of genres including minyo, world music and jazz. She had also started out in a duo called dido with songwriter and arranger Michiaki Kato（加藤みちあき）in 1989 but then also began that solo aspect of her career.
In January 1992, Ohtaka released a cover of "Kanashikute Yarikirenai" which seems to be one of those kayo that is a particular favourite to be covered according to its J-Wiki article. Along with the original folk version by The Folk Crusaders in 1968, "Kayo Kyoku Plus" also has the whimsical cover by singer-songwriter Kotringo（コトリンゴ）as the theme song for the 2016 anime movie "Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni"（この世界の片隅に...In This Corner of the World）.
Ohtaka's cover is one of the songs that was included in the "Good Times Diva" series, and it has an ethereal and haunting quality that I think approaches something Okinawan, but maybe the singer meant to be more pan-Asian or as one of her desired genres would indicate, global in feeling. As well, her vocal delivery also hints at minyo while some of that keyboard work at the very end sounds a little bluesy. It's as if the core melody by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）has been given some extra layers here and there from all over the Pacific Rim.
The song was used as the theme for the January 1992 film "Shiko Funjatta"（シコふんじゃった。...Sumo Do, Sumo Don't） which won the Best Movie award at the Japan Academy Awards for that year. Starring Masahiro Motoki（本木雅弘）, it's all about a university student who has to join the sumo club to graduate, and it's been touted for the fact that it is one of the few movies anywhere set in the world of one of the country's ancient sports or martial arts.
I mentioned near the top of the article that Ohtaka "...made her official debut under that name in the 1990s...", and that of course still stands. However, although no large explanation is expanded upon aside from a point made in parentheses in the second sentence of the J-Wiki article for the singer, Ohtaka apparently had began singing professionally as far back as the late 1970s under the name Shizuko Ohtaka（大高静子）. I point this out because she has one song from that period in "Loft Sessions, Vol. 1", an album of City Pop and New Music tunes that I will cover sometime soon.
Back from another round of anime at my friend's house. For me, it was a bit strange today since today, September 24th, was the debut of the latest "Star Trek" show that is being filmed here in Toronto, "Star Trek: Discovery". Perhaps 20 years ago, I wouldn't have hesitated...I would have given my friend an excuse not to come out today and wait fervently in front of my TV to catch this new show. However, the "too little, too late" feeling of "Star Trek: Enterprise", followed by the not-so-great Abramsverse part of the franchise (I mean, I liked the first "Star Trek" in 2009 despite the plot progression), and the relative indifference to the 50th anniversary of Gene Roddenberry's space adventure last year in my opinion has ended up dulling my enthusiasm to the point that I'm not even sure I can call myself a dedicated Trekkie/Trekker anymore. However, I got home in time to see the last 10 minutes of the 2nd episode of "Discovery" and it does look markedly different from any of the past series although it does remind me of the Abramsverse (are those lens flares again?).
Instead, the main feature today at my friend's house was the second of the three big anime motion pictures from 2016. A few weeks ago, I caught "Kimi no Na wa"（君の名は。）, the space-and-time-cross high school romance. Tonight it was "Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni"（この世界の片隅に...In This Corner of the World）, a film that I think is even better than "Kimi no Na wa" although my friend liked it even better than I did.
From what I had heard from my anime buddy and had read online, the movie is supposed to be a slice-of-life flick about wartime Japan in the city of Kure near Hiroshima. Well, my first thought was how can a slice-of-life flick traipse around the first nuclear bomb blast. After seeing the movie, my answer came: it doesn't. There is a lot of lightheartedness and gentle humour in "Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni" but it doesn't hold back on the tragedy of war especially in a couple of scenes. Still, it's not a war movie or an anti-war movie.
My friend actually saw the movie in Japan during his trip last year at a Tokyo theatre and he said that although he saw it some three months after its premiere, there was still a full house at the first morning show and there were a lot of folks who he considered to be not regular anime-watching folks in the seats.
The movie starts out with the opening theme, a wistful tune by Kotringo（コトリンゴ）as people are going about their daily lives. As the song went along, I detected a certain familiarity when the words "kanashikute, kanashikute" were heard, and I realized that the singer-songwriter was doing a cover of the old 1968 folk song by The Folk Crusaders, "Kanashikute Yakirenai"（I Can't Bear How Sad It Is）. Noelle has already provided an article of that chestnut here so you can listen to the original version. But Kotringo makes the song her own with her soft-as-cotton delivery and that ethereal combination of piano and guitar and chorus before it rises into a brief boil and quickly subsides.
Kotringo's cover of "Kanashikute Yakirenai" originally came on her 2010 album"picnic album 1" and although that version was used in the trailers, an interview with the singer on the website OtoCoto via J-Wiki back in March 2017 noted that it couldn't be used for the movie itself due to the usual red tape so I guess what I heard tonight during the opening credits was made specially for the movie.
Anyways by the end of "Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni", I felt like I caught one of the best movies that I'd seen this year.
I've heard this song before (how can I ever forget a song that sounds like it was done by Alvin & The Chipmunks in perfect Japanese?) through TV and such, but I had no idea that this was performed by The Folk Crusaders.
Noelle and nikala provided the two other entries for the folk group on "Kayo Kyoku Plus": "Kanashikute Yarikirenai"（悲しくてやりきれない） and "Imjin River"（イムジン河）respectively, and so my impression of the group was Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, Osamu Kitayama（北山修）and Norihiko Hashida（はしだのりひこ）performing these classic heartfelt ballads. So I get to do the goofy tune. And strangely enough, "Kaettekita Yopparai" (The Drunkard Returns) was the band's debut single on Christmas Day 1967. Considering the Alvin sound, perhaps it was quite appropriate it came out on December 25th...it certainly sounds like a song for the kids.
It may have been a comical tune but the subject matter was quite dark in that it was about a rascal who ends up dying in a drink-and-drive crash and heading up to heaven but ends up getting kicked back down when he starts carousing with the booze and women up there. Kitayama and Takeshi Matsuyama（松山猛）wrote the lyrics while Kato provided the sped-up melody; supposedly there was no helium involved during the recording.
"Kaettekita Yopparai", whose official English title was "I Only Live Twice" as a riff on a recent James Bond movie, must have hit the nation's funny bone since it managed to reach No. 1 and stay there for a good month early in 1968. In fact, it was the first Oricon song to break the million-record barrier selling a little over 2.8 million copies. It also became the 2nd-ranked song for 1968.
Back in those days, when a record became a hit, it was often the case that a motion picture would be made around it. And so, a comedy was made out of "Kaettekita Yopparai" which also featured The Folk Crusaders as themselves. The surprising thing was who the director was. It was none other than Nagisa Oshima（大島渚）who would later take care of "In The Realm of the Senses" and "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence".
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
It was a bit of an obvious point, but the original song could not be performed verbatim at The Folk Crusaders' concerts despite its mega-hit status. Apparently, the concert version had a more rock arrangement but the above video has a soothing bossa nova lilt.
This week's "Kayo Concert" episode turned out better than I had expected. Although were a number of familiar faces and it being the first time seeing Junichi Inagaki (稲垣潤一) on the tube, I was afraid of getting bored as, after looking at the song line-up for the day, I knew only one or two of the old kayo that were to be sung during most of the show. But thankfully, all the tunes were rather easy to on the ears, and I even took a liking to one of them, that being "Kanashikute Yarikirenai".
Kouhei Fukuda (福田こうへい) and Motohiro Hata(秦基博) were the ones who took on this folk song. I didn't catch the MC's introduction at all, mostly because I was trying to read the name of the original singers at the top left-hand corner of the TV. Unfortunately it disappeared before I could even figure it out - I'm still slow at reading katakana - and I was left wondering who had first sung it. I know what you're thinking, I could have easily checked it out on my phone at that time, but it wasn't a pressing need to do so and it could wait. Though I thought that there was a slight possibility that "Kanashikute Yarikirenai" was a Group Sounds band's single as the name was in katakana, and from my knowledge, Group Sounds bands always have lots of katakana in them.
As for the song itself, I accepted it the moment I heard it. It's slow and gentle and also quite forlorn, but I really enjoyed its melody. It makes me think of a downcast person shuffling down the street with hands tucked in his pockets and head hung low, and occasionally he'd look up to the night sky, as if looking for answers or just to give himself some solace from whatever that's bugging him... Wow, that is actually quite a sad image.
Anyway, I did look up "Kanashikute Yarikirenai" afterwards, and that was when I found out that this was one of the works of a folk band I had heard of via this blog, The Folk Crusaders.The original had more of the acoustic guitar in it, making it sound more folk-sy and gritty than what was presented to me on "Kayo Concert", but it was still good. Kind of sounds like something people sing around campfires. The music I like so much was composed by one of the band's former members, the late Kazuhiko Kato (加藤和彦), and poet Hachiro Sato (サトウハチロー) was responsible for the lyrics.
"Kanashikute Yarikirenai" was The Folk Crusaders'3rd single - their 2nd single after they got back together after a short hiatus - released on 21st March 1968. There's no record of how well the song did, but I'm guessing that it might have been quite successful back in the day.
(Unfortunately the video has been taken down.)
That thing Kato was playing looks and sounds like the Okinawan version of the shamisen.
The video here has Kato performing with Konosuke Sakazaki (坂崎幸之助) from THE ALFEE (no wonder he looked familiar!). Sakazaki became part of The Folk Crusaders in the early 2000's after the band's second, and long hiatus.
Note: You can also look at the cover by Kotringo（コトリンゴ）for the 2016 movie "Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni"（この世界の片隅に）.
A pretty song with a controversial background. I’ve been fond of Korean folk music since being exposed to it in through Korean History course during my undergraduate years at York University. I just find the songs’ melodies and harmonies somewhat haunting, just like the history of the land they are from. “Imjin River”, or “Rimjin Gan” (림진강) in Korean, is one of the songs I heard during that course when we discussed the division of the Korean peninsula. Being a tune of North Korean origin, it juxtaposes the image of the titular river flowing through the whole area while the people themselves cannot cross the border to see the rest of their homeland.
I later stumbled across The Folk Crusaders' (ザ・フォーク・クルセダーズ) Japanese cover of the song, "Imjin Gawa" (イムジン河), on Youtube, which contained an interesting discussion in the comments that brought my attention to the following story. The day before that single was to go on sale in February 1968, it was shelved and eventually blacklisted from being broadcast on air for nearly 20 years until 1987 when the blacklisting law was removed in Japan. The controversy turned it into a cult classic in the live scene, while the public hunted for any available recordings. The forces involved in this incident were Chosen Soren (朝鮮総連), the association of North Korean residents in Japan, and Toshiba Records. The issue is rather heated in terms of politics and the question of whether the band should’ve covered this song in the first place. It's a fascinating story overall and was eventually adapted (and fictionalized) into a 2004 Japanese film “Pacchigi!” (パッチギ!...박치기!...Break Through!), which I ended up watching earlier this week as a support for this post.
The 1968 cover, courtesy of http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/tmatsumoto
But first, a few words on The Folk Crusaders the band, since they haven't received a proper introduction on this blog yet. Five friends from Kyoto University formed an amateur band in 1965, but two of them left early on, which left us with a trio of Kazuhiko Kato (加藤和彦), Osamu Kitayama (北山修) and Norihiko Hashida (はしだのりひこ). Unlike the protest-minded folk bands of the 60's, The Folk Crusaders were more than happy to provide radio-friendly melodies for the masses and not shy about promoting their work on TV. The song that earned them their ticket to fame in was a comical novelty tune “Kaettekita Yopparai” (帰って来たヨッパライ…The Drunkard Returns). Originally, the band was getting ready to break up in 1967 so they released an LP titled “Harenchi” (ハレンチ…Shameless) as a goodbye souvenir for their small group of fans in only 300 copies. All of the sudden, various radio stations from Kyoto and Kobe began playing “Kaettekita Yopparai” and “Imjin River” from the album on heavy rotation, making the band locally popular and catching Toshiba’s attention. The former became their first single in December 1967 and ended up selling a whopping 2.8 million copies, becoming the first million seller in Oricon history. Oricon actually started operating in January 1968, so the data on the entamedia site accounts for its 1968 sales, which were 1,312,000 copies as the 2nd best-selling single for that year. I gotta say, what a glorious turnaround for a band that was originally on a brink of failure. Despite their success, the members decided to part separate ways at the end of 1968 aside from a brief reunion in 2002.
“Imjin River” was scheduled to become the band’s second single but a couple of complications halted its release. Its original creators were not acknowledged in the credits initially despite this being a cover. Takeshi Matsuyama (松山猛), who also wrote “Kaettekita Yopparai”, was credited as the sole lyricist and Kato as the arranger. The composer field just said “Korean Traditional”. Nor sure who was responsible for this hiccup, but it’s obvious that Toshiba Records wished to obscure the origins of the song for political reasons. Pak Se Yeong (박세영), the writer of DPRK’s national anthem, wrote “Imjin River” in 1957 to express people’s sorrow over the division of Korea, while the second verse also praises the country’s communal farms as an example of their self-reliance during the crisis. Matsuyama translated only the first verse of the original version that describes the Imjin River and added own lyrics for the other two verses. The composer was Ko Jonghang (고종환). Kato tweaked the arrangement by making it more pentatonic. Days before the single was to go on sale, Chosen Soren contacted Toshiba demanding that they credit Pak and Ko as creators and keep the lyrics true to the North Korean version. The label was willing to grant the first request but that meant that they were acknowledging North Korea’s presence in a Japanese product and giving a share of their money to its songwriters. Given that the two countries have had a very messy relationship, perhaps the safer route was to pretend that the single didn’t exist in the first place.
The "Rimjin Gan" version
I’ve come across a few articles online stating that Matsuyama had neo-colonialist intentions by making the song Japanese and changing its original meaning. I’ve also read his side of the story through J-Wiki and see a more complex situation. In 2002, the year when “Imjin River” was finally released as a single in Japan, he published the memoir Shonen M no Imjin Gawa” (少年Mのイムジン河), which then became the basis for “Pacchigi!” In there, he recounts how he first encountered the song while visiting a Korean high school in Kyoto to arrange a soccer game between his school and theirs. He overheard the beautiful melody coming from a music practice room and requested the sheet music for it. While attending Kyoto University, he decided to share the song with his friend Kato, who in turn recorded it with his band. There’s a similar scene in “Pacchigi!” where Shun Shioya’s (塩谷瞬) character Kosuke Matsuyama (do see what they did there?) also hears the song in a music practice room at the same kind of school in Kyoto. He later performs The Folk Crusaders’ version on streets after hearing it on the “Harenchi” LP at a local record shop. There’s one line in Matsuyama’s lyrics that makes me question the “neocolonial” tone of his version and that’s the one that translates to “Who divided this land?” One scene in the film reveals Matsuyama’s intentions, which I assume came from his memoir, via a conversation with a local pub owner where she mentions that Korea was not only divided by the opposing Korean parties, but also the Soviet Union and USA for their Cold War influences and even Japan when it occupied Korea and disturbed the people’s sense of national unity.
2002 issue cover
The 2002 single issue of “Imjin River” credits the deserving personnel: Pak and Matsuyama as lyricists, Ko as composer and Kato as arranger. It peaked on No.14 on Oricon weeklies, while “Pacchigi!” became a popular and critically claimed film in its home country, winning the Best Film award at 48th Blue Ribbon Awards along with four more at the 27th Yokohama Film Festival. It was followed by a sequel in 2007 and a stage play in 2009. You can read about the plot on English Wikihere. Even though I found it a bit silly at times, it nevertheless presents some interesting information about the relationship between the Japanese and Zainichi Koreans in 60s Japan, and of course presents the tough journey of this intriguing song to life.
Lastly, I would like to thank Oliver Dew for his wonderful article in the “Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema”, “Pacchigi, the Imjin River incident and ‘1968’: transmedia history telling”. I referred to the information in there extensively while writing this entry.
