Taro Shoji/Mika Shinno/Kiyoshi Hikawa -- Tabigasa Dochu （旅笠道中）

Even before the Japanese started getting that reputation of traveling in group tours while armed with cameras back in the 1970s and 1980s, they did and still love to travel even within the country, it seems, at least according to the enka genre. There is a large legacy of regional enka paying tribute to a certain city, prefecture, river or other geographical feature but ballads of traveling for the pure heck of it have also abounded, often with history in mind involving nomads during the feudal era of Japan.

One hit song with that them in mind was released in 1935 titled "Tabigasa Dochu" (Traveling Hat Journey) as originally sung by Taro Shoji（東海林太郎）. I read Noelle's write up of his "Meigetsu Akagiyama"（名月赤城山）and the description of the late singer which was confirmed when I actually saw ancient footage of him on a TV show singing "Tabigasa Dochu" on tonight's "Uta Con"（うたコン）. With those round glasses and tailcoat that Noelle described, along with that very earnest delivery, Shoji reminded me of a dusty university professor who had literally spent years in a classroom but was going to make the most of his 15 minutes on the stage.

Regrettably, I couldn't find any footage of Shoji singing "Tabigasa Dochu" but here are a couple of far more contemporary enka singers to fill in. One is Mika Shinno（神野美伽）who hails from Osaka and debuted back in 1984. I've seen her often on "Uta Con" and its predecessor program "Kayo Concert"（歌謡コンサート）so I was surprised that she hadn't been covered by either Noelle or me. She has also appeared on the Kohaku Utagassen twice in her career, in 1987 and 2003.

Going back to the song itself, "Tabigasa Dochu" was written by Masato Fujita（藤田まさと）and composed by Nosho Ohmura（大村能章）, and it's a jaunty song of vagabonds who go where the wind takes them while they live on the fringes of society. They don't mind the journey but they also hope someday to settle down. However, Ohmura's melody as arranged for Shinno's performance above seems to carve out a certain pride in this trek of itinerants which alternates between a romantic sweep during the sung portions while the intro, bridge and outro contain a certain manly staccato which may represent the proud don't-hold-me-back steps of the travelers.

(shortened version)

The other singer is the Prince of Enka himself, Kiyoshi Hikawa（氷川きよし）. I found the arrangement for his take on "Tabigasa Dochu" as being a lot softer and more wistful although Hikawa puts in a good amount of brio for his performance.

Well, whaddaya know? I did find a video with Shoji's original take via this old 78 rpm. In contrast to those earnest performances by him on stage, his recorded version of "Tabigasa Dochu" sounds quite serene. Plus, I can make out an interesting plucky guitar in the background there...or is it a Japanese instrument?

Finally, you can take a look at this empty karaoke version of the song since the movie here can give some illustration to the lyrics.

Morning Musume -- Furusato (ふるさと)

Going back to the early years of the Morning Musume (モーニング娘。) discography, I see (good heavens...only 7 members back then?!). Well, I've considered their 6th single, "Furusato" (Home) from July 1999, despite the release month, the Mother's Day song for MM due to the ladies' mothers (with their faces hidden) showing up in the video which was apparently filmed in the rolling hills of Biei, Hokkaido. It's about as heartwarming a song as I've heard from MM which back then seemed to go into all of the nighttime intrigue.

I hadn't heard "Furusato" in the longest time so when I listened to it again today, I realized that Tsunku (つんく) had created a pretty decent song for Natsumi Abe（安倍なつみ）who was singing lead here. Apparently, according to J-Wiki's article on "Furusato", when Tsunku was asked why Abe was at the fore this time, he simply replied "Even if Paul McCartney sang by himself, it would still be a Beatles song". Well, I could be curmudgeonly and rebut with a mention of Wings and all of his solo work, but OK, I think I got the idea here. Plus, I kinda wonder how Abe herself reacted when she was compared to McCartney, even superficially.

For me, it's the chorus work by the rest of the Musume and the languid melody that won me over although any comparisons between the vocal abilities of Abe and McCartney will always remain superficial...with the help of goodly amounts of beer. My apologies to the Abe fans.

"Furusato" sold a little over 170,000 copies as it peaked at No. 5 on Oricon. It was the softest-selling single of the 6 singles that had been released by Morning Musume up to that point, and I saw the ballad as being the swan song for those early years, two singles after the departure of first-generation member Asuka Fukuda（福田明日香）. A couple of months later, the group would enter a new era of spectacle with their disco hit "Love Machine"（LOVEマシーン）and the addition of adorably gawky Maki Goto（後藤真希）. It was also included on Morning Musume's 2nd album "Second Morning" (セカンドモーニング) which was also released in July 1999 and peaked at No. 3.

"Furusato" would not be forgotten by the later generations. Ai Takahashi（高橋愛）would do her cover of the song.

And Koharu Kusumi（久住小春）performed it at her graduation concert. By this point, I had already lost my interest in Morning Musume although I remember Kusumi being selected as the ace by Tsunku.

But of course, why not finish up with Miku Hatsune（初音ミク）?

My furusato

Goro Noguchi -- Soshunkyoku （送春曲）

It's rather amazing how male aidoru ballads sounded back in the 1970s when compared to now. I mean, it's almost hard to believe that something like Goro Noguchi's（野口五郎）"Soshunkyoku" (Song to See Off the Spring) would be considered aidoru. And it's not the only one. I have found a lot of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）oeuvre to sound quite different from my impressions of aidoru music, but then again, I was spoiled in a way because I was exposed to it from the Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）days.

Still, "Soshunkyoku" is pretty darn dramatic, almost to the point of it being called an especially melancholy Mood Kayo. One of the commenters directed me to this one since I was never too aware of the Noguchi songs. Released on Christmas Day 1978, the singer gives a sad rendition of the well-worn tale of two ships passing in the night although this "night" seems to have lasted a good number of weeks or months before the unfortunate parting in the spring. The separation happening during this season is quite unusual since a lot of songs have pegged autumn as being the time to break up. The release date is also interesting since Christmas has been seen to play up not only the time of romance but the time of loneliness during the Holidays.

I would be interesting in hearing the original recorded version if it ever came online. But as it is right now, we've got the live performance takes on YouTube. The first video at the top has that Folk flavour with the sad piano while the one immediately above actually has a saxophone introducing the proceedings which gives "Soshunkyoku" more of that Mood Kayo air, as if it were meant to be heard or sung within the confines of a karaoke bar (unfortunately those original 2 videos were taken down, but they have been replaced).

Yu Aku（阿久悠）provided the lyrics of the inevitable downhill road to the end of the romance while Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）composed the melancholy melody. It peaked at No. 14 on Oricon and became the 46th-ranked single of 1979.

Mieko Nishijima -- Yuyami no Futari （夕闇のふたり）

You may have seen me use my photo of a quiet Asakusa street from time to time whenever I have written on a Mood Kayo or an enka tune. Well, I'm gonna use it again for a similar kayo done in the jazz vein. The only thing missing from the shot is a good amount of fog.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3p4uf1

OK, fair warning to you...when I was playing the video on Dailymotion, I got hit with some sort of request for a Chrome survey and a message stating that I was the umpteenth customer. I don't know if that was just for me since I am using Chrome or if it was some sort of scam trap. I simply got out of the site and tried again with success this time. 

Now that I've given my PSA for the day...it's been a while since I came across a Mieko Nishijima（西島三重子）tune. For KKP readers who haven't followed the Nishijima file too closely, she has been this wonderfully mellow Folk/New Music singer-songwriter who has been around since the 1970s. I first discovered her since her songs got fairly frequent notice on "Sounds of Japan", my old radio program on CHIN-FM.

Again, the J-Canuck force has been with me today since I managed to find this 1984 entry by her via a Twitter feed for an online radio station featuring Japanese music of the 1980s and 1990s not even an hour ago. "Yuyami no Futari" (A Couple at Dusk), which was written by Nishijima and composed by crooner extraordinaire Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）, is a torch song perfect for performance within some hole-in-a-wall smoke-filled bar in one of those Asakusa alleys or even some place more upscale in Akasaka. I couldn't picture Nishijima ever lying down on a grand piano singing this since my impression is that she would be too mortified to do it but this is the sort of scene I would envision about this ballad. Both her and Kisugi weave this picture of a couple strolling arm-in-arm in a thick fog over a stone bridge with some romantic gas lights providing guidance.

According to the description of this YouTube video, this is a cover version of the song at a jazz bar in Akita City late in 2014. As for the original song, I was able to find out that it was from 1984 but it doesn't seem to be included in any of her albums so I am wondering if "Yuyami no Futari" was a B-side on one of her singles. Regardless, if you need to unwind a bit after a harrowing Monday at work, perhaps this song can provide some solace...with a nice stiff drink.

Takako Matsu -- Koishii Hito (コイシイヒト)

Ahh, the lovely Takako Matsu（松たか子）! She has been quite the presence on Japanese TV whether it be through the various commercials and her time as one of the big stars in many a drama, notably starring with Takuya Kimura（木村拓哉）of SMAP in shows such as "Love Generation" and "HERO". In fact, I thought those two were becoming the J-Dorama version of Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (aye, I know I'm stretching it here but I did have to analogize) at one point.

Plus, she comes from quite the family of performers. To start off, her father is Koshiro Matsumoto IX（九代目 松本幸四郎）, a famed kabuki actor who has also appeared in his fair share of television dramas including the Fuji-TV show from 1995 "Ou-sama no Restaurant"（王様のレストラン...Restaurant de Roi） in which he played a charismatic legendary waiter of a French restaurant. Then, there is her older brother, Somegoro Ichikawa VII（七代目 市川染五郎） who is another kabuki actor/actor, and another acting older sister whose husband is also a thespian. And it seems that I've only started with that list. Matsu herself has attained a title according to Wikipedia which is Koka Matsumoto I（初代 松本幸華）as the first master of the Matsumoto School of Nippon Buyo (Japanese dance). I gather that if there is an acting family that could be compared to the Barrymores or Carradines in the United States, this family could be it.

Matsu has even hosted the Kohaku Utagassen once in 1996 and then appeared on the same show the next year when she debuted as a singer. I never followed all that faithfully to her career but my impression was that her music was in the very mellow pop vein.

She's had her share of hits among the 21 singles she's released up to 2009 including her first 2 releases breaking into the Top 10. However, the song that I've always associated her with has been "Koishii Hito" (The One I Miss) which was her 12th single from March 2001.

It went as high as No. 16 on Oricon but I just thought that this was the musical footprint that she left for me. The music by singer-songwriter Yuka Kawamura（川村結花）is perfect for listening in that small but stylish cafe in the wilds of Aoyama or Omotesando, and Matsu's singing is so mellow that I could take my coffee black without needing cream as my ears take it all in. Both Matsu and Kawamura collaborated on the lyrics. It is interesting how the song starts up as if the orchestra was warming up, though.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x24nu3f_%E6%9D%BE%E3%81%9F%E3%81%8B%E5%AD%90-%E3%82%B3%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B7%E3%82%A4%E3%83%92%E3%83%88_music

The original shortened music video for "Koishii Hito" has also helped retain my enjoyment of the song. There is just something very comforting watching Matsu with her cat under that train overpass while it's playing.

Last year, Matsu gave birth to her first child, a daughter. Since I wasn't really too clued into songwriters or musicians back during my time in Japan, I didn't really pay too much attention to the news when Matsu had married musician-songwriter Yoshiyuki Sahashi（佐橋佳幸）in 2007. He is represented on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with a couple of compositions for Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）, "Sentimental Kangaroo" and "Moonlight Picnic" although he has done many more for her and other singers.

Mineko Nishikawa -- Anata ni Ageru (あなたにあげる)

Noelle and I were talking about how much we enjoyed last week's "Uta Kon" (うたコン). And for me personally, I can listen to Ayaka Hirahara's（平原綾香）rendition of "Moon River" over and over again. There was also the musical digest of "Miss Saigon" near the end of the show; not quite sure whether it made for a perfect fit for the audience but, dang, was it spectacular!

Earlier on, enka singer Konomi Mori（杜このみ）performed an old kayo chestnut that pricked my ears. She was doing a cover of an enka tune which was released back in July 1974 titled "Anata ni Ageru" (Giving Myself to You) originally performed by Mineko Nishikawa（西川峰子）.

Nishikawa was in her mid-teens when she entered the 3rd Annual All-Japan Kayo Contest in 1973 with "Anata ni Ageru" and won the championship. Several months later, this would be her debut single after she had just turned 16.

Listening and reading the lyrics, I realized that it was all about a girl or a woman who was declaring her love for someone who I suspect was quite older, and considering Nishikawa's age at the time of its release, I figured it was an ode to a teacher. The words seemed to read like the perhaps petulant protestations of a high school kid who insisted that she was the right woman for the fellow instead of that older woman he was dating. But there was indeed a lot of brio in her feelings with her stating in full voice that her love would not be of the demure or innocent variety. She wanted lust, baby! Haha, kids...yeah, this was definitely not something like "Sensei"（センセイ）by Masako Mori（森昌子）which had come out a couple of years before.

In fact, I would say that it was more akin to Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）"Hito Natsu no Keiken"（ひと夏経験）whose release was just a month before "Anata ni Ageru", and not surprisingly so. It happens that both songs were written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也）, and Yamaguchi's hit caused a fair amount of stir due to its racy lyrics from a teenage girl who was about the same age as Nishikawa. However I didn't read of anything which caused the same sort of controversy on J-Wiki's article for "Anata ni Ageru". Perhaps there was a double standard when it came to writing racy songs depending on the genre; it was OK for the enka genre but maybe slightly too much in the aidoru realm of things. In any case, Takashi Miki ( 三木たかし) took care of the music.

"Anata ni Ageru" took its sweet time but it finally broke into the Top 10 at No. 8, exactly four months after release and then a few weeks after that, it hit No. 1. Selling over 500,000 records in total, it ended 1974 as the 95th-ranked single of the year but then kept on hanging about in the Top 100 for many more months until it flew up to No. 17 at the end of 1975. It won Nishikawa Best Newcomer honours in both the Japan Record Awards and the Japan Kayo Awards with the cherry on the top being her invitation to the 1975 Kohaku Utagassen. It would become her biggest hit.

Nishikawa would come on the Kohaku three consecutive times immediately following her inaugural appearance. Along with her long list of singles, she also became an actress mostly on TV with roles up to the late 2000s. Although her name would still be pronounced in the same fashion, sometime ago, her kanji changed to 仁支川峰子.

Hitomi Tohyama -- SFO-OAKLAND

Back in 1990, midway through my 2 years in Gunma Prefecture, some of the staff at the town hall decided to take a trip through North America and for some reason, they wanted me along although there was a perfectly fine and professional bilingual guide who stayed with us throughout. All expenses paid and it was basically an order from the boss, so how could I complain? Plus, one of the highlights was visiting the city of San Francisco, a metropolis that I had always wondered about, mostly because it was the site of Starfleet Headquarters from the "Star Trek" franchise (yeah, I really needed to get a life back then), but also because of the wonderful sight of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The problem with a corporate Japanese trip is that folks seem to want to cram in a ton of cities within a period of a week. By the time we hit Vancouver just before San Francisco, all of us were exhausted. We couldn't even enjoy what would have been a hearty meal in a French restaurant because we were just kept moving all the time. However, at least our stop in San Francisco down the Pacific Coast was slight more yukkuri, thankfully. Mind you, we only had that total of one full day and one full night in the City by the Bay before we had to drive out to Sacramento in the centre of California. Still, I was happy to walk around Fisherman's Wharf, climb up Lombard Street, see those famous streetcars and even catch sight of the Transamerica Building. What we ironically couldn't view was the Golden Gate Bridge due to a massive amount of fog which rolled in, but that was made up by one of the finest Chinese food dinners that I ever had inside or outside of my hometown of Toronto, and my hometown has never been any slouch when it comes to good Chinese fare.

All that prelude to introduce another Hitomi "Penny" Tohyama（当山ひとみ）song. This is my fourth article on the singer, and as with two of them, "Door Goshi no Good Song"（ドア越しのGood Song） and "Rainy Driver", "SFO-OAKLAND" is from Penny's first album, "Just Call Me Penny" from 1981. To be honest, from listening to her BEST compilation, I've so far found her material to be hit-or-miss sometimes, and "SFO-OAKLAND" is somewhere in the middle. It's not quite a barnburner but it's happy enough to have me reminisce about those few days on the West Coast, and like a lot of City Pop songs, I think it did have some listeners in Japan thinking about that exotic life on the other side of the Pacific thanks to the sunny sounds and arrangements. Penny herself wrote the lyrics while Kiyoshi Hiyama（比山清）provided the melody.

In any case, the sunny "SFO-OAKLAND" was also the B-side to Penny's debut single of "Door Goshi no Good Song".

https://www.flickr.com/photos/patrick-smith-photography/4204497503/?ytcheck=1
by Patrick Smith