Noriko Awaya - The Queen of the Blues Saw the Showa/July 1967

Noriko Awaya - The Queen of the Blues Saw the Showa/July 1967

From the early Showa period to the postwar period, Noriko Awaya was a figure who carved her own unique shadow in the Japanese song world. Born into a merchant family in Aomori, she studied voice at the Tokyo School of Music. Although she aspired to a career in opera, she took to the stage of popular songs amid the reality of an era in which it was difficult for women to live. This choice paved the way for her destiny as the "Queen of the Blues. Her representative song "Farewell Blues" from 1938 struck a chord with many people, even though it was considered "soft" under the wartime regime in Japan. Her song was unadorned with sadness and straightforwardly expressed a woman's loneliness and pride. After the war, with the reconstruction of Japan and the advent of TV culture, Awatani was sometimes criticized as a symbol of the old days, but she never pandered to trends, saying, "Songs are not fads, but proof of a way of life. In the 1960s, when youth culture was spreading, her di
gnified attitude embodied the sincerity of her art and the independence of women. Awatani's singing voice is layered with the strength and sorrow of women who lived through the prewar and postwar years, and conveys the shadows of the Showa era to the present.