Recreating traditional music in postwar Japan: a prehistory of enka

Abstract

This article examines how enka evolved from the earlier genre of kayōkyoku, looking at the musical markers of Japaneseness and considering issues of authenticity and originality in those earlier genres. The careers of composers Koga Masao and Hattori Ryōichi and singers Misora Hibari and Kasagi Shizuko show the development of a hybrid style of popular song both before and after the Pacific War, which would by the 1960s evolve into enka. As its core audience has aged, enka has become increasingly rigid and concerned with nostalgia for a ‘pure’ Japanese past, even though the music itself is quite distant from traditional musical forms. Analysis of three movie musicals from the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ginza kankan girl, Carmen comes home and Janken girls, also demonstrates the performance practices of popular music at the time, and the complex relationship between popular music and national identity.