We will spotlight one artist each month who became the foundation of Japanese music, and draw out in-depth stories from the artists themselves and those involved at the time. May 2021 features Wataru Takada. In the first week, Wataru Takada's son, singer-songwriter, multi-musician, and producer Ren Takada was invited as a guest, along with a photo book "Beyond the gaze of Wataru Takada-Photograph pseudo-1972-1979-". Looking back at Wataru Takada.
Hideki Take (hereafter referred to as Take) Good evening. I am Hideki Take, the guide of FM COCOLO "J-POP LEGEND FORUM". "Coffee Blues" by Wataru Takada is currently playing. One song from the 1971 major label debut album "Go-Aisatsu". This month's previous theme is this song.
Related article: Yuming and others look back on the 1970s Alpha Records works with the director at the time
This May 2021 special feature is Wataru Takada. He made his debut in 1969, and while incorporating various roots music based on playing the guitar, he continued to sing about things that are important to humans, contradictions in the world, and living with one's feet on the ground. . What kind of music is called folk song? What kind of person is called a folksinger? He is a person who is like an answer that has been proven throughout his life. A street legend who had nothing to do with honor or glory. He passed away on April 16, 2005, and this year marks the 17th anniversary of his death. Various projects have been announced in memory of him.
This month, I would like to meet with Tokoroen again and trace his trajectory. Eternal Wataru Takada. This week's and last week's guest is Ren Takada. Needless to say, he is the son of Mr. Wataru Takada. Singer-songwriter, multi-musician, producer. He is also known as Haruomi Hosono's band leader. He is probably one of the most multifaceted people in his 40s. In 2015, Wataru Takada's cover album "Coffee Blues" was released. The final week is the introduction of the album. This month's previous theme also means that there is that album. So, the first guest is Mr. Ren Takada. Good evening.
Ren Takada (hereafter referred to as Takada): Thank you very much.
Take: How do you feel about the number of the 17th anniversary?
Takada: Everyone says so, but it feels like it's going to go by in a blink of an eye.
Taya: The reason why I invited Ren-san to be the top batter for the past 5 weeks is that the photo book "Beyond the gaze of Wataru Takada -Photo pseudo-1972-1979-" was released on the 17th anniversary of his death. I was. A 400-page volume with a thickness of about 3 cm was published by Rittor Music. Mr. Ren is writing the commentary. This week, I would like to hear various stories centering on this photo book.
In the second half of Mr. Watari's collection of essays, "Bourbon Street Blues", published in 2001, there was a page called Wataru Takada Photo Studio, which was full of photographs. In it, you wrote that you became interested in photography after you started singing.
Takada: What do you think? As I wrote in my photo book, my mother said that there was a period when I was more absorbed in photography than in music. That was from the early 1970s to the middle of the 1970s. In fact, I was planning and doing photo exhibitions myself, so I think it's true that I was interested in giving form to some extent.
Taya: Today, I would like to talk about the photos in the photobook. Please listen to this song again, "Coffee Blues".
Taya: Was there a reason why you chose the title of the 2015 cover album of Mr. Wataru Takada's songs as "Coffee Blues"?
Takada: I think Wataru Takada's personality comes out most naturally in this song. Those of you who remember my father in his later years may have an image of him as a man who always drinks and winds a pipe, but Wataru Takadad didn't drink alcohol in Kyoto and had the atmosphere of a shy young man. I'm on my turn. He seems to have liked the poem so much that he wrote it in his own collection of poems, and I thought it was the best song to express Wataru Takada.
Taya: There is another reason why this song is the theme for this month and we are starting with this song today. Lyricist Takashi Matsumoto is written on the belt of this photo book. Formerly the drummer of Happy End and now living in Kyoto, Sanjo Inoda in "Coffee Blues" is still at a coffee shop in Kyoto.
Takada: That's right. I hope you are doing well.
Taya: Let's read what this obi is like. It's an exchange between Mr. Wataru Takada and Mr. Matsumoto. Mr. Matsumoto responds to Mr. Takada's words. "Hey, Matsumoto-kun. I'll show you around Kyoto next time. We'll meet at Inoda in Sanjo Sakaimachi. Let's talk about your favorite poems while talking about second-hand bookstores and cafes. It's been a long time since then. Next time, I'll show you around heaven." These are the words of Mr. Wataru Takada. After this, Mr. Matsumoto said, "Mr. Watari, please wait a little longer. I'll go out to play sometime soon." In a short number of lines, Mr. Wataru Takada calls out and Mr. Matsumoto answers. Mr. Matsumoto may have thought that Mr. Wataru Takada was saying this because of the photo.
Takada: It's like Mr. Matsumoto. It's a sentence that feels like a story.
Taya: The photobook is a photo of Watari-san talking to you about various things.
Takada: That's right. Shiro Sano-san also said this, but Wataru Takada's songs tend to be a bit difficult and unkind, so I think there were many times when I couldn't fathom what he was singing about. That's right. Wataru Takada in terms of photographic expression is very pure, direct and easy to understand. It was probably expressed in an easy-to-understand way that what he was singing in the song was, and I felt that the meaning of the words in my father's song was conveyed more clearly when I was looking at the photos.
Taya: The photographs from 1972 to 1979 are divided into chapters. The photographs are composed with various keywords such as Europe, Kyoto, friends, Kichijoji, first spring, traveling entertainers, studios, and stations. Was this made while discussing with the editor?
Takada: At first, I was choosing according to the place and land to some extent, but when I first saw it, I thought that there was an angle regardless of the place or age. I thought it would be nice if I could create a street corner in Paris, a street corner in Kichijoji, and a bar in Barcelona, even though it was summarized to some extent. As the second half progresses, the composition is such that more Wataru Takada-like photographs appear.
Taya: Why was Wataru Takada attracted to cameras? In his collection of essays, "Bourbon Street Blues," there was a phrase like this. “Just as the sound played by a single guitar differs from person to person, the photos taken with a single camera will all be different depending on the person taking the photo.” That's the picture.
Takada: It's a scene that we tend to overlook when we live in a busy modern world. I'm capturing casual moments, and that's the scenery of the 1970s, so there are some scenery that are irreplaceable now and don't exist anymore. This is a photo that gives you a glimpse of how Wataru Takada was looking at the world.
Taya: You also wrote about how you got started with cameras. It all started with taking snapshots of the streets of Kyoto. Please listen to the songs that were made at that time. 1969 Released the first full album "When the train passes through the countryside"The title song "When the train passes through the countryside".
Taya: The person I was talking to during the song was a URC clerk at the time. I am talking about my life. Born on January 1, 1949 in Gifu Prefecture. In conjunction with the 17th anniversary, another interesting book has been released. "Going to see Wataru Takada" by Kenichi Nagira. Interview with older brother, first wife, Ren, Junpei Sakuma and Shiva. It's a maniac book (laughs).
Takada: I had a lot of fun reading it, but it feels like a memorial service in writing. I read it while wondering how much it would be understood by the general public (laughs). But there were some things I learned for the first time in this book.
Taya: I see. The cover art for "When the Train Passes Through the Countryside" was written by my brother. Next week and the week after next will be Bellwood Records producer Mitsunori Miura.
Takada: My oldest brother originally wanted to be a painter. Since he is the eldest son, he gave up drawing, and although he was on bad terms with his father (Wataru Takada) for a while, they respected each other. It was a presence.
Taya: You also wrote that your family in Gifu Prefecture was originally a lumber merchant and wealthy, and that your father devoured it. As mentioned in the song, he lost his mother at the age of 8 and moved to Tokyo.He entered a part-time high school and got a job as a writer, in other words, picking up types for a printing shop, and encountered folk songs. It is also clearly written in "Bourbon Street Blues". Then, in 1968, he started doing folk songs and came back to Kyoto. In the photo book, there is a photo of my mother's family home in Omiya, Kyoto.
Takada: My mother's house used to be a tea ceremony house, and the room in that photo is the kind of room that would be used for tea ceremony.
Taya: You wrote that a musician stayed there.
Takada: A lot of young musicians stayed here regardless of whether my father was there or not (laughs). Actually, my uncle on my mother's side was running a live house in Kyoto at the time. There is also the fact that I relied on that uncle, but various people came to stay. Shiva often stayed there.
Taya: That made me realize a lot of things. It was made by Mr. Watari, Mr. Hiroshi Iwai, Mr. Yo Nakayama, and Mr. Arima. The folk concert was held at a temple in Shijo Omiya, near my parents' house.
Takada: That's right. Perhaps it's because of the nature of Kyoto, but I'm a little older than my fathers, such as poets Yo Nakayama and Akira Arima. Just like the relationship between hippies and the beat generation. There were many progressive poets in Kyoto, and they pushed the folk songs of young poets. I guess that led to the richness of the folk scene in Kyoto at the time. I think the influence of Yo Nakayama and Akira Arima is strong.
Taya: There is also a story that when I woke up to folk songs, I visited Mr. Kazuo Mitsuhashi, a critic who was in Tokyo. Next, please listen to "The pattern of life" from his 1st album "Goraisatsu".
Take: It's a recording of my friends at the time singing and playing together. The lyrics are written by Baku Yamanokuchi, a poet from Okinawa. There was also a photo of Okinawa in the photo book.
Takada: I think it was a big deal for him to be able to go to Okinawa, which had just been returned to Japan. He didn't look like a person with a tropical atmosphere, but he seemed to like Okinawa and often went there.
Taya: I once read a story about how, at the Okinawa Folk Village concert, they were turned down when they said they didn't sing in the Okinawan language.
Takada: Yes yes (laughs). It feels like I said something that Pete Seeger once told me.
Taya: After your father passed away, you returned to Saga, and then came to Tokyo to attend a part-time high school, where you lived alone and met Mr. Yamanokuchi. I wrote about why I was attracted to him in "Bourbon Street Blues". He said, "It's not a poem that I wrote while twisting my head on manuscript paper. It depicts people's lives rooted in real experiences, a more unrefined and raw world. This is the same as my song."
Takada: I think it was very shocking. Woody Guthrie like Wataru Takada, and when I was thinking about folk songs and vaguely grasping the contents of the lyrics, I found that there are Japanese poets who write the world they think of in the lyrics. But it was also a kind of encouragement. Wataru Takada stopped writing his own lyrics from a relatively early age, and I wonder if that had something to do with it.
Taya: I see. There are many good books left that give clues to what kind of person Mr. Wataru Takada was. The diary of 17 to 20 years old, titled "My Friend: Wataru Takada's Diary of Youth 1966-1969", published in 2015, is just such a book. As Ren said in it, why were you attracted to folk songs, what is your song? The question has been written all the time. Among them was a good story about writing a letter to Pete Seeger.
Takada: I had heard about it from the person himself, but there was a process of writing the letter and a reply from Pete Seeger.
Taya: It was like a history museum, with his handwritten letters and the type-printed original returned from Pete Seeger.
Takada: I was surprised when I found it myself. My father never handled things carelessly, but I didn't get the impression that he was that rich. I miraculously stayed at my parents' house for a series of things around that time, so it was like a kind of miraculous time capsule.
Taya: That's a good expression. There was a better story, when Wataru Takada went to see Pete Seeger when he came to Japan, he remembered him. I thought this was a great story.
Takada: In the diary, later in life, I would say, "I didn't like Bob Dylan or the Beatles," but when I actually read the diary, I found out that Bob Dylan was especially popular at first. Like. But early on, I discovered Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and I think Pete Seeger was my father's true mentor, or perhaps his eternal admiration. In his later years, my father would often boo that Komuro and others were good friends with Pete Seeger. I think he definitely likes me better than him (laughs).
Taya: Please listen to the song written by Wataru Takada himself. "Miner's Prayer" from the 1972 album Genealogy.
Take: Originally, this song was included in "When the train passes through the countryside". At that time, he wrote the lyrics himself.
Takada: That's right. Conversely, that album was a collection of my own poems, and since then the percentage has gradually decreased. I didn't say much about it.
Taya: But when I met Mr. Yamanouchi-san, I guess he thought that what I was thinking and what I wanted to sing were expressed in words rather than what I wrote.
Takada: As Kenichi Nagira said, the strange thing is that when Wataru Takada speaks and sings, the words naturally possess Wataru Takada. It may take some time for some people who don't know him to realize that many of the songs Wataru Takada sang are the lyrics of other people. I mean. I think I admired Mr. Bub, and before I knew it, I was the kind of person who wanted to lead a life like him.
Taya: Mr. Takada's words became his own life. What you heard was "Miner's Prayer" from the 1972 album Genealogy.
Taya: "Money ga Nakerya" from the 1971 album "Go-Aisatsu". The performance is Happy End. Eiichi Otaki is the side guitarist, Shigeru Suzuki is the lead guitarist, Haruomi Hosono is the bassist, and Takashi Matsumoto is the drummer. Same year as Kazemachi Roman. The live guitarist is Mr. Isato Nakagawa, and the banjo chorus is Mr. Hiroshi Iwai. Chorus by Ryo Kagawa and Kenji Endo. These people are all in the photobook.
Takada: Certainly. We've been friends since the URC days.
Taya: In the photo book, there are famous people such as Ginji Ito, Yosui Inoue, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kyozo Nishioka, and Mitsunori Miura. Goro Nakagawa is holding the newborn Ren. Happy End on page 97 with all the smiles on their faces.
Takada: It's rare, isn't it? Mr. Otaki and Mr. Matsumoto would get irritated if the camera was pointed at them. After all, Wataru Takada is not a photographer, so on the contrary, everyone is in the element, and you can feel the atmosphere of the time in the photos. I think the general image is that the band called Happy End is similar to the legend of the Beatles, and that they don't get along with each other by scattering sparks, but just by looking at that photo, you can feel the distance between the members. I feel like I can catch a glimpse of it.
Taya: What did Ren-san feel again when looking at the photos of such musicians?
Takada: After all, the folk scene at the time was a battlefield, or rather, a place where musicians clash with each other while polishing their own expressions, but they respect each other in a friendly manner. mosquito. Seeing everyone playing live shows a different atmosphere from today's rock festivals.
Take: It must be that they were comrades-in-arms who created scenes together and worked hard together.
Takada: I think so.
Taya: In your commentary, Mr. Ren wrote two points about the characteristics of Mr. Watari's photographs. One thing I liked to photograph was the daily life of working people. I'm taking pictures of life told by my back.
Takada: Taking pictures of working people is directly connected to the world of Wataru Takada's songs, and I thought it was very typical of Wataru Takada. I think there are a lot of photos taken through the back, and I think that's probably because if you point the camera straight in front of you, you'll end up holding it somewhere else, but by taking it from behind, you can see life. I think I started to find out in the photographic expression. If I had continued to take pictures seriously all the time, I think I would have taken more pictures.
Taya: A lot of the people working in the city and passers-by have their backs, but the musicians are right in front of them. And everyone is laughing.
Takada: That's right. That side must have appeared in front of the musician and said something interesting. Many of the photos are continuous, but I often saw things that made me think that there was some kind of exchange going on.
Taya: I will play a song that conveys that kind of atmosphere. "For Fathers Who Don't Sing Lullabies" from Ryo Kagawa's 1974 album "Out of Mind".
For Fathers Who Don't Sing Lullabies / Ryo Kagawa
Taya: There are photos of the studio during the recording of this song in this photobook. The singers were Wataru Takada, Goro Nakagawa, Ritsu Murakami, and Isato Nakagawa. Mr. Ryo Kagawa only wrote the songs and did not sing them. So, the crying that I heard in between was Ren-san.
Takada: Yes. It's like I'm being forced to cry (laughs). I had heard about the recording several times, but it was the first time I had actually seen this photo, so I was surprised. I think there was so much left.
Taya: I remember when Chuhide Yoshikawa put the voice of his newborn baby in the album. It was a time when there were many thoughts that a child was born to those of us with long hair who never thought we were living a normal life.
Takada: I was born relatively early in the folk generation, so everyone seemed to enjoy it. I was taken to various places, and I think I was the most played (laughs).
Taya: In that sense, it is also a record of Mr. Ren's childhood (laughs).
Takada: That's true. I'm surprised again when I think that I've been in the studio since I was a child (laughs).
Taya: Let's talk about that again in the final week. In the diary of July 8, 1966 in "My Friend" there was such a description. "I want to go around the world, not only in America, but also in the USSR, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Spain. I plan to do this for the rest of my life." Four days later, on July 12th, he said, "Soviet Union, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, and the three Nordic countries will also be on the tour." Travel and music must have gone together. This photo book also started in Europe in 1972.
Takada: That's right. To put Wataru Takada in a way that is easy to understand musically, he has a strong influence from American folk music, and I think he is often seen that way. However, as I wrote in my diary and touched upon in my autobiography, I have been interested in European music and culture since I was young, and to tell you the truth, from the very beginning I had my eye on Europe. I thought it was. Even in the photo book, when Wataru Takada decided to travel, he should have gone to America first, but he chose to go to Europe. Actually, one of my father's original experiences with music was that my older brother had a record of European folk songs. I happened to go drinking with my father when I was young, and there happened to be a folk song from Belgium or somewhere else being played. I used to say that it was music, and I think that was the root of it.
Take: Because of that experience, I think you could say that I was attracted to American artists such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan. There is a 1976 album "FISHIN ON SUNDAY" that was recorded in Los Angeles, and there is a photo of it in the second half, so let's talk about it after this song "Fishin Blues".
Fishing Blues / Wataru Takada
Taya: I'm planning to ask Mitsunori Miura, the guest next week and the week after next, about this topic, but the recording guests are Haruomi Hosono and Isato Nakagawa. "Fishing blues" features Fred Tucket playing mandarin.
Takada: It was later Little Feat.
Taya: Yes. Ren also wrote that there was still something he wanted to find out about "FISHIN ON SUNDAY".
Takada: In the first place, unlike my father's other albums, the songs for this album weren't finished when I went to Los Angeles. I think it will also lead to Happy End's third album, and while I wondered why I hadn't prepared more, I felt like there were a lot of things I was working on. I would like to find out more, including the scenery during the recording.
Taya: Wataru Takada was originally scheduled to go to the recording of Happy End's third album in Los Angeles. In the photo book, Wataru Takada, Hosono, Isato, and Mitsunori Miura are photographed at California Beach. And it's in color.
Takada: When my father started taking pictures, it was already an era when color was already available, but basically he seemed to stick to black and white expressions. That's what he wrote in his autobiography. I don't know why, but at that time I brought a collar. You didn't bring black and white. However, it feels very vivid that the photo book is in color by chance, and the amount of light is unique to the color photographs of those days. For me, I feel like the California of my dreams is reflected there.
Taya: Did you think that if you want to shoot America, you should shoot in color?
Takada: It's a bad word, but I think I may have had such shallow thoughts (laughs). I think that there was more meaning to the photographs as something to leave in the recorded work, rather than the consciousness of taking ordinary photographs.
Taya: I see. Finally, please listen to "Ren" from "FISHIN ON SUNDAY".
Ren / Wataru Takada
Taya: What did you think of this song? I think it's a good word, the visible and the invisible.
Takada: To tell the truth, this song and this lyric were based on a poem by Mamoru Takagi. My father changed some parts of it to my name. But when I was making this album, I think I wanted to sing this kind of scenery.
Taya: As you can see in the title of the photobook, "Beyond the Eyes of Wataru Takada," I thought that he was trying to record the invisible.
Takada: As I wrote in the photobook, the line between taking pictures and singing songs gradually disappears in Wataru Takada. Whether you're in Europe or Japan, you'll always shoot the same thing. Whether you're taking pictures or singing, the character Wataru Takada will win out. I feel that the 1970s was that kind of process.
Taya: I see. The pride of proletarians is that what we can see belongs to people, and what we can't see belongs to us (laughs). In the final week, I would like to ask you about the cover album "Coffee Blues". Thank you for your time today.
Takada: Thank you.
Taya: FM COCOLO "J-POP LEGEND FORUM" Wataru Takada special feature Part 1. This year is the 17th anniversary of his death, and it is a month to follow the trajectory of eternal folk singer Wataru Takada. This week, we sent Mr. Ren Takada as a guest. What's playing now is the post-theme of this program, Mariya Takeuchi's "Silent Legend".
Of course music changes with the times. Pop music records the "season" of that era. But the so-called sound of the current disappears with time. Listening to Wataru Takada's music again, the thing that left the strongest impression on me was the timelessness of his music. I keep singing something of myself that is absolutely unshakable, it's no longer a form. You can clearly see that it's not the sound.
When I look at this photobook, I think that the flow of time is a little different from that. It's a realistic record of what the 1970s were like. It's not graphic, but it's funny, sentimental, and cool. Each photo can be left as it is. What kind of clothes, what kind of expression, what kind of city and how did you travel? He longed to travel.
It was also a time when music and travel were one. It was a time when it was very difficult to travel, so it's true that I also admired concert tours and people who traveled while singing. I felt that all these things were being told in the photo book. It is also a record of how Mr. Wataru Takada interacted with people. It was a photo book that made me think that the desire to travel is as eternal as music.
＜INFORMATION＞
Hideki Take
Born in 1946 in Funabashi City, Chiba Prefecture. He graduated from Chuo University, Faculty of Law, Department of Political Science. In 1969, he became the first editor of the town magazine "Shinjuku Play Map", a broadcast writer such as "Say! Young", and a youth magazine editor-in-chief. Active as a program personality.
https://takehideki.jimdo.com
https://takehideki.exblog.jp
"J-POP LEGEND FORUM"
Mon 21:00-22:00
Music critic Hideki Take spotlights one artist each month who became the foundation of Japanese music, and draws out in-depth stories from the artist and those involved at the time.
https://cocolo.jp/service/homepage/index/1210
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://cocolo.jp/
OFFICIAL Twitter: @fmcocolo765
OFFICIAL Facebook: @FMCOCOLO
With radiko, you can listen to FM COCOLO clearly on your computer or smartphone for free!
→cocolo.jp/i/radiko