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."
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| 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 |
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| Kosaka's cover of "Heartbreak Hotel" |
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| 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). |
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| 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).
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| Keijirō Yamashita (山下敬二郎), Mickey Curtis (ミッキー・カーチス), and Masaaki Hirao (平尾昌章). |
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| 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.
