The Works of Rokusuke Ei （永六輔）

Most likely over the next several months, there will be box collections of the works of lyricist Rokusuke Ei coming out in the major music stores. I just found out this morning that Ei had passed away last week at the age of 83. So the Creator article this time will be as much a tribute to the man as it will be a look at his songs.

Rokusuke Ei was born in 1933 in the district of Moto-Asakusa, Tokyo, and along with his title of lyricist, he was also a radio personality, an essayist and a tarento although according to the NHK report on his death, he far preferred being behind a radio mike over being in front of a TV camera. In fact, his J-Wiki article mentioned that he truly loved the medium of radio; one piece of information stated that after high school, he and a group of friends got together to buy various parts in Akihabara to create their own crystal radio set. The leader of that group just happened to be the late actor Kiyoshi Atsumi（渥美清）who would gain his own legend through his famous character of Tora-san.

But when the NHK report started, the song that played is arguably the one that he is the most famous for, "Ue wo Muite Arukou"（上を向いて歩こう）by Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）from 1961. Ei wrote this evergreen tune about smiling through the tears with his frequent songwriting partner, Hachidai Nakamura（中村八大）, who had left this mortal coil more than 20 years previously in 1992.

However, he and Nakamura got their songwriting tandem started in 1959 when they created the Mood Kayo "Kuroi Hanabira"（黒い花びら...Black Petals） for kayo singer Hiroshi Mizuhara（水原弘）. It was also a first for Mizuhara in that it was the singer's debut single. The combination was sweet for all concerned..."Kuroi Hanabira" won the Grand Prize at the very first Japan Record Awards in that same year.

The Ei/Nakamura duo had more success into the 1960s with another kayo standard, "Konnichiwa Akachan"（こんにちは赤ちゃん）from 1963 sung by Michiyo Azusa（梓みちよ）. As I mentioned in the article for that song, Ei wrote the words for Nakamura as a present of sorts in celebration of the upcoming birth of Nakamura's child.

Another composer who often worked with Ei was Taku Izumi（いずみたく）. Together they created another kayo classic in the form of "Ii Yu da na"（いい湯だな）in 1966 for the vocal group Duke Aces（デューク・エイセス）. Afterwards, the song was further immortalized as the ending theme for the very long-running variety series featuring comedy group The Drifters, "Hachi-ji da yo! Zen'in Shuugo!"（8時だよ！全員集合...It's 8 O'Clock! Everyone Assemble!）Considering how beloved onsen are in Japan, I would think that this song has triggered a Pavlovian craving for folks to head over to Hakone and other hot spring-laden resorts.

In the J-Wiki article on Ei, it said that although the songwriter liked some specific enka tunes, he wasn't a huge fan of the genre, generally speaking. And yet, he created one of Saburo Kitajima's（北島三郎）signature songs, "Kaero kana"（帰ろかな...Shall I Go Home?）for release in April 1965. An article for the song has yet to be written up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" so I will keep things brief here and just say that Ei and Nakamura managed to create an anthemic mountain-moving ballad for Sabu-chan that has been performed at no less than 7 of the Kohaku Utagassen specials, and most if not all of them probably ended the show in epic paper snow blizzards.

I'm uncertain whether Ei kept to a fixed theme when it came to writing lyrics for songs but just from looking back on some of these kayo here, I would guess that the lyricist liked to reflect specifically on the Japanese heart whether it dealt with the simple pleasures of soaking in a hot spring or keeping that smile up even during the most heartbreaking of times.

I may have heard it on that NHK report and I definitely did read it in the J-Wiki article but Ei stopped being a lyricist for the most part after 1969. According to that article, he had apparently been afraid that once anything got onto television, it would simply get trendy for that fact and perhaps not for the quality of the song itself. But the main reason was that Ei wanted to put his priorities on having Nakamura and Izumi more as friends than also as collaborating colleagues in the music industry. Perhaps he didn't like the stresses of songwriting wearing on their mutual friendships, and besides, it seems as if Ei had a lot of other interests to pursue to keep him happy. I'm not a religious man but I hope that Ei has now reunited with his old friends, Nakamura and Izumi (who also passed away in 1992) to talk about the old days. Meanwhile, I'm sure that there will be people here, famous or not, who will converse on and sing those nostalgic tunes at karaoke or the bars.

I'll leave you with a rendition of another Ei classic also from 1963, "Miagetegoran Yoru no Hoshi wo"（見上げてごらん夜の星を）, originally sung by Kyu Sakamoto.

Miki Imai -- Setsunasa no Mukougawa （切なさの向こう側）

Ahhh...another summer Monday night. Let's try something a little relaxing such as an early Miki Imai（今井美樹）, shall we? It kinda sounds like I'm recommending a cute cocktail, doesn't it? But listening to one of my favourite singers way back in the days of her debut makes for a nice tonic.

Well, tonight's gin and tonic is the final track on her very first album "femme" from December 1986, "Setsunasa no Mukougawa". Now, I've always wondered about that word in the title setsunasa and its adjectival form, setsunai. According to Jisho.org, the adjective is defined as "painful", "heartrending" and "suffocating". Hmmm...I think all three of those have different nuances to them, but considering the lyrics by Junko Sato（佐藤純子）, I believe I will go with "heartbreaking". So, perhaps the translation of the title can be "Beyond Heartbreak". Plus, a number of pop songs, including a lot of Imai's works, deal with the aftermath of a romantic breakup.

And listening to the gentle melody by Kyoichi Usamoto（宇佐元恭一）along with Imai's just-as-gentle vocals, perhaps I should change that tonic into a chamomile tea. Considering that this was the singer's first album, there is something that sounds quite proto-Imai about "Setsunasa no Mukougawa". Imai's voice sounds even featherier here and the arrangement seems a bit more stripped down with the piano being the most dominant instrument by far. Nope, perhaps it's not on the same level as some of the hit ballads that Imai would sing in the future but considering that it's been 30 years since the release of the album, the song has that pleasant nostalgic air to it. Comfy as a rocking chair.

Ahhh...that Imai smile!

Asakusa Star Plaza

While hunting for the pretty elusive Miyada Records in the streets around the Kaminarimon in Asakusa, we happened to come across a not very large concert hall. At the entrance of this concert hall were dozens of hand prints from those famous in the entertainment world.

That was a familiar sight as I had seen/heard of it when I watched the making of one of Kouhei Fukuda's concerts earlier this year, where during his break he wandered out of the concert hall to a concrete field of hand prints in search of Michiya Mihashi's; he found it, and coincidentally, their hands are of the same size. At that time, I thought that it'd be amazing if I could go there, but not knowing its location, I just left it as that. So stumbling upon it while in search of Miyada Records came as a pleasant surprise.

I recognized many names of singers, composers, and actors, so there I was admiring each print and hunkering down at each one I liked to compare my own hand size with theirs. It was really enjoyable despite the heat and the leg muscle workout. Many of those whose hand prints were immortalized before the concert hall had already passed on, so to me, placing my hand in their hand print was as close as I could get to shaking or touching their hand.

Anyways, here are some of the hand prints. Photos courtesy of Mom because my hands were covered in dirt and dust from touching the impressions.

  

For lyricists and composers, we have Rokusuke Ei (right) and Shosuke Ichikawa (left). Ei's hands were big and wide, he was quite a big guy (Update: he just passed away last week, at the age of 83. Rest in peace, good sir). Ichikawa, on the other hand - pun intended (?) - was easily the smallest hand print on display. I know he's not as big as the lyricist, but I didn't know he was that little!

  

Here we've got Tetsuya Watari (right) and Makoto Fujita (left). Watari has the biggest hands of the lot with long and thick fingers; exactly how I'd envision a towering tough guy's to be.

  

On the right is Hiroshi Itsuki's and on the left is Shinichi Mori's. Itsuki has got nice, uniformly shaped hands too, while Mori's were smaller than expected.

  

Then there's Yuzo Kayama's and Saburo Kitajima's. Kayama has large palms.

  

Yukio Hashi's hand print is on the right while Ichiro Fujiyama's is on the left. I'm aware that Fujiyama was a slim man, but his hands were so slender and his fingers were freakishly long (pardon me, Mr. Fujiyama)!

  

Continuing the ryukoka singer trend from Fujiyama, we have Yoshio Tabata (right) and Dick Mine (left). My hand was almost the size of Batayan's, just that he had slightly wider palms and slightly longer fingers. Besides Itsuki's and Ei's, I find myself liking Mine's hands too. He had quite a... manly but shapely hand.

  

Moving on to the showa era enka singers, we've got the Queen of Kayo, Hibari Misora's dainty little hand print, as well as the rokyoku master, Haruo Minami's. Perhaps the only one smaller or the same size as Ichikawa's hand was Misora's. Minami's print was one of the few left-hand-prints, and he did too have rather nice hands.

  

The last ones that were taken photo of were Michiya Mihashi's and Hachiro Kasuga's. Kasuga had surprisingly big hands - he had really large palms. As for Mihashi's, they were smaller than expected too... But out of those I had placed my hand in, his was a perfect fit.

Okay, fine, his thumb was slightly thicker than mine, but still.

Taken from Azuma-bashi

Mari Kunitake -- Pokeberu ga Naranakute (ポケベルが鳴らなくて)

In a country that is so catchphrase/buzzword-happy like Japan, there is probably a ton of such now-dead catchphrases and buzzwords existentially piled up as a mountain as high as Mt. Fuji. One of those faddy words was certainly pokeberu. A romaji mashup of the English words pocket bell, it was the Japanese translation of "pager" or "beeper". In the age of pre-cellphone Japan, that was the communications thing for the hip set. But personally, it was only something that I merely witnessed on TV; I never saw it being used in person by anyone in the wilds of the Japanese Alps during my Gunma days nor did I know anyone who had pulled one out in the very early years of my stay in the Tokyo bedroom city of Ichikawa.

So when I came across this title of this song "Pokeberu ga Naranakute" (The Pager Doesn't Ring), I automatically went "Natsukashii~!". This was Mari Kunitake's（国武万里）2nd single from July 1993, and it's one of those delightful discoveries since I had never heard of either the singer nor the song before. I enjoy the melody which symbolizes that certain turn-of-the-decade pop sound consisting of the combination of the champagne synths-laden City Pop sound of the late 1980s and the more rock edge that was picked up by acts such as Zard from the early 1990s.

The lyrics were provided by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）with music by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）. This was probably the lone big hit for Kunitake who hails from Hyogo Prefecture, as she only released 7 singles and 4 albums between 1992 and 1997. "Pokeberu ga Naranakute" reached as high as No. 7 and was also a track on her debut album "Kimi wa Aozora ni Niteiru"（君は青空に似ている...You Look Like the Blue Sky） from August 1993. The single sold over half a million copies and won Kunitake a prize for Best New Singer at that year's Japan Record Awards.

"Pokeberu ga Naranakute" was also the theme song for a Saturday-night NTV drama with the same title. It had the provocative plot of a middle-aged businessman played by the late Ken Ogata (緒形拳...who was the title character in the motion picture biography "Mishima") having an illicit May-December affair with a travel agency staffer 29 years his junior played by Nae Yuuki（裕木奈江）. It didn't particularly score any great ratings but considering the time slot the drama got, I'm not particularly surprised although according to J-Wiki, the actress Yuuki apparently had a whole lot of abuse heaped on her due to her role. I have never seen the drama before, but I can't imagine a happy ending from this.

But hey, why end on such a bittersweet note? I much rather prefer Ogata in the role that I liked him in the best...as the pitchman for Kirin Beer some years previously.

Toshihiko Tahara -- Aishuu Date （哀愁でいと）

Oh my word! How long has it been since I had heard of the name Leif Garrett? It's starting to approach 40 years. For those viewers who are younger than my parents' Boney M album, Leif was this American child actor/teenybopper idol who graced all of the "Teen Beat" magazines back in the 1970s. If I am not mistaken, one of my classmates from Grade 6 (I think her name was Garnet Ann) had a major crush on him and The Bay City Rollers. All that long hair...

Anyways, Garrett's big years in music were apparently 1978-1979 with a fairly successful album titled "Feel The Need". But in 1980, there was a release of a single by him called "New York City Nights" which only made any sort of mark on the Japanese Oricon charts, getting as high as No. 56.

Now, why did I mention this fellow from my pop cultural past on the right side of the Pacific? Well, I only found out that "New York City Nights" was soon given its cover version under the title of "Aishuu Date" (Sorrowful Date). The notable thing was that it served as Toshihiko Tahara's（田原俊彦）debut single, released in June 1980.

Quite the revelation for me since although I was never a big fan of Toshi-chan, I have heard of some of his big hits during the 1980s such as the cutely jazzy "Hatto Shite! Good"（ハッとして!Good）and the dynamic "Dakishimete Tonight"（抱きしめてTONIGHT）. "Aishuu Date" is a title that I've seen in various magazine articles and other write-ups for one-third of the Tanokin Trio but never listened to until a couple of days ago. Garrett's "New York City Nights" may not have stormed up the Billboard charts and did merely OK on Oricon, but its slightly mellower arrangement as "Aishuu Date" rang some bells since Tahara had already made some inroads as a teen actor before making his debut behind a mike.

The song may have a little more of the edge off here than in the original by Garrett but it seems to fit the City Pop aesthetic quite nicely here with that sunset-y disco. Tahara never struck me as a great singer but the original recorded version isn't too bad. And certainly, the listening public was a lot more generous than I am when the single came out. It actually hit No. 2 on Oricon and ended 1980 as the 10th-ranked single, selling almost 720,000 records. According to J-Wiki, it still remains his most successful single.

That punched Tahara his first ticket onto the Kohaku Utagassen for 1980 in the top batter's spot and launched the musical part of his career rather successfully. Just to give credit where credit is due, Andrew Joseph DiTaranto and Guy Hemric were the original songwriters for "New York City Nights" and Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子）provided the Japanese lyrics for Toshi.

Sayaka Sasaki -- FEEL X ALIVE

I've already written about a few theme songs from this past season's crop of anime, one which is an earworm for an ultimately unsatisfying show and an opening and an ending theme for a program which turned out to be my favourite for the spring quarter.

Over the past few years, I've been noticing these slice-of-life anime whose characters and stories are driven by one big passion which has driven them forward. It could be Japanese home cooking for the girls from "Koufuku Graffiti"（幸腹グラフィティ）or the love of tanks in "Girls und Panzer" (ガールズ&パンツァー). Then there is this one that I've just finished titled "Bakuon!!" (ばくおん!!) in which all of the main characters are obsessed with motorcycles.

When it comes to powered vehicles, my interest has solely been whether someone can drive me home if the party gets a little late at night. My anime buddy, on the other hand, has quite the knowledge and liking for all sorts of cars to the extent that I think automobiles may just be his 2nd-biggest passion, next to anime, of course. I have even smaller information about motorbikes aside from the fact that a couple of other buddies regularly ride them and my grandfather used to putter around on an ancient Kawasaki in rural Wakayama Prefecture decades ago.

Still, I quite enjoyed "Bakuon!!" since it had that heart and it was obvious that the characters loved to ride and talk about their mechanical conveyances. And as this is a music blog, I have also started taking a liking to the opening theme by Sayaka Sasaki（佐咲紗花）, "FEEL X ALIVE". Overall, the song is just the usual upbeat anison to happily introduce viewers to the characters' world of baiku, but I have to say that I love the intro with that thrumming bass and a guitar that sounds like the wonderful sounds of 80s City Pop.

As the video points out, "FEEL X ALIVE" came out as Sasaki's 12th single in April 2016. Written by Sasaki and composed by Shota Horie（堀江晶太）, the song peaked at No. 46. According to the J-Wiki article on her, the Akita Prefecture-born singer and songwriter debuted in 2010, and she has come out as a huge fan of anime and anison, so her dream has indeed come true. There is also the link to the English article on Wikipedia.

I gotta say, though, that hearing the full version of the song does put a good amount of melodic caffeine into one. My anime buddy has also taken up the electric guitar recently so perhaps he may want to give "FEEL X ALIVE" a try someday.

EPO -- Harmony (ハーモニー)

Another warm but seasonable day in the GTA. I still need the fan in the room but at least I'm not my own humidifier as I was a few days ago.

Time to bring in another EPO tune in here with "Harmony" which was the title track from her 7th album released in March 1985. This could have been a pretty decent acapella with just EPO-chan and the backing chorus but it is nice with that subtle bossa nova arrangement. Not to say that this is the best multi-part harmony song I've ever heard but EPO still hasn't let me down with this ballad about what seems to be a request to bring things back to what they were with a couple. The singer took care of music and lyrics.

I have yet to pick up the album "Harmony" and just to see the lass herself in that short, short teddy on the cover is enough to plunk down my yen. Let us see what Xmas brings. I actually first heard it on one of her BEST compilations that I picked up some years ago.