Izumi Yukimura/Masashi Sada/Misia -- Niji ~ Singer（虹～Singer）

 

As has been the case for the past few years, I'm betting that R&B/pop singer Misia will be finishing up the Red Team's contributions to the annual Kohaku Utagassen in a couple of months' time. We should be hearing the announcement on the lineup in a few weeks.

When I first came across this song by her last night, looking at the thumbnail, I'd assumed that Misia contributed her song to the NHK children's song vignette program "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）. I failed to look at "the fine print" a little more closely as I now know that the name there is "Minna no Sada"（みんなのさだ...Everyone's Sada）. In other words, I was looking at the cover of singer-songwriter Masashi Sada's（さだまさし） tribute album to commemorate his 50th anniversary in the music industry. The album came out today. I wouldn't be surprised if "Niji ~ Hero"（虹～Hero...Rainbow ~ Hero） were the song that she will perform on December 31st on NHK since it's the type of soulful showstopper that she's done in past editions of the New Year's Eve special and it's been written and composed by Sada himself, someone who's made his presence known on the Kohaku as well.

It's happened often enough before and I'm glad that it has, but this particular song has taken me down the rabbit hole because it has a pretty long history. So, allow me to go back. Misia's "Niji ~ Hero" was originally known as "Niji ~ Singer" (Rainbow ~ Singer) and a recorded orchestral version of the song performed by Sada himself was placed onto his June 2013 BEST compilation "Appare ~ All-Time Best"（天晴〜オールタイム・ベスト〜...Clear Sky）. Not surprisingly, his version is the type that can wrench tears out of a slab of granite. From what I've read on J-Wiki though is that an earlier version of Sada's performance first appeared on his multi-disc April 1994 live album "Nochi no Omoi ni"（のちのおもひに...For Later Memories）.

However, Sada had created "Niji ~ Singer" for veteran singer-actress Izumi Yukimura（雪村いづみ）to commemorate her 40th anniversary in show business back in 1994. With a similarly epic orchestra backing her up, it was the title track for her own April album "I'm a Singer". The arrangement is probably reminiscent of those appearances of pop singers back in Yukimura's early days as a teen on the televised music-variety shows such as "Yume de Aimashou"（夢で逢いましょう...Let's Meet In Our Dreams）, musicals back then, or even the early editions of the Kohaku Utagassen on which she appeared ten times up to 1989.

"Uta Con"（うたコン）October 24th 2023

 

It's darn rare for me to put up a quartet of articles on a Tuesday and it's pretty darn unusual for me to post an article on a particular episode of any show, let alone NHK's "Uta Con". However, after having last week's broadcast of the kayo kyoku program cancelled on Japan TV because of all of the copyright concerns regarding Western musical tunes being covered in that one, we (and notably I) were given a memorable episode this week since a lot of the songs featured were ones that got me into this crazy musical world (and blog) in the first place. I just had to mention this episode and well, this is a blog after all. I can use it as a diary.

As I mentioned only some minutes ago in the previous article, there was the somber announcement that Yoshinori Monta（もんたよしのり）of Monta and Brothers had passed away on October 18th. However before and after that, I was able to catch a lot of the Japanese songs of my youth that got me interested in kayo kyoku, enka and all that jazz. A lot of it was powered by a tribute to singer-songwriter Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）with the appearance of the man himself along with guests EPO, Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）, Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）, Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）and Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）. In a way, it was like getting a sneak preview of that Hayashi tribute concert that will be happening in Tokyo on November 5th.

Well, anyways, here was most of the lineup:

Sayuri Ishikawa -- Amagi Goe （天城越え）

Hitomi Ishikawa -- Machibuse（まちぶせ）

EPO -- DOWNTOWN

Miki Matsubara -- Mayonaka no Door （真夜中のドアー）

Masaki Ueda -- Osaka Bay Blues

Momoko Kikuchi -- Mou Aenai Kamoshirenai（もう逢えないかもしれない）

Monta and Brothers -- Desire

 

That was quite the wallop. I was watching "Uta Con"（うたコン）an hour ago and right after the opening act of Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）, the hosts solemnly reported that vocalist and songwriter Yoshinori Monta（もんたよしのり）of Monta and Brothers（もんた&ブラザーズ）had passed away a few days ago on the 18th. He succumbed to an aortic dissection at the age of 72. The stunning thing was that he had appeared on "Uta Con" less than a month ago for what I believe was the first time. I'm also posting this only some hours after writing on the tragic loss of vocalist Atsushi Sakurai（櫻井敦司）of the band BUCK-TICK.

For most people, Monta will be known for his band having the No. 1 hit of 1980, "Dancing All Night". However, what I have here tonight is his 4th single "Desire" which was released in October 1981. A City Pop tune with a bit of rock in there, it was written by Kazunori Sonobe（園部和範）who also goes by the name Rio Rinozuka（里乃塚玲央）. Monta came up with the urgent melody for the song about being thrown into the maelstrom of that titular emotion as it applies to that crazy thing called love. Of course, it wouldn't be a Monta and Brothers song without that distinctive raspy voice by Monta himself.

"Desire" peaked at No. 7 on Oricon. I have seen a lot of tributes from YouTube commenters toward Monta. My condolences go to his family, friends and fans. It's been a pretty poignant couple of weeks.

Sachiko Nishida/Keiko Fuji -- Namida no Kawaku made（涙のかわくまで）

 

Although I realize that Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）had been singing (she's now retired) since the mid-1950s, I kinda pegged when this particular single of hers was released just from hearing the arrangement without knowing anything else about it.

"Namida no Kawaku made" (Until the Tears Run Dry) possesses that big downtown brassy sound with the beefy sax and rumbling percussion, so I figured that it must have come out in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Sure enough, it was released in December 1967 with the legendary Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）behind the melody. Shigeru Tsukada（塚田茂）provided the lyrics of a woman who's beside herself with desperate grief and hate over the impending death of her relationship with a paramour.

The song earned Nishida her 7th appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1967 and it ranked in at No. 27 on the yearly chart for the newborn Oricon in 1968.

There were a number of singers who covered "Namida no Kawaku made" including Mood Kayo specialist Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）. Fuji's version came out in 1973 and has more of a psychedelic rock buzz.

BUCK-TICK -- Aku no Hana（悪の華）

 

Last week, there was the news on the death of singer-songwriter Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）, and now I have to unfortunately report on another departure from this mortal coil of another figure in the Japanese music industry. The announcement was made today on October 24th that the vocalist of the rock band BUCK-TICK, Atsushi Sakurai（櫻井敦司）, had passed away on the 19th from a brainstem hemorrhage during a concert that night. He was 57 years old.

Almost three years ago, I posted an article on BUCK-TICK's first major single "Just One More Kiss" which had been released in October 1988. It would be a little more than a year before their follow-up single "Aku no Hana" (Flowers of Evil) was released in January 1990. Based on "Les Fleurs du mal" by French poet Charles Baudelaire who was apparently a favourite of Sakurai's, the song seems to be the perfect theme for any isolated and angry goth shut-in or a rocking vampire.

Written by Sakurai and composed by guitarist Hisashi Imai（今井寿）, "Aku no Hana" became BUCK-TICK's first and only No. 1 hit although many of their other songs would get into the Top 10, especially in the early to mid 1990s. Selling around 300,000 copies, it would go Platinum and end up as the 52nd-ranked single of 1990. An album also titled "Aku no Hana" was released in February that year which hit No. 1 and became the 20th-ranked album, going Double Platinum.

My condolences go to Sakurai's family, friends and fans. Among the family that he has left behind is his son, Akutagawa Prize-winning author Haruka Tono（遠野遥）.

Mineko Nishikawa -- Mineko no Madros-san（峰子のマドロスさん）

Good Free Photos

Noelle Tham has been our resident expert on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" on the older Showa era music for close to a decade now, so it was quite revelatory when I found out from her that the genre of enka only became known officially as enka in the early 1970s. The songs that I had known as enka from before that time had once been scattered among different genres before the great amalgamation took place, and then when everything was put under the enka umbrella, all those tunes were retrofitted as enka songs.

One such genre in kayo kyoku was madros kayo（マドロス歌謡）or "sailor pop" and sure enough, such songs were often about seamen shoving off to the great blue, leaving their loves behind. The Japanese predilection for gairaigo（外来語...foreign loan words） continued here as "madros" came from the Dutch or Flemish word for "sailor", "matroos". Some of the more famous singers sang madros kayo such as Takeo Fujishima（藤島桓夫）and his "Kaeri no Minato" (かえりの港) with the singer often putting on that old-fashioned sailor uniform.

I was watching another grand old episode of "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）the other night when I came across enka singer Mineko Nishikawa（西川峰子）who I first wrote about back in 2016 with her 1974 hit "Anata ni Ageru" (あなたにあげる). She performed her own tribute to the sailors with "Mineko no Madros-san" (Mineko's Sailor) which was her 9th single from July 1976. A very happy-go-lucky enka song that fulfills the requisite of what an old madros kayo was, it's all about a sailor blowing a kiss to his girlfriend before heading out to sea. It was written by Yoko Yamaguchi（山口洋子）and composed by Kosho Inomata（猪俣公章）; there's nothing melancholy about this at all, and it seems as if the young lady is good with her boyfriend enjoying the marine life.

I'm not sure how well "Mineko no Madros-san" did on the charts but she did get her second invitation to NHK's Kohaku Utagassen to sing the song at the end of 1976.

Hiroaki Igarashi -- Machi wa Koibito（街は恋人）

 

Happy Monday! I had been thinking about putting this song up during my Creator article on arranger Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）last week, but in the end, I felt that it deserved its own article.

"Machi wa Koibito" (The City is a Lover) was Hiroaki Igarashi's（五十嵐浩晃）15th single from September 1991. It was indeed arranged by Shimizu with Kei Takamura（高村圭）as the lyricist and Minoru Yamazaki（山崎稔）as the composer. Although by the time that this single came out, I'd already left the JET Programme to return to Toronto, the song still sounds quite familiar to me so perhaps I may have heard it on a videotape of Japanese shows. My first impression was that it was a commercial jingle for a ski wear company since I had heard plenty of those songs during my time there, but actually "Machi wa Koibito" was promoting the Suzuki Alto in that year.

On J-Wiki, the song has been categorized as a pop song and also as a City Pop tune, but I think that latter label was applied more because of the lyrical content of celebrating a repaired romantic relationship in the metropolis rather than the musical style. Regardless, it's a song sung by Igarashi in that particular upbeat style that I've often associated with the male J-Pop singers at the turn of the decade such as Katsumi and Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）. Compare "Machi wa Koibito" with his first big hit at the beginning of the 80s, "Pegasus no Asa" (ペガサスの朝）. There is also a keyboard riff that even had me thinking a bit of Fashion Music.

The song peaked at No. 36 on Oricon, and it was also placed as a track on his first BEST compilation "Igarashi Hiroaski BEST Selection White & Blue"（五十嵐浩晃 ベストセレクション White & Blue） from October 1991.