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Hibari Misora

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Hibari Misora
Musical artist

Hibari Misora (美空ひばり, Misora Hibari, May 29, 1937 – June 24, 1989) was an award winning Japanese enka singer, actress. She is often regarded as being one of the greatest singers of all time, and was the first woman in Japan to receive the People's Honour Award (国民栄誉賞), which was awarded posthumously for her notable contributions to the music industry. Hibari Misora is also one of the most commercially successful music artists in the world, and at the time of her death, she had recorded around 1,200 songs, and sold 68 million records. After she died, consumer demand for her recordings grew significantly, and by 2001 she had sold more than 80 million records. Her swan-song "Kawa no nagare no yō ni" (川の流れのように) is often performed by numerous artists and orchestra's as a tribute to her, including notable renditions by The Three Tenors, Teresa Teng, and Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan.

Biography

Life and career

Hibari Misora was born Kazue Katō (加藤和枝, Katō Kazue) in Isogo-ku, Yokohama, Japan. Her father was Masukichi Katō (加藤増吉, Katō Masukichi), a fishmonger, and her mother Kimie Katō (加藤喜美枝, Katō Kimie), a housewife. Misora displayed musical talent from an early age after singing for her father at a World War II send-off party in 1943. He invested a small fortune taken from the family's savings to begin a musical career for his daughter, and in 1945 she debuted at a concert hall in Yokohama, at the age of eight, as Kazue Misora (美空和枝, Misora Kazue), a name proposed by her mother. A year later she appeared on a NHK broadcast, and impressed the Japanese composer Masao Koga with her singing ability. He considered her to be a prodigy with the courage, understanding, and emotional maturity of an adult. In the following two years, she became an accomplished singer and was touring notable concert halls to sold-out crowds.

Her recording career began in 1949 at the age of twelve, when she changed her stage-name to Hibari Misora; which means "beautiful skylark" and starred in the film Nodojiman-kyô jidai (のど自慢狂時代). The film gained her nationwide recognition. She recorded her first single Kappa Boogie-Woogie (河童ブギウギ, Kappa bugiugi) for Columbia Records later that year. It became a commercial hit, selling more than 450,000 copies. She subsequently recorded "Kanashiki kuchibue", which was featured on a radio program and was a national hit. As an actress, she starred in around 160 movies from 1949 to 1971, and won numerous awards. Her performance in Tokyo Kid (1950), in which she played a street orphan, made her symbolic of both the hardship and the national optimism of post-World War II Japan.


In 1973 Tetsuya Katō, Misora's brother, was prosecuted for gang-related activity. Although NHK did not acknowledge any connection, Misora was excluded from Kouhaku uta gassen for the first time in eighteen years. Offended, she refused to appear on NHK for years afterwards.

Death

Health problems also plagued her in her later years. In April of 1987, on the way to a performance in Fukuoka, Misora suddenly collapsed. Rushed to hospital, she was diagnosed with avascular necrosis brought on by chronic hepatitis. She was confined to a hospital in Fukuoka, and eventually showed signs of recovery in August. She commenced recording a new song in October, and in April of 1988 performed at a concert at the Tokyo Dome. Despite overwhelming pain in her legs, she performed a total of 39 songs.

Her triumph was to be short lived. On 24 June 1989, after being confined to a hospital in Tokyo, she died from pneumonia at the age of 52. Her death was widely mourned throughout Japan.

Beginning in 1990, television and radio stations annually play her song "Kawa no nagare no yōni" (川の流れのように) on her birthdate to show respect. In a national poll by NHK in 1997, the song was voted the greatest Japanese song of all time by more than 10 million people.

Museum

In 1994, the Hibari Misora Museum opened in Arashiyama, Kyoto. This multistorey building traced the history of Misora's life and career in multi-media exhibits, and displayed various memorabilia. It attracted more than 5 million visitors, until it officially closed on November 30, 2006, as to allow a scheduled reconstruction of the building. The main exhibits were moved into the Shōwa period section of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, until reconstruction was complete. The new Hibari Misora Theater opened on April 26, 2008, and includes a CD for sale of a previously unreleased song.

Question of Korean ancestry

Hibari Misora's ancestry is a matter of dispute. There are assertions that she was of ethnic Korean ancestry, and that she and her family held Korean passports. Others dispute these claims and following study of her parents' ancestry, assert that Misora's background is not Korean, but Japanese.

Notable songs

  • Kappa Boogie Woogie (河童ブギウギ, 1949)
  • Kanashiki Kuchibue (悲しき口笛, 1949)
  • Tokyo Kiddo (東京キッド, 1950)
  • Omatsuri Mambo (お祭りマンボ, 1952)
  • Ringo Oiwake (リンゴ追分, 1952)
  • Minatomachi 13-banchi (港町十三番地, 1957)
  • Yawara (柔, 1964)
  • Kanashii Sake (悲しい酒, 1966)
  • Makkana Taiyo (真赤な太陽, 1967)
  • Aisansan (愛燦燦（あいさんさん）, 1986)
  • Midaregami (みだれ髪, 1987)
  • Kawa no nagare no yō ni (川の流れのように, 1989)

Filmography

Japanese movie poster for Kanashiki kuchibue (1949) showing Hibari Misora.

Hibari Misora appeared in 166 films:

1940s

(1940s complete)

1950s

Japanese movie poster for Haha wo shitaite (1951) featuring Hibari Misora.
File:Ano oka koete poster.jpg
Ano oka koete (1951)

(1950s is complete)

  • (銭形平次捕物控　死美人風呂) (1956)
  • (おしどり囃子) (1956)
  • (恋すがた狐御殿 Koi sugata kitsune goten) (1956)
  • Peach Boy (宝島遠征 Takarajima ensei) (1956)
  • Romantic Daughters (ロマンス娘, Romansu musume, 1956)
  • (ふり袖太平記) (1956)
  • (ふり袖捕物帖　若衆変化) (1956)
  • (鬼姫競艶録) (1956)
  • (銭形平次捕物控　まだら蛇 Zenigata Heiji torimono hikae: madara hebi) (1957)
  • (大江戸喧嘩纏) (1957)
  • (旗本退屈男　謎の紅蓮搭) (1957)
  • (ふり袖捕物帖　ちりめん駕籠) (1957)
  • (ロマンス誕生) (1957)
  • (おしどり喧嘩笠 Oshidori kenkagasa) (1957)
  • (怪談番町皿屋敷) (1957)
  • On Wings of Love (大当り三色娘, Ōatari sanshoku musume) aka Big Hit Three Color Daughters (1957)
  • (青い海原) (1957)
  • (ふり袖太鼓) (1957)
  • (ひばりの三役　競艶雪之丞変化) (1957)
  • (ひばりの三役　競艶雪之丞変化　後篇) (1957)
File:Oatari tanukigoten poster.jpg
The Badger Palace (1958)
File:Musume no Naka no Musume poster.jpg
Musume no Naka no Musume (1958)

1960s - 1980s

Template:Sect-num-stub

Songs in films

Her songs also appeared in 5 Japanese films:

See also

References

  1. http://www.hmv.co.jp/news/newsDetail.asp?newsnum=311040086
  2. http://www.hmv.co.jp/news/newsdetail.asp?newsnum=611280059
  3. http://www.hyou.net/ka/eiyosho.htm
  4. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7DA1E3EF936A15755C0A96F948260 New York Times obituary June 25, 1989
  5. http://columbia.jp/company/en/corporate/history/index.html
  6. http://www.bk1.jp/product/02060223
  7. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483989/
  8. ^ Anderson, Mark (2001). Sandra Buckley (ed.). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture. Routledge. pp. 123, 323–4. ISBN 978-0415143448.
  9. Tansman, Alan (1996). "Mournful tears and sake: The postwar myth of Misora Hibari". In John Whittier Treat (ed.). Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 0-824818-54-7.
  10. http://www.japan-zone.com/news/2008/09/26/new_release_from_misora_hibari_20_years_after_her_death.shtml Japan Zone News
  11. Yano, Christine R. (2004). "Raising the ante of desire: foreign female singers in a Japanese pop music world". In B. Shoesmith (ed.). Refashioning Pop Music in Asia: Cosmopolitan Flows, Political Tempos, and Aesthetic Industries. Routledge. p. 168. ISBN 9780700714018.
  12. Dorian, Frederick (1999). World Music. Rough Guide. p. 148. ISBN 9781858286365.
  13. Lie, John (2000). "Ordinary (Korean) Japanese". In Sonia Ryane (ed.). Koreans in Japan. Routledge. p. 2002. ISBN 978-0415219990.
  14. Weiner, Michael (2004). Race, ethnicity and migration in modern Japan. Routledge Press. p. 167. ISBN 9780415208543.
  15. Wan, Foong Woei (13 August 2006). "A touch of Korea". The Straits Times. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  16. Shukan Bunshu 「『美空ひばりの父は韓国人』はどこまで本当か」, August 10, 1989.
  17. 美空ひばり時代を歌う (1989.7) ISBN 4103654023
  18. http://www.goodsarchive.com/kakaku/4062098172.html
  19. ^ http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/person/p0331260.htm accessed 20 January 2009
  20. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440914/ accessed 10 February 2009

External links

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