Michiya Mihashi -- Hoshikuzu no Machi (星屑の町)

To be honest, I find this song a little odd... but in a good way. With the soft trumpets and Broadway feel to 'Hoshikuzu no Machi' (Town of stardust), Michiya Mihashi's (三橋美智也) Enka voice seems out of place as I would usually think that someone else with a lower vocal delivery would be singing this type of song. But it actually worked out quite well, especially since he's able to bring out that certain element of loneliness in it.

Another thing that I find rather amusing is that 'Hoshikuzu no Machi' presents me with two images in my head that have quite the difference. One being having a lighter, happier mood to it, the other more forlorn... which is strange since that no song has ever done that until now.

First image is of ol'Michi lightheartedly prancing around in that tux of his and swinging from lamp post to lamp post as he belts out the song on an empty street at night... kinda like what Gene Kelly did in the 'Singin' in the rain', but you know, minus the rain. On the other hand, the other image I got was of him - still in the tuxedo - roaming the lamp-lit streets and staring at the pavement with hands in his pockets. An occasional glance up to the dark skies above to check out the stars with his head hung low most of the time as he reminisces a love one or something on that line. But either interpretation, I enjoy the song's atmosphere and it's goes great with the Christmas decor out in town at this time of the year, with the lights looking like star dust on the trees and buildings!

Anyway, written by Juzaburo Tojo and composed by Yoshiaki Abe (東条寿三郎 . 安部芳明), 'Hoshikuzu no Machi' was released in May 1962 and it was pretty well recieved. Being 1 of Michi's 18 'million sellers', it reached number one on the music ranking show 'Zenkoku Kayo Best 10' (全国歌謡ベストテン) and allowed him to receive the 'Singing Award' at the 4th Japan Record Awards. Plus, he got to sing the song once on the Kohaku. All that in the same year. Wow.

www.ds-sounds.jp

Hachiro Kasuga/Sayuri Ishikawa -- Otomi-San (お富さん)

A couple of months back I had done articles on songs by each of the 3 reputable Enka singers from the 50's, collectively known as the 'San'nin no kai' (三人の会)... predecessors of the Gosanke, if you will. Actually, I prefer these ancient oldies to the real Gosanke with the reason being that they all look really grand and impressive during their senior years (didn't last long though). Well, there is also the part that they're more Enka than Kayokyoku which I kinda like.

So, a quick recap of the fellows: The fearsome-looking Hideo Murata (村田英雄), the stoic Michiya Mihashi (三橋美智也), and finally the amiable Hachiro Kasuga (春日八郎) who also happens to be my favourite out of the trio with his strange nasally voice. I had began the last '50's Gosanke posts' with Murata's 'Osho' (王将), so now I shall start off part II of this little series with Kasuga's biggest hit and one of my most played Enka songs, 'Otomi-San' (Miss Otomi). Full version is in the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVpdiCVzIJI

Released in 1954 with its jaunty, upbeat tune by the late composer Masanobu Tokuchi (渡久地政信), you'd think 'Otomi san' would probably be a song where everything is peachy and the protagonist is skipping through the streets without a single care in the world. Well, in reality, it's not as pretty as it seems. Apparently 'Otomi-San' is based on the Kabuki play by the name of  'Yowa nasake uki nano kogushi' (与話情浮名横櫛) wherein this fellow tries to get a rich merchant's concubine to fork over the cash... but unbeknownst to him the concubine was his ex. Ouch. Lyrics are by Tadashi Yamazaki (山崎正), and some of them are even from the play's script or something like that. The line below shows 2 examples of it... minus the 'ni' part, and it's also the song's first line.

Iki na kurobe mikoshi na matsu ni        粋な黒塀  見越の松に

I got this translation from this website or blog with some articles on Japanese music (culture) over the years... pretty informative too. You can check it out here.

Anyway, exactly how many copies of 'Otomi-San' is not known but it's not a long shot to say that it crossed the million mark. There is even a disco version of it from 1977 by EBONEE WEBB that is aptly named 'Disco Otomi-San'. That sold over 200 000 copies in just 2 weeks! Kasuga sang his hit twice on the Kohaku, during his first appearance in 1954 as well as his 21st and last appearance in 1989.

Just some extra trivia here... 'Otomi-San' was actually meant to be sung by the then famed Kayokyoku singer Haruo Oka (岡晴夫), but due to his shift from King Record to Colombia Record, the producers were desperate to find a suitable replacement. Then came the fresh-faced Kasuga (30 at that time) who was probably enjoying his time in the limelight after his debut hit 'Akai lamp no shuresha' (赤いランプの終列車) and the rest was history.

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

There have been many later renditions of the song by other Enka singers, and my favourite cover has got to be by the demure Sayuri Ishikawa (石川さゆり) who tackles 'Otomi-San' with great ease... haha, that sentence sounds funny! The more I read it the funnier it gets. But seriously, her smooth vocal delivery plus the music that's a tad slower in pace and slightly jazzy kick to it just makes for a good relaxing tune. Ishikawa's version was released in 2007 along with countless other covers of songs from the 50's and 60's in the album called '20 Seiki no meikyoku tachi' (二十世紀の名曲たち). It's got 10 parts with more than a hundred songs!

http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/sangorow/hotomisannewpage1.html

Rajie -- Watashi wa Suteki （わたしはすてき）

As nikala wrote in her article about Rajie's 4th album, "Mahiru no Hodou"（真昼の舗道）, there isn't a whole lot of information on this singer although my fellow collaborator put a goodly amount of it in the first paragraph. She also mentioned about her 3rd album "Quatre" (1979) which was an example of techno kayo.

Well, just by chance, I came across one of the tracks from that album, "Watashi wa Suteki" (I'm Wonderful) last night. It's a pretty quirky track created by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Akiko Yano（坂本龍一・矢野顕子）that combines some light technopop with some Bee Gees, and the fact that Rajie is singing in an even higher register (along with the Sakamoto connection) had me thinking of Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. Yano's lyrics have the protagonist swooning about how splendid the morning is and how wonderful it is to be her....sounds somewhat Kardashian. But I gather that at the time when this was released, the rising wealth of the country getting reflected in the big city was sparking some big-time urban narcissism via the restaurants and discos.

One more tidbit of trivia from Rajie's J-Wiki article....this time, on the derivation of her stage name. Apparently, the then-Atsuko Souma（相馬淳子）got it from a character from the 1966 film, "Maya".

Ken Takakura -- Abashiri Bangaichi （網走番外地）

On biweekly Monday nights, my anime buddy gives me a call and we spend about an hour catching up on stuff which naturally includes the latest anime episodes downloaded into his computer. That was also the case last night but as I was heading toward the telephone to answer the call, I caught sight of the NHK News on the telly. And it reported that veteran actor Ken Takakura（高倉健）passed away from lymphoma at the age of 83 on November 10th.

He lived a good long life but it's hard to imagine someone of the stature of Takakura leaving this mortal coil. NHK's "News Watch 9" delivered a lengthy tribute to him earlier this morning, and in one of the interview segments, the actor himself admitted that a lot of his roles were of the underworld gangster type. However, my image of the man was quite a bit more heroic than anti-heroic. With his craggy face and stoic bearing, he reminded me of Gary Cooper from the Golden Age of Hollywood....especially when it came to Coop's seminal oater, "High Noon". Takakura also seemed to have that attitude of "Look, I don't want to hurt you but if you push me, I will do what I have to do."

Speaking of oaters, one of the movies that was featured during the tribute to Takakura was his 1965 "Abashiri Bangaichi" (A Man From Abashiri Prison), the first in a series of films. It starred the actor as an ideal prisoner in a penitentiary up in Hokkaido just a few months away from getting out when he's forced into an escape by some of the other hardened residents. I mention "oaters" here since the theme song with the same title has an arrangement which reminds me of music that I would hear from a number of the old Hollywood westerns. Written by Takao Kanbe（タカオ・カンベ）and composed by Eiichi Yamada（山田栄一）, Takakura himself sung this ballad about getting out of the titular prison as a humbled human being. From the feeling of the song, there doesn't seem to be anything celebratory; he just sounds grateful to get out while he's still alive.

Takakura released a number of songs over his career ranging from 1958 to 1996.

I got to see Takakura in a couple of his Hollywood outings, "Black Rain" and "Mr. Baseball", but there was also one other more notable flick that I was able to catch years and years ago, "Shiawase no Kiiroi Hankachi"（幸福の黄色いハンカチ...The Yellow Handkerchief） from 1977. Once again, Takakura played a taciturn fellow out of Abashiri Prison (this time, legally) who ended up going on a road trip of sorts with actors Tetsuya Takeda（武田鉄矢）and Kaori Momoi（桃井かおり）. Director Yoji Yamada（山田洋次）from the "Tora-san" series helmed this award-winning film and he brought over a few other elements from that franchise...namely Chieko Baisho（倍賞千恵子）as the love interest and even a cameo by Kiyoshi (Torajiro) Atsumi（渥美清）himself. But to be honest, I really only remember Takakura from the movie, and that's saying something about his charisma, considering that neither Momoi nor Takeda were shrinking violets either.

Ken Takakura was born in Fukuoka as Goichi Oda（小田 剛一）in 1931 and made his debut in movies in 1956. He had been married to the late Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ）from 1959 to 1971.

Ikuzo Yoshi -- NDA! [んだ！]

No, I did not misspell the song title, nor is it an acronym for something else. NDA! is an exclamation similar to "Whoa, really?!" brought to you by the quirky, husky-voiced Enka singer Ikuzo Yoshi (吉幾三). Although I had never heard of this sort of exclamation before, I've grown to like it and it's quite appropriate for the song as a whole, which I would touch on in a while.

Moving on, NDA! seems to be more like the sequel to his earlier Rap-Enka fusion 'Ora Tokyo sa igu da' (俺ら東京さ行ぐだ) since it revolves around this fellow, most likely from the boondocks, narrating his experiences during his first ever trip to the bustling metropolitan known as Tokyo. And since he was only a teenager then (before they had pandas in the Ueno zoo), there's this element of wonder and bewilderment as he explores the different parts of the city be it classy or gritty, which is conveyed well by the bongos behind the narration in the middle of the somewhat Caribbean-themed music. The constant "NDA!s" in the background just adds to the character's - I'm quite sure it's Yoshi himself - growing fascination.

(cover version)

YES, I got the full version of the original song! (Edited about an hour after posting this article)
(Actually not anymore since music163 was rendered inoperable. However, there is the YouTube video above to enjoy --- J-Canuck)

Anyway, NDA! was released as the singer's 52nd single in October 2008 and was written and composed by Yoshi himself, which would probably explain why there are some strange words mixed into the lyrics. Interestingly, those are from his native Tsugaru dialect... Tsugaru is a region in the Aomori prefecture at the northern most tip of Honshu, and Yoshi's hometown of Kanagimachi (金木町) is somewhere in there. I only discovered that while flipping through that lyric book thing you get along with the album - Zenkyoku shu ~ NDA! [んだ！] ~.

Gotta love that Yoshi face!

okmusic.jp

Jackie Chan -- Telephone

I’ve always had fun with Jackie Chan’s (ジャッキー・チェン) movies, especially 2002’s bad critically acclaimed “The Tuxedo” (the gorgeous Jennifer Love Hewitt even played Jackie’s partned in this one), but I could never guess that Jackie had an active singing career, mostly during the 80s (he even collaborated with aidoru Naoko Kawai [河合奈保子] in the late 80s). After discovering this fun fact, I quickly started searching for some of his albums and the first one I came across was 1987’s “No Problem” (無問題/モウマンタイ), which was one of the albums he released for the Japanese market. 

The whole album (nine songs in total) is a pretty nice collection of synthpop songs, but it could have been better without the boring ballads (one third of the album, if I'm not mistaken). As we're talking about Jackie Chan, it's an okay result... he's always a fun guy to watch or, in this case, to listen to. In a more specific way, though, the one song that grabbed my attention and even conquered a place in my diverse “RANDOM SONGS” file was “Telephone”, the album’s opener. 

“Telephone” was a big surprise to me because of its major City Pop vibes. Jackie doesn’t sing here, limiting himself to some speaking sentences in English, Japanese and Chinese, so the music is the main focus. Also, I don’t really know why, but the song’s whole cheesiness makes me feel very warm inside. Well, let’s be honest here, Jackie receiving a phone call, talking simple sentences in three different languages and wishing Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with an easy listening song playing behind is the epitome of the word cheesy... and that’s hilarious! In the end, how do not love this song? Sax, synths, bass, the beautiful piano... and Jackie being Jackie. The world is perfect again.

Morning Musume -- Toki wo Koe Sora wo Koe (時空を超え 宇宙を超え)

2014 is almost gone and, like always, I started selecting my favourite songs from the year. Looking at my selection, I concluded that I reviewed a good portion of them here on KKP through the year, but also skept one or another important song. One of my skips was Morning Musume.’s (モーニング娘。) “Toki wo Koe Sora wo Koe”, which was released back in April.

Since 2012, Morning Musume. is investing really hard in this heavy electronic pop trend that suddenly became popular in the United States. They’ve done it in a aggressive and cool way, which earned them very good sales and more #1 singles on the Oricon charts to their long discography, but as a fan of the group’s “Golden Times”, it was impossible for me to truly enjoy the new changes.

As for “Toki wo Koe Sora wo Koe”, Tsunku (つんく♂) had the great idea of keeping the electronic elements while changing the mood a little bit. In this canse, instead of an aggressive electronic pop song, the group released a beautiful ballad with electronic interventions here and there, and also stuttering piano notes and strings in the arrangement. Add a touching chorus and we have Morning Musume.’s most interesting single in a while.

The video, although simple, is visually stunning. The nice blue dresses combined very well with the space thematic and the girls are absolutely gorgeous. Also, I always think of them as spatial fairies every time I watch the video.

“Toki wo Koe Sora wo Koe”, which was a double a-side single with “Password is 0”, reached #1 on the Oricon charts, selling 132,225 copies. Lyrics and music were done by Tsunku, while Kaoru Okubo (大久保薫) was responsible for the arrangement.