Skip to main content

Louisiana Mama

Image
By

 

When I chat with older folks in Japan, once I tell them that I’m from Louisiana, they start singing this song without fail:



…100% of the time.

The song is originally by American singer Gene Pitney, but in 1961, Hisahiko Iida released a Japanese language version. Iida’s version became a big hit in Japan the following year, and Louisiana Mama became his signature song. The single sold around 400,000 copies.

Because of the success of Iida’s cover, Louisiana Mama is more well known in Japan than anywhere else in the world, including its home country, the United States.

Photojournalist Toshiaki Nakayama wrote in his essay collection, “Nobody Knows Louisiana Mama: A Snapshot of America”, about his experience of asking various people in Louisiana about “Louisiana Mama” and finding that nobody knew the song.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Live report! "Scrappy Travelling for Miles Tour 2023" NINE MILES & Kaminarigumo + Yoshiaki Manabe

By
 On July 14th, Cody and I attended Kaminarigumo's & Yoshiaki Manabe's "Scrappy Travelling for Miles Tour 2023" at Koenji HIGH. This was a particularly special show, because it featured the very first live performance of Yoshiaki Manabe's (from the pillows) "NINE MILES" solo project. For this new incarnation of NINE MILES, Keiji Ueno from Kaminarigumo takes charge of the vocals. Ghoma (also Kaminarigumo) provides keyboard. To start off, I'll write about how the return of NINE MILES and the album "Into the light again" came to be. The revival of NINE MILES started in early 2023 when Yoshiaki Manabe was asked to join Kaminarigumo's summer tour as the support guitarist. Manabe thought it would be an interesting idea to play as NINE MILES as an opening act, and asked the other members if they'd like to do it. He thought it would be nice to have a tour t-shirt for the occasion, so he asked his bandmate from the pillows Sawao Yamanaka
Post a Comment
Read more

10th Anniversary

By
 March 4th was the 10th anniversary of Japan Jukebox. Ten years ago, we debuted our first episode on KRVS. Time flies, huh? I guess a lot has changed since then. Back then, I was creating playlists in my bedroom in Lafayette on my iPod Classic (the battery died somewhat recently and I intend to do surgery and replace it. I love that thing). Living in Japan and experiencing the music I love firsthand seemed like an unattainable, but... here I am. I've even become friends with some of my favorite bands. If I stop to think about it, it all seems a little surreal. Keeping Japan Jukebox going for as long as possible has always been our hope. Japanese music has never been "just a hobby" for us. And while I've taken more of a backseat the past several years leaving most the show's work to Cody and Zack, my passion is still there, if not stronger than ever. So if you have listened to and enjoyed Japan Jukebox over the past ten years, thank you. I hope that we have introdu
Post a Comment
Read more

Record Store Day 2021

By
Sunday, June 13th, was Record Store Day 2021 in Japan. I took the following Monday to make a trip to Tower Vinyl in Shinjuku. “Tower Vinyl” is a recent addition to the large Tower Records Shinjuku branch. The store spans four floors with Tower Vinyl being the highest. Tower Vinyl is Tower Records’ first vinyl record exclusive store in Japan. You’d think that Tower Vinyl would be Japanese record heaven, but most of the store is western music. The new Japanese records are contained to a pretty small section and they have a sizable “used” Japanese section. I couldn’t find much that appealed to me in the used section, to be honest. It looked like a lot of enka from the 80’s. Actually, I was most excited to visit after seeing some great deals on Tower Records’ online store. Some of the records on my hit-list were on sale for around 80-90% off. But when I found one of the records I wanted with a full price sticker, I asked the staff if the online sale prices a
Post a Comment
Read more