On Johnny Farnham and Enka

Here is a film clip of Australian television in 1969. Johnny Farnham is singing his cover of the Harry Nilsson song 'One' on the music programme Uptight. Stay with it to the end to see some really great pulsating camera work. Groovy baby!

If Farnham had migrated to Japan instead of Australia, he could have become a first rate modern enka singer. Not only does he have a big range and excellent vocal control, he has a strong vibrato which is exaggerated into a kind of  tremelo called kobushi by enka singers and is a hallmark of the style. Here is Ms Yoshimi Tendou, (who, if she been born in the US would have been Elvis) demonstrating her kobushi in a mournful song lamenting lost love while travelling through a chain of islands.The video isn't great but the trumpet solo is.

And here is Nilsson's 'One' which is so Elenor Rigby melancholy and Californian wabi-sabi, it makes me want to stand in the snow with no socks on.

Just one of those days.