Takashi Hosokawa -- Kita Sakaba (北酒場）

In my last entry on enka, I mentioned that the genre can be geographical...such as Yokohama or Nagasaki or Hokkaido. Another theme is also drinking. Just like American country and western with its honky-tonks, enka also goes into detail about the Japanese version of pub crawls.

Takashi Hosokawa(細川たかし） was in the business for about 7 years when he hit pay dirt with "Kita Sakaba"(Northern Bars), a jaunty song about a night of fun, drinking and women on a bar-lined avenue. According to J-Wiki, it was apparently so jaunty that it was thought to be more of a regular pop song than an enka one. But I think it still fulfills the enka category in terms of melody and theme.

I did also state that "Yukiguni" (雪国) was my go-to song in the karaoke boxes. Well, this was my No. 2. After all, I couldn't get away with just singing one tune.

"Kita Sakaba" got as high as No. 3 on the weekly Oricon charts and was No. 5 on the yearly singles in 1982.

September 13 2022: Future Funk meister Night Tempo has given his version of "Kita Sakaba".