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.
Well, it's been a while since I've had a Yuming song up so I decided to go with a track from an album that I wasn't all that enthused with when I first got it. "Dawn Purple" was Yumi Matsutoya's（松任谷由実）23rd album from November 1991. Mind you, all things being relative, a not-so-great Yuming album may actually be not all that bad by itself but when you compare it to some of the great past releases such as "No Side" and "Cobalt Hour"....well...
In any case, I did pass the half-century mark over the past couple of weeks so this is "Happy Birthday to You! Venus no Tanjo"(The Birth of Venus). Of course, it's Yuming-made but the song itself sounds like a mix between a Yuming tune from the late 80s/early 90s and a Pet Shop Boys entry especially in the beginning. It certainly has the kick to it, punctuated by the fact that Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）helps out in the chorus; the arrangement has that feeling that something is about to launch...or give birth, as it were.
According to J-Wiki, the song was based in part on another tune that Yuming had created for Asami Kobayashi（小林麻美）"Tooku kara Happy Birthday"（遠くからHAPPY BIRTHDAY...Happy Birthday from Abroad）back in 1987, and "Venus no Tanjo" was used as the theme song for NHK's coverage of the 1992 Olympics in Albertville. Perhaps there were a bunch of athletes who were celebrating their special days back then.
And perhaps it might be time to give "Dawn Purple" another try.
I had been thinking of what song from Hachiro Kasuga's (春日八郎) extensive repertoire I should write about, and I narrowed it down to "Furusato wa Toi Sora" (故郷は遠い空) and "Nigate Nandayo". The former I got to know via an episode of "Shin Nippon no Uta"; Teruo Ikeda (池田輝郎) had sung it, and when it was made known that Hachi was its original singer, I wasn't surprised - both their voices have a similar quality so it was like hearing Kasuga sing it. The latter was discovered in that 4 CD enka compilation album I found a while ago. Looking at that album now, I'm glad to say that I recognize half of those presented on its cover, as well as more songs from the playlists.
I decided to go with "Nigate Nandayo", since I had known it for a much longer period of time and have been listening to it, and I only heard "Furusato wa Toi Sora" just that one time.
When I first bought the album, "Nigate Nandayo" was one of the few songs I had dared to listen to, mainly because it was sung by a singer I recognized - bear in mind that it was during that time where I still wasn't very familiar with old enka. Truth be told I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a Hachi song I knew. Nevertheless, I listened to it anyway, and it was actually quite easy on the ears and a little whimsical sounding. Speaking of whimsical sounding, in the version I've been listening to, Hachi's warbling seemed higher and more nasally than what I'm used to, it's as if he sucked in helium right before singing it. Probably because he was younger; it was sung earlier in his career in 1957.
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As for its meaning, when Hachi sang "Okyaku-San ni..." I had an inkling that "Nigate Nandayo" might be about a some fellow working tirelessly as a wait staff at a drinking establishment, taking orders from customers, wiping table and clearing glasses. Though not 100% accurate, at least I got the bar bit down. From the translation I read just a few days ago, it's about our bar singer protagonist receiving a request from the customers to sing a song about his hometown, and while doing so, he gets choked up with emotions that he can't help but shed a couple of tears. Lucky for him, the customers are able to empathize with him as they are also going through the same predicament. Not your typical bokyo enka tune, I must say, where the victim of homesickness is usually the one drinking and listening to the music.
Isao Hayashi (林伊佐緒) took care of the music while Ryo Yano (矢野亮) did the lyrics.
This is the album I was talking about,
by the way.
Out of the Yonin Shu, Mom had the most difficulty in remembering Kasuga. I guess its because I hardly ever let her listen to anything by The First Enka Singer. But I was afraid of doing so as she's not a fan of his type of singing style. So since she doesn't have a very strong impression of him, Hachi is just Hachi, but said in such a way that it sounds like a sneeze.
I was watching "Kayo Concert"（歌謡コンサート）last night. The theme was heartbreak ballads and they didn't fail to deliver with one of the big examples being "Ima wa Shiawase kai"(Are You Happy?). The original artist was Mitsuo Sagawa（佐川満男）who is not only a singer but also a tarento and actor. In fact, I think his acting resume is probably a whole lot longer than his music output.
However, "Ima wa Shiawase kai" is one of his biggies from 1968. Written and composed by Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）, who would later compose the sad but proud "Kassai"（喝采）for Naomi Chiaki（ちあきなおみ）, Sagawa forlornly asks that title question to the girl he let get away from him. Unlike his bearded (!) appearance on that bright stage there, I think he ought to be strumming that guitar somewhere on a lonely street in the dark while wearing a trench coat. It may not have that Latin feeling that often comes through a Mood Kayo, but it's definitely a cry-in-your-sake ballad.
Although I don't have any information on its success in terms of rankings, it apparently was a huge hit according to J-Wiki, and Sagawa ended up on the Kohaku Utagassen for that song and has appeared a total of 4 times. One other piece of trivia is that he married singer Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）in 1971 but they divorced 5 years later.
I've always thought that Keizo Nakanishi（中西圭三）and Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）were kinda like two peas in a pod when it came to their singing styles with the former tending a little more toward pop and doo-wop. Thanks to my friend and my cousin, I was introduced to Nakanishi's music in the early 90s and I was quite happy with it so that I eventually bought two of his albums "Starting Over" and "graffiti".
I also bought a few more original albums by Nakanishi, but the overall impression hasn't been as great. For example, I listened to "Stay Gold", his 7th album from February 1998, when it first came out but didn't open it again for another 17 years when I pulled it off the shelf today, although I've been quite faithful to my two favourite albums by him. Giving it another try on the player, I just found the majority of the songs to be rather generic.
However, one track "WITH" which features backup by acapella unit Gospellers tugged at my ear, and I gave it another chance by listening to it again. This was another in the long fine line of smooth ballads composed by Nakanishi with J Stack and lyrics by Kanata Asamizu（朝水彼方）who also contributed to a lot of the tracks on "Starting Over". The arrangement and the delivery had me thinking that Sing Like Talking could have also tackled "WITH" with no problem.
Last month, I was introduced to a most interesting lady and singer in the figure of Megumi Satsu（薩めぐみ）. As I mentioned in her debut article on the blog, "Je M'aime", although she was listed as a chanson singer, so far, I've seen her as someone who fully engaged her New Wave.
Case in point: her 1984 "Silicone Lady". I couldn't find the lyrics for this song that had me thinking of some of the more avant-garde music from Canada and the UK that I heard back in that same decade. However, according to one site, "Silicone Lady is a cheesy hi-NRG track with insane lyrics about a crazy doctor who gave birth to a female robot who tries to emancipate from his evil creator… ". Hmm...I wonder if it had been inspired by the Fritz Lang movie "Metropolis" in some way. In any case, growing up with music back in the 1980s, it does have that technopoppy appeal that had me interested in bands like The Spoons and Visage.
Haven't heard this one in a good long while. But when Hitomi Yaida's（矢井田瞳）3rd single was released in January 2001, its video was another long-running one on the various channels and music shows. I always remembered "I'm here saying nothing" as the one with the girl in the creepy mask of Yaiko and a dancing Yaiko on the sand (didn't remember the ostrich though).
Of course, "I'm here saying nothing" was written and composed by Yaida herself, and the lyrics were esoteric enough so that I could agree with the title. According to the J-Wiki article on the song, the video had a bit of an Irish motif, although I think the song itself had that exotic tinge that was probably somewhere deeper in the European mainland. But what sold the song on me were her fresh vocals.
"I'm here saying nothing" got as high as No. 4 on Oricon, and was a track on her 2nd original album, "Candlize" from October 2001 which hit the top spot on the charts and ended up as the 33rd-ranked album of the year.
I'm probably a little slow in finding this out: when Haruo Minami (三波春夫) appears alongside the San'nin no Kai, they are then collectively known as the Yonin Shu (四人衆)... now that makes it easier for me to refer to all of them at one go!
Anyway, there's this show on NHK that airs from time to time on Thursday evenings whenever a Thursday drama has finished its run. It's called "Gokigen Kayosho Gekidan" (ごきげん歌謡笑劇団), or "Happy Theater", as mentioned in the English schedule, and it is hosted by my favourite monomane talent, Korokke (コロッケ). Starting every episode is a period skit performed by the man himself as well as the guest actors/comedians and enka singers of the day, and through one recent skit staring Tetsuya Takeda (武田鉄矢) as a ronin (he's pretty convincing as one), I finally understood some of the terms used in many enka tunes that feature these hardened wandering warriors. Minami's "Yuki no Wataridori" is one such example.
The first term was one that I had some sort of idea as to what it was really referring to, that being "Wataridori", which means migratory bird. Many, many songs about ronin have this term, but I wasn't able to fully understand how birds are related to the fellas. My guess was that the "Wataridori" referred to the ronin themselves as they too never stay in one place for long. But Korokke's skit helped to cement that idea. It really did refer to the ronin. The next term learnt, I've only heard in "Yuki no Wataridori", and that's "Koi na" (鯉名). This one really puzzled me as it translates to "Carp name". It is mentioned in one of the last few lines of "Yuki no Wataridori" where the scene seems to be that of a showdown between the ronin and some badies, and it had me wondering why Minami said that the name of his carp is Ginpei before the fight. Did he really like his koi that much? Thankfully, the skit came to the rescue yet again. When introducing Takeda's character, rather than the usual "Namae" before the name, it had "Koi na". So, if I'm not mistaken, "Koi na" is just the ronin term for name. Man, the relief felt at that moment when getting its meaning was amazing! That's about all the terms I got so far, though there are still a few I have yet to understand.
Alright, now that I got the concepts for some of the words used in this type of enka, I think "Yuki no Wataridori" should be about the ronin travelling around in winter, when the snow falls, covering the land and the top of his straw hat in a thin sheet of sparkly white. Just like the songs like it, "Yuki no Wataridori" has a chirpy score to it, and it really fits Minami's bright and cheery persona.
This song was written by Minoru Shimizu (清水みのる) and composed by Akira Mutsu (陸奥明). Released in 1957, this was one of Minami's first few singles and I imagine that it did well in terms of sales as it allowed the enka veteran to sing this on the 1st of his 29 appearances on the Kohaku in 1958. He sang it two more times on this competition in 1979 and 1984. Many singers have done covers of this hit, and one of them happens to another big name in the enka world, Hiroshi Itsuki (五木ひろし). He did a pretty good job. And then again, Itsuki usually does a good job with the classics.
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Ah yes, the nickname Mom had decided to give Minami... Well, fans of Minami please don't take any offence and I apologize if any taken, she didn't really like him at first (she's somewhat alright with him now... not his singing though) and thought of him as rather feminine due to his flowery and pastel coloured kimonos and graceful movements, so she called him "Sisi", as in "Sissy". I objected at first, but gave up eventually.
October 4, 2021: J-Canuck has also written up his take on the song.
