Tadaharu Nakano/Tokyo Taishu Kayo Gakudan -- China Tango (チャイナ・タンゴ )

 

Me: I feel like I haven't listened to some good ryukoka in a while.

The ryukoka brothers 4: Okappal? Fujiyama? BIN?? What're in for, missy?

What would happen if Bin Uehara (上原敏) were to be transported from pre-war to modern Japan? ...Is a question that has never crossed my mind until now. The answer? Well, he'd probably be shell-shocked over today's tech. But he'd probably be just as perturbed to see a modern-day doppelganger of himself in Kotaro Takashima(高島孝太郎). Doesn't he just look like a spitting image of the pre-war star? Or maybe even a bespectacled Ichiro Fujiyama(藤山一郎)? And that's not to mention his brothers (in descending order) who look like they were part of a Taisho/early Showa era band complete with an accordion (Yujiro... 雄次郎), wood bass (Ryuzaburo... 龍三郎) and banjo (Keishiro... 圭四郎). Together, this quartet is known as the Tokyo Taishu Kayo Gakudan (東京大衆歌謡楽団). That is a mouthful.

I'd seen thumbnails of these guys fairly regularly whenever I was to dig around YouTube for the moderately obscure postwar or pre-war ditty. They appeared to me like some questionable, gimmicky street busking act, though their legitimacy increased when I saw that they'd appeared on enka TV programs. But I still didn't think to give them a go until very recently when, for some reason, I finally relented to their rendition of Mr Fujiyama's "Oka wo Koete" (丘を越えて). The moment a voice akin to that of a music university graduate from the 1920s or 30s came out from the scrawny and pale but dapper-looking vocalist, I knew I'd been sorely missing out this whole time. Listening to the eldest Takashima brother belt out Japanese evergreen tunes in his smooth tenor (?) to the accordion rifts and plucky banjo felt very different from hearing enka singers doing covers of the same songs. Rather, as insinuated earlier, it was more like hearing the song from an actual singer of that time period, which is quite a bizarre experience. But I'm here for it. 

The band only seems to do covers of songs from the 30s to the 50s, the most notable are tunes by Haruo Oka (岡晴夫) and Mr Fujiyama. Putting their hour-or-so-long live performances in the back while doing my class reading assignments (on pre and post-war Japanese politics, oddly enough), I revel in hearing familiar favourites. They pleasantly surprised me with Bin-san's "Hatoba Katagi" (波止場気質), which ultimately coined my subtitle for Kotaro, "The Modern-day Uehara Bin". But many unfamiliar numbers soon entered my good list. One of them being "China Tango".

The original take by Nakano

Now, "China Tango", which is at the 52:04 mark in the first video, caught my attention with its upbeat, rhythmic tango tempo and Kotaro's operatic delivery. I'm also a sucker for the slightly oriental flavour in these Chinese-like-but-not songs for some reason, so I took to it immediately (no, I don't think my ethnicity has got anything to do with it). 

Recorded in 1939, "China Tango" was originally by Tadaharu Nakano (中野忠晴), as I found out via random searches through YouTube. Nakano is a familiar name to me for he had composed a good number of hits by fellows like Hachiro Kasuga (春日八郎) and Michiya Mihashi (三橋美智也). But that he used to be a singer himself caught me off guard. As it turns out before Nakano became known for his music writing, he was first a popular song and jazz singer around the mid-1930s under the Colombia Japan label. One with a pretty cute smile, at that. "China Tango" was one of the hits he had from that time, written by renowned songwriting duo Ko Fujiura (藤浦洸) and Ryoichi Hattori (服部良一). Fujiura's words illustrate the sparks between our main character, probably as dapper as Kotaro or Nakano, and a local girl perhaps doing the tango to the tune of some street performer under the colourful lights of nighttime Suzhou.

Nakano did have quite a deep and pleasant voice that shines in the chorus, but unfortunately, throat issues after the war cut his singing career short and he switched to composing music at King Records. But, I guess the silver lining in that was that this was what made him a prominent name in the ryukoka/enka/kayo world.

P.S. Strangely, I'd just been thinking recently that my exploration of early Showa era tunes by the likes of Okappal and Mr Fujiyama had stagnated. Discovering Tokyo Taishu Kayo Gakudan revived that niche part of my kayo interest, to which I'm glad.

Yuko Mizutani -- Drive Planet（ドライブ・プラネット）

 

When I saw the name of Yuko Mizutani（水谷優子）on YouTube, I wondered where I'd seen it before and then I remembered that she was the first seiyuu who voiced Sakiko Sakura（さくらさきこ）, the long-suffering older sister of Momoko Sakura（さくらももこ）, aka Chibi Maruko-chan（ちびまる子ちゃん）for the long-running anime "Chibi Maruko-chan" on Fuji-TV. I also remembered that sadly Mizutani had passed away back in 2016 from cancer at the age of 51.

Over the last few days, I've written about a seiyuu, Mami Koyama（小山茉美）, who contributed her own brand of pop music in the 1980s and a fresh-voiced 90s pop singer, Mutsumi Inoue（井上睦都実）. I guess that I can then put the two observations together for Mizutani since she put out an album in March 1994 titled "Vibit".  There's very sparse information on her CD output in an otherwise voluminous J-Wiki article on Mizutani so I'm not sure whether "Vibit" was her only album of songs or not. 

However, the first track "Drive Planet" is a pretty nice pop song to start things off. Lyricist Yuri Asada（浅田有理） and composer Katsuki Maeda（前田克樹）were behind this short-and-sweet tune that rather represents what happy middle-of-the-road pop music by female singers sounded like in the early 1990s. It's kinda why I am also reminded of singers like Inoue, although Mizutani's vocals have a bit more nasality.

Pizzicato Five -- Catwalk（キャットウォーク）

 

Those two police officers must have had some explaining to do at the precinct after taking this photograph with the Divine Ms. Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）of Pizzicato Five. The vocalist for one of Shibuya-kei's prominent bands was using her model looks and fashion daring to the max that day.

I'm a bit surprised that I hadn't included this track when I was writing about their 12th album, "Romantique 96" which was originally released on this day in 1995. Yep, it's been 26 years! However, and speaking of fashion, "Catwalk" is now getting its own article here. Written and composed by Yasuharu Konishi（小西康陽）, I'm not so convinced that this is a completely Shibuya-kei tune. I think that it has some of that mixed in with some of that contemplative Pet Shop Boys feeling as Nomiya sings about enjoying as much of the glamourous life that she can before finally settling down.

Perhaps to either Nomiya or any models involved in the lyrics, life in the big city is one huge catwalk. And maybe there's a saying hidden in the message: If you look good, you feel good, you are good.

Toko Furuuchi -- Superman（スーパーマン）

 

Well, I figure that if I've just put up an article connected to Batman earlier this afternoon, then why not give equal time to The Man of Steel?

Now, both "Batdance" and "Superman" by Toko Furuuchi（古内東子）have been given the J-R&B label but that is where the similarities end.  Whereas "Batdance" is the epic funkiness by the late Prince, "Superman" is some cool and smooth soul written and composed by Furuuchi.

A track from her March 2004 album "Futsu no Koto"（フツウのこと...The Usual Thing）, "Superman" is an upbeat urban tune about a fellow who feels like Superman himself as he drives the long distance in his jalopy to see his significant other, presumably after a period of time following a disagreement. I can imagine Clark doing the same with Lois although in his case, he obviously doesn't need the mechanical contrivance or even frequent flyer points. Will always appreciate some fine horns in the mix and generally the happy beats. Plus, it's a nice way to close out September in a season where the older Japanese music likes to usually take the melancholy road.

Whaddaya know? I found the Japanese dub of the opening credits for "Adventures of Superman" which was my own first exposure to the superhero as a toddler.

Prince -- Batdance

 

Being a member of a certain generation, the first Batman that I got acquainted with was the TV version from the 1960s with the late Adam West as a campy Caped Crusader fighting with fists, batarangs and day-glow onomatopoeia on the screen. I hadn't known that Batman first appeared in comic books as a much darker and dangerous hero, but all that changed with Frank Miller's 1986 comic miniseries "The Dark Knight Returns" when the World's Greatest Detective was given his old obsessed personality back.

And that led to the stylishly gothic and ambitious Tim Burton 1989 film with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. That year was indeed the Year of the Batman with all sorts of news features, trailers, merchandise and talk about how a comic actor who was the goofy Beetlejuice the year before could ever become cast as the Dark Knight. There were tons of howling protest about Keaton's casting but apparently all that went away when the movie came out during the blockbuster season. Still, the actor and character had a mighty duel to fight against Nicholson's Joker who almost stole the entire movie.

Interestingly that year was the same year that I graduated from University of Toronto and headed over to Japan to start my very first full-time job as a teacher on the JET Programme. In fact, I left Canada just a few weeks after "Batman" was released in theatres and it was the final film for me and my friends to watch together before leaving on my Japan odyssey. 

There are all those YouTube videos of frenzied audience reactions for "Avengers Endgame". I remember watching "Batman" on the big screen and the audience then was just screaming and cheering right from the start when the title came on to Danny Elfman's epic theme. And it simply continued when key scenes came on such as the "Get in the car" scene. It was quite the experience and a fine cinematic sendoff for me to Japan. Incidentally, "Batman" didn't get out into theatres over there until December.

The JET briefing manual which I had received as part of my kit to get ready to teach the masses instructed me on how to use pop culture to make English more palatable to the kids. So I tried to infuse some of Batman and Joker into the lessons instead of Dick and Jane but the sage observation was that the superhero and supervillain were still more (not-Adam) West-centric, so perhaps Anpanman and Baikinman were better. The whole "Dick Tracy" thing the following year fared even worse, though I tried.

Within all of the Batman hoopla in 1989, only one incredible artist could make his contribution stand out and apart from everything Bat. Prince already has representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" because he provided dynamic singer Kahoru Kohiruimaki（小比類巻かほる）with a couple of tracks for her "Time The Motion" album which had come out the same year. Well, he also provided the film with his own creation "Batdance" which got the regal welcome in June 1989 when "Batman" was released.

Perhaps just like the movie, "Batdance", the song and the video, is epic and bizarre...and in addition, it's Princely! Naturally I was listening to plenty of Prince songs throughout the 1980s (and I'll have to cover "When Doves Cry" sometime soon as a ROY article), and therefore when I encountered "Batdance" on MuchMusic here in Canada, I just thought that this song could have only come from the mind and soul of Prince. It's got all of the rock, the funk, the dance beats and excerpts from the movie itself all smashed into a chaotic whole and visually expressed in the music video which could have played every night on stage off or on Broadway if Prince had desired it. Not surprisingly, "Batdance" hit No. 1 in both Canada and the United States.

I've read that Keaton is putting on the cowl again for "The Flash" which is scheduled to come out in a little over a year from now. Can only imagine the cheering that he will get when he shows up again to say "I'M BATMAN!".

So what were the Top 3 of Oricon for June 1989?

1. Princess Princess -- Diamonds

2. Mari Hamada -- Return to Myself ~ Shinai, Shinai, Natsu（しない、しない、ナツ。）

3. Shizuka Kudo -- Arashi no Sugao （嵐の素顔）

Mari Hamada -- Return to Myself ~ Shinai, Shinai, Natsu（しない、しない、ナツ。）

 

If I'm not mistaken, this is one of Mari Hamada's（浜田麻里）biggest hits that I had yet to cover so allow me to do that right now.

Ought to be giving myself a Gibbs slap upside the head since it was Marcos V. who put up the first Hamada article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" all the way back in 2013. I should have written something about it sooner. But I'm rectifying the oversight here by writing about "Return to Myself ~ Shinai, Shinai, Natsu" (Won't Do It, Won't Do It, Summer). This was Hamada's 9th single released in April 1989, and armed with her own lyrics of change and empowerment along with Hiroyuki Ohtsuki's（大槻啓之）pop/rock melody, I still couldn't help but feel a bit of the rockier side of 1980s AOR from the West Coast.

At the same time, listening to "Return to Myself", I'm also reminded that the end of the 1980s was the time of Japanese female rock bands coming of age such as Princess Princess（プリンセスプリンセス）and Lindberg among others. Yep, those were quite the days. Hamada's hit was at the top of the Oricon Singles chart and achieved Platinum status before ending the year as the 15th-ranked single. It also became the title track for her 10th album released in June 1989, another No. 1 hit that was the 23rd-ranked album. It shares space with "Emotion in Motion", which was the topic of Marcos' article.

Rainbow Sisters -- Kanashiki Weather Girl（悲しきウェザーガール）

 

I figured that I would be incorporating the weather forecasters from Japan's Weathernews at some point. For over a year, one corner of YouTube viewers has been following forecasters including Saya Hiyama（檜山沙耶）, Yui Komaki（駒木結衣）, Ayame Muto（武藤彩芽）and others not particularly because they are desperate to hear about the weather over Japan but because they are desperate in getting their daily dose of the cute and adorable talk and reactions from the ladies themselves. Hiyama, who hails from the city of Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture, was probably the first Weathernews forecaster that the fans fell in love with and I think that she remains the most popular because of her distinctive laugh, her love of cosplay, and the fact that she seems to melt into a puddle whenever famed seiyuu Natsuki Hanae（花江夏樹）speaks.

Not sure whether the Weathernews forecasters have reached the point of cutting a song in the recording booth yet but perhaps it's just a matter of time. Even if they did, though, they wouldn't be setting any sort of precedent because another group of female weather forecasters beat them to the punch decades earlier.

I can't quite believe that TV Asahi had that many forecasters in their weather department but then again, regular announcers in the network (or any of the commercial networks) have often been assigned to do the weather for a few years at least. Anyways, seven of them: Fumiyo Sako（迫文代）, Satomi Hama（浜さとみ）, Naomi Hasebe（谷部なをみ）, Mari Kurita（栗田眞里）, Asako Yoshida（吉田麻子）, Yuka Aoki（青木ゆか）and Mami Inoue（井上摩美）all got together to form a group called Rainbow Sisters（レインボー・シスターズ）to do a one-off song titled "Kanashiki Weather Girl" (Sad Weather Girl). By the way, I'm not completely sure about my transcriptions for the names above so if any of you have any concrete corrections or confirmations, please let me know.

Written by Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）and composed/arranged by Toshiyuki Omori（大森敏之）, I gather that everyone involved wanted to get a bit of that 60s Spector pop flavour in "Kanashiki Weather Girl". As it is, the performances by the announcers aren't too bad at all...kinda along the lines of an Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）tune.

Returning to the present, this whole YouTube phenomenon surrounding the staff at Weathernews over the past several months reminds me of another Japanese pop cultural explosion which detonated on the same platform a few years ago. Sure enough, one uploader made the connection. Such is the wondrous power of the YouTube algorithm.