The (Double) Fabricated Authenticity of Japanese Country & Western

This week for my independent study course with Dr. Jeremy Wallach, I read Richard A. Peterson's Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity. This is a very interesting and unique read when it comes to the history of American country music as it specifically takes a look at the early formative days of the genre, from the 1920s to the mid 1950s, prior to the "Nashville-ization" of country music that begins to take place in the latter portion of the 1960s and definitely into the 1970s, which is how many of us remember the music genre today. Many of us are familiar with the narrative that the birth of American rock and roll is just a combination of country music (the "white side") and of blues, jazz, and R&B (the "black side"). However, an interesting thought is that while black music (and rock and roll, it can be argued) have always been extremely authentic music forms as they originally never reached commercial success (largely due to racism), country music was fabricated from the start. Even before the phonograph was making its way into homes, country music was used to advertise products and radio stations advertised their performers as "hillbillies" and country bumpkins when, in reality, singers would show up in their Sunday best to perform at barn dances, fiddling contests, and at other places.  

Peterson discusses the geographic dissonance between what "real" country music was and the imagery that it took on. While country music really derived from the folk music of individuals of Scots-Irish descent living in the Appalachian mountain range, we all know the image of the singing cowboy as inherently western and the image of country music has remained as such. While this is definitely confusing even within the confines of the United States, this "poetic escapism," as Peterson refers to it, of the popularity of the singing cowboy is even more complex across borders.

Appalachian folk music

versus

Singing cowboy star Gene Autry

Country music (often referred to as カントリー・アンド・ウエスタン ["country and western" / C&W]) became wildly popular in Japan. Kazuya Kosaka, who some (including myself) argue can be considered the first J-pop idol, started out as a country & western performer as did Hiroshi "Monsieur" Kamayatsu who would later become a member of Japan's biggest Group Sounds band The Spiders, and of Vodka Collins. Receiving these fabricated images of not only American country music but of the American West as a whole as a land of singing cowboys, this influenced Japanese C&W. While some country & western ensembles half-jokingly referred to themselves as "hillbilly bands," they went fully with the western cowboy aesthetic.

Unfortunately, I do not know who this band is. If you have any information, please let me know!

Jimmie Tokita & His Mountain Playboys

ジミー時田と マウンティン・プレーボイズ

(a young Takeshi Teruachi is in this picture too, third from the right!)

While nothing can get quite as masculine as the image of the American cowboy, particularly as portrayed by individuals such as John Wayne, Hank Williams' more slender build lent better to Japanese C&W icons.

Hank Williams

Kazuya Kosaka - 小坂一也

While even by the late 1950s in America country music was beginning to be seen as "old fogey music," country & western was a symbol of modernity in Japan. Kazuya Kosaka appeared in many films but two of his appearances as a performer with his backing band The Wagon Masters stand out with their interpretations of country & western music in 1950s Japanese culture.

This video contains clips from two different movies from 1957 that Kosaka was in. The first is from 「歌う弥次喜多黄金道中」 ("Singing Yajikita on the Golden Road"), where Kosaka and his Wagon Masters are performing for an audience in a Japanese setting. While this scene may be a bit culturally jarring, I feel that this was the point that was trying to be made: traditional Japanese culture was seen as old, out-dated, out of touch, backward, and just generally kind of dorky, Kosaka and his Wagon Masters' western aesthetic and ability to sing predominantly in English was cool, progressive, and modern - a stark contrast to the environment he was in and to the style the audience was dressed in.

The second clip comes from 「抱かれた花嫁」 ("Embraced Bride"), also from 1957, where Kosaka and the Wagon Masters are more a part of the backdrop. However, they are performing C&W (all in Japanese this time) in a very modern club while everyone in the film is young and in western-styled clothing: all looking very cool and hip. It is interesting to see country music be portrayed this way as in the United States, it is associated with the past, sometimes even in a more negative, antiquated, "hillbilly," context.

While American country music fabricated its authenticity from the beginning (which is quite ironic when you think about it), Japanese C&W therefore became doubly fabricated as it relied first on the fabricated country music coming in from America and then on the fabricated image of the American West as a place where hyper-masculine singing cowboys wearing silver-lined, bolo-tied dress shirts rambled aimlessly as far and wide as the coast of California to the interior of the southeastern backwoods, using the aesthetic of western film and American country music as their main inspirations.

But why was Japan so entranced by western iconography? Some individuals, including Professor Michael Bourdaghs, argue that enka, traditional Japanese ballads, are fairly similar in composition and style to traditional country and that the samurai and cowboy aesthetics blend very well together (see the 1995 film East Meets West which features Ittoku Kishibe, previously the bassist of the Group Sounds era band The Tigers). Did country & western also blend well with Japan's own colonial and expansionist past which ended with World War II and the subsequent Occupation of Japan where Douglas MacArthur encouraged the dissemination of very white-styled American music?

Japanese Country & Western music is an extremely unique transnational cultural gem that I feel is extremely ignored. While its development seems extremely unlikely and generally tends to bring about a visceral feeling to those who have not previously been exposed, it is truly one of the most unique, finely-crafted, and well-loved genres of music I have yet to learn about and quickly became a favorite of mine. The artists who developed it were extremely passionate (and continue to be as C&W's presence continues to be felt in Japan even to this day)

 I will attach some additional images of Japanese country & western performers just because I absolutely love the imagery.

Kazuya Kosaka (小坂一也), arguably the first J-pop idol

Yoshio Ohno & Keiichi Teramoto (大野義夫と寺本圭一). I don't know who is in the middle

Keijirō Yamashita (山下敬二郎), one of the 三人ロカビリー男 (three rockabilly guys)

Takahiro Saito - 斉藤任弘

Although I definitely wouldn't consider Yuzo Kayama (加山雄三) a C&W musician, he did a few songs and is my favorite so 🥰

Even Group Sounds era bands continued to incorporate the western look, including Jun Inoue (井上順), Hiroshi "Monsieur" Kamayatsu (かまやつ「ムツシュ」ひろし), Katsuo Ohno (大野克夫), and Mitsuru Kato (加藤充) of The Spiders (ザ・スパイダース)

Monsieur was quite an established Country & Western performer before he joined The Spiders

Another Group Sounds era band, The Tigers (ザ・タイガース), mixing western and go-go aesthetics

The Spiders in the West: London & Hawaii

One of my biggest research interests when it comes to postwar Japanese popular music is how much exposure The Spiders (and Group Sounds in general) had to the west. I know that they toured Europe but where exactly did they go? How long were they there? Where did they perform? What songs? Who attended their shows? Did they appear on any television shows? I'd particularly like to know how the American and European public reacted to them. Was it similar to or influenced by Kyu Sakamoto's recent success with his #1 hit "Ue o Muite Arukō"/"Sukiyaki" in the United States in 1963?

I have heard rumors that The Spiders appeared on Ready, Steady, Go! (yes, the one that The Beatles appeared on) but I cannot find any evidence! While The Spiders seemed to very much enjoy their time in Europe, so much that Katsuo Ohno listed Paris as one of his favorite places, it seems that the feeling unfortunately was not mutual. I was fortunate enough to come across a short article that ran in the November 9, 1966 edition of the Daily Mirror recounting The Spiders' arrival at the London airport:

It reads: "Japan's Spiders Fly In: The Spiders, Japan's answer to the Beatles, flew into London Airport yesterday - and got a very un-Beatle-like reception. There were only three fans there to greet them. Still, the seven lads from Tokio, pictured above, weren't too worried. It is their first European tour, after all. And back home, their record "Sad Sunset" is topping the charts."

It really breaks my heart to know that The Spiders received such an "un-Beatle-like reception." But I wonder why. Kyu Sakamoto was received by a crowd of 2,000 at LAX just three years earlier when he visited the United States (but he did have a #1 hit at the time). I wonder why the case wasn't the same for The Spiders?

Hawaii's reception to The Spiders did not seem to be overly exuberant either. 

The Spiders' performance at the Honolulu International Center on June 24, 1967 was advertised in the June 19, 1967 edition of the Honolulu Star - Bulletin. It is very interesting (and cool!) to see that The Spiders were introduced to the American public as an eleki band and not a Group Sounds band, and that their article appeared next to one for Dick Dale and His Del-Tones! Also very interesting to see eleki defined as both "electric or energetic" and that The Spiders were considered both. The Star also seemed to take this opportunity to advertise the Sharps and Flats' performance at the Waikiki Shell in July (who are very much a jazz ensemble and not a rock group) and to advertise the latest kaiju movie that would be coming out, Gappa. However, this article failed miserably in one place: The Spiders' names.

Jun Inoue's last name is misspelled as "Inouye;" Mitsuru Kato's first name is literally made up as "Makoto" (yikes 😬); and Takayuki Inoue is given Katsuo's last name (Ono/Ohno). Not the best fact checking, I suppose? It is interesting to see that many Japanese artists played in Hawaii, as rockabilly star Masaaki Hirao played a show in Hawaii in 1959.

Unfortunately, this is where my new evidence ends for the time being. While I have an image of Katsuo at Disneyland and have seen another of Mitsuru and Katsuo at Knott's Berry Farm, I have yet to hear of anything solid designating they actually performed in the continental United States. I have heard that they performed on Where the Action Is, but I do not have any material proof. I think my next line of attack may be Japanese-American newspapers from the time.

Katsuo Ohno in Disneyland, approximately 1967

Rockabilly, Race, & English Language Fluency

After the initial late-Occupation-era obsession with Country & Western (C&W), the most popular early subgenre of postwar Japanese popular music, and arguably the birth of J-Rock, was rockabilly.

The American Occupation of Japan lasted until 1952 with the signing of the San Francisco Treaty. Only four years later, in 1956, Elvis Presley would release his first #1 hit, "Heartbreak Hotel," and the world would break into a frenzy. By the first few years of the 1960s, over 20 different singers and performers were vying (and sometimes even literally competing in rockabilly contests) to be crowned "Japanese Elvis."

Kazuya Kosaka (小坂ー也), who started out as a Country & Western singer, released his English cover of "Heartbreak Hotel" in 1956 which became "the first successful rockabilly recording in Japan."¹

Kosaka's cover of "Heartbreak Hotel"

Various Japanese rockabilly performers including Kyū Sakamoto (坂本九 - second from left), Mickey Curtis (ミッキー・カーチス - third from left), and Keijirō Yamashita (山下敬二郎 - second from right).

Even more Japanese rockabilly singers in 1958 including Masaaki Hirao (平尾昌章 - in the middle), Keiichi Teramoto (寺本恵一 - second from the right), and a 16-year old Kyū Sakamoto (坂本九 - right) who would have the #1 hit in America with "Sukiyaki" (上を向いて歩こう) just 5 years later in 1963.

In the end, three singers would end up being named the top three "Japanese Elvi," the 三人ロカビリー男 (sannin rokabirī otoko - the three rockabillies, or, literally, "three rockabilly men"). They were: Masaaki Hirao (平尾昌章 ), Keijiro "Kei-chan" Yamashita (山下敬二郎; けいちゃん - Keichan), and Mickey Curtis (ミッキー・カーチス).

Keijirō Yamashita (山下敬二郎), Mickey Curtis (ミッキー・カーチス), and Masaaki Hirao (平尾昌章).

Masaaki Hirao (平尾昌章), Mickey Curtis (ミッキー・カーチス), and Keijirō Yamashita (山下敬二郎).

As in many places around the world (including America), when rock & roll hit, it seemed as if civilization itself was crumbling. We are lucky enough to have a bit of first-hand evidence on how both Japanese and American individuals felt about the Japanese rockabilly craze. Time actually ran an almost one page article on it in the April 14, 1958 edition entitled "Rittoru Dahring," obviously taking a racialized swing at these Japanese performers' pronunciation when performing English covers (or at least using the original English title or chorus line when singing Japanese versions).

Time refers to all three of the top Japanese "Elvi" - Hirao and Curtis in writing and the photograph is of Yamashita being embraced on stage by a young fan. However, Time proceeds to call Japanese rockabilly covers "transoceanic mutilations," giving an example of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" becoming "Rub Me Tender" when a Japanese singer takes a crack at singing it. Emphasized is also how older Japanese critics of the new fad say that their "apelike mumblings" makes them sound like "lacquered monkeys."

Let's bring our attention to the "Elvis" previously presented in the middle of the above photographs, Mickey Curtis. Curtis, who was born in Japan, is of mixed ancestry, having an English father and an English-Japanese mother. He is one of the "Big Three Japanese Elvi" and is sometimes considered "the" Japanese Elvis.

In many promotional materials from this time period (and later), including photographs, Curtis' whiteness is emphasized.

However, in other more candid shots, Curtis' Japanese features are more obvious.

So I suppose the question here is really, did Mickey Curtis' racially-mixed features and better command of the English language lend him an advantage over his fellow Japanese Elvi who were simultaneously competing for the title? Was Curtis also seen as more masculine by default due to his white features, as opposed to Japanese men being seen as more feminine?

According to Michael Bourdaghs, professor at the University of Chicago and author of Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop, “American rockabilly was not only racially exclusive, but also almost exclusively male,”² and is generally still remembered as such.

“Japanese rock-and-roll musicians… found their most stable source of income in performances at clubs on U.S. military bases...”³ However, no matter how popular these translated covers may had been at American military bases,

"A Japanese singing American pop “straight” was certainly acceptable in Japan, but in the United States, it could only be viewed as an exotic joke.... In the United States, [these] Japanese rockabilly singer[s]... could only produce laughter - laughter in the Bergsonian sense of a technique for the violent disciplining of anything that might jam up the smooth functioning of the social machinery."⁴

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Here are some examples to give a better idea of different Japanese rockabilly singer's pronunciation in comparison to the originals they were attempting to channel:

Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel"

Kazuya Kosaka's cover of "Heartbreak Hotel"

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Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock"

Masaaki Hirao's cover of "Jailhouse Rock"

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Paul Anka's "Diana"

Keijirō Yamashita's cover of "Diana"

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Neil Sedaka's "Oh! Carol"

Mickey Curtis' cover of "Oh! Carol"

What do you think? Does Curtis' overall better grasp of the English language and more traditionally European features give him a racialized advantage over his fellow rockabilly rivals?

Sources:

¹ Terumasa Shimizu, “From Covers to Originals: “Rockabilly” in 1956 - 1963,” Made in Japan: Studies in Popular Music, ed. Tōru Mitsui (New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 108.

² Michael K. Bourdaghs, Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop, (New York: Columbia Press, 2012), 101.

³ Ibid., 100.

⁴ Ibid.