Akiko Kikuchi/Yuriko Futaba -- Ganpeki no Haha（岸壁の母）

 

As I've mentioned in the past, enka and Mood Kayo can have a number of lyrical themes including the trial and tribulations of work, crying one's sorrows in drink or having that romantic whirlwind (illicit or not).

One other common raison d'etre for an enka ballad or an old kayo regards the pining for a loved one lost due to various circumstances including war. I used to hear one on my parents' stereo in which there was one song that had the very memorable scream of "MOTHER!!!" in Japanese in the middle, perhaps being yelled out by a soldier who was about to lose his life on the battlefield. 

Recently on an "Uta Con"（うたコン）episode late last year, there was a rendition of such a song that has probably cleared many tear ducts since it was first introduced. Titled "Ganpeki no Haha" (Mother at the Wharf), it was first released as a single by Akiko Kikuchi（菊池章子）in September 1954, and it was modeled upon a woman named Ise Tanno（端野いせ）* who had visited a wharf frequently (although I'm not sure whether it was every day) in the hopes that her son would return from a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp. You can read the full story at the link here.

Written by Masato Fujita（藤田まさと）and composed by Namiryuu Hirakawa（平川浪竜）**, the sad lyrics are overlaid with an elegant, even slightly buoyant, melody which has often gone hand-in-hand with what a kayo was all about. If I hadn't understood the lyrics, I probably wouldn't have recognized "Ganpeki no Haha" as a cry-worthy tune of loss and forlorn hope. The song did hit a nerve among the Japanese since it sold over a million records.

Many years later in 1971, kayo singer Yuriko Futaba（二葉百合子）provided her version of "Ganpeki no Haha" through an album of covers titled "Futaba Yuriko no Namida no Kayo Gekijo"（二葉百合子の涙の歌謡劇場...Yuriko Futaba's Tearful Song Theatre）, and then a single with "Ganpeki no Haha" was released in February 1972. I don't know how the recorded version sounds like but if it's anything like how Futaba performed it before the TV audiences, then this cover gained a certain grandeur, almost like a Hideo Murata（村田英雄）song. Apparently, according to the J-Wiki article on the song, this version incorporated a rokyoku rhythm.

Through the combined sales of LP records, audiotape and singles, Futaba's "Ganpeki no Haha" did even better than the original by selling more than 2.5 million copies. The song also went as high as No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies and became the 5th-biggest single of 1976. A number of other enka singers since then have covered it including Aya Shimazu（島津亜矢）and Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）.

*The article regarding the mother includes two different readings of the kanji for her last name: Tanno and Hashino. Not sure if this was by design or the writer simply made a mistake here.

**Not 100%  sure on the reading of the first name although according to "Music Brainz", it's being read that way.

Haruo Minami/Michiya Mihashi/Yuriko Futaba/Aya Shimazu -- Ippon Gatana Dohyo Iri （一本刀土俵入り）

First off, I hope that everyone in Kumamoto Prefecture is doing fine after that M6.4 earthquake in the area on Thursday night.

The classic Minami pose

It hasn't been too busy a week in terms of work so I've been able to do some more digging into the record vaults, so to speak, and I was able to pull this one out by the master himself, the late Haruo Minami（三波春夫）the minyo-trained enka singer. The album is a 2-record set of 20 of his hits and listening to just even Record 1 had me realizing that a lot of them could have been chosen by fellow collaborator Noelle Tham herself!

Then I came across this song by Minami which was yet to have been placed into the blog. It's titled "Ippon Gatana Dohyo Iri" (One-Sword Enters The Ring) and just like a lot of his works, it's a Minami celebration based on a dramatic play of the same name originally created by novelist and playwright Shin Hasegawa（長谷川伸）about a struggling sumo wrestler named Mohei（茂兵衛）without friends or family who needs some sympathy and money, and finally gets both from a waitress in a bar-lined street. A decade later, Mohei ends up as a gambler and has a fateful re-encounter with that kind waitress...and some other not-so-kind fellows. The 1960 song was written by Masato Fujita（藤田まさと）and composed by Kazuo Harukawa（春川一夫）, and listening to it on the record, I could tell that this "Ippon Gatana Dohyo Iri" stressed more of the hero in anti-hero when it came to Mohei.

Now, if you noticed above the performance video of Minami in the last line, I stated "this 'Ippon Gatana Dohyo Iri'", and that is because, there are at least four different songs with that same exact title in existence in enka according to the J-Wiki article. I don't think I have ever come across a situation like this before on the blog so I've gone beyond the boundaries of that BEST album by Minami to find out about the other three. I think any drama that has been able to give birth to four different enka songs created by different songwriters must be highly respected indeed, and from what I could glean from the story as summarized on that J-Wiki article, the overarching themes are duty, charity and honour.

The first version of "Ippon Gatana Dohyo Iri" was actually released in 1957 and sung by Michiya Mihashi（三橋美智也）. Written by Kikutaro Takahashi（高橋掬太郎）and composed by Junichi Hosokawa（細川潤一）, just from first impressions, there is more of an elegiac and solemn feeling to this original version. Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）and Kiyoshi Hikawa（氷川きよし）have also covered this take as well.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find out when enka singer Yuriko Futaba（二葉百合子）sang her own version of "Ippon Gatana Dohyo Iri" but this one was written by Tetsuro Fujima（藤間哲郎）and composed by Seiichi Sakurada（桜田誠一）. Perhaps it might be my own ears, but I think there is a softer feeling to this different song, although it seems as if Futaba is singing from the man's point of view.

Then in May 1992, "Ippon Gatana Dohyo Iri" was released in this form as Aya Shimazu's（島津亜矢）7th single. Out of the four versions, I think this one which is definitely told from Mohei's perspective is the most boisterous, especially with Shimazu taking on the wrestler's defiant voice. This was written by Kotoba Takatsuki（高月ことば）and composed by Ryosuke Murasawa（村沢良介）.

Since I've only just heard these four songs which all come across as The Ballad of Mohei, I can't really give much more insight than what I've written above. Perhaps with repeated listenings over the next little while will I be able to get some idea of any different angle of Hasegawa's classic tale.