was a popular Japanese

ryūkōka is a Japanese musical genre. The term originally denoted any kind of "popular music" in Japanese, and is the sinic reading of ''hayariuta'', used for commercial music of Edo Period. Therefore, ''imayō'', which was promoted by Emperor Go-Shirak ...

singer. He also used the aliases , , and in his early recording career.

Early life

Shōji was born in

Akita is a Japanese name and may refer to: Places * 8182 Akita, a main-belt asteroid * Akita Castle, a Nara period fortified settlement in Akita, Japan * Akita Domain, also known as Kubota Domain, feudal domain in Edo period Japan * Akita, Kumamoto ...

Akita Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Provinces and prefectures" in ; "Tōhoku" in . Its population is approximately 966,000 (as of 1 October 2019) and its ge ...

. His father was an employee of the

South Manchuria Railway The South Manchuria Railway ( ja, 南満州鉄道, translit=Minamimanshū Tetsudō; ), officially , Mantetsu ( ja, 満鉄, translit=Mantetsu) or Mantie () for short, was a large of the Empire of Japan whose primary function was the operatio ...

, and his parents moved to

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...

, leaving him behind in Japan to be raised by his grandmother, who introduced him to the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

. He graduated from the

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

Department of Commerce, where he majored in

Marxist economics Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian e ...

. He married shortly before graduation from undergraduate studies, and was employed by the South Manchurian Railways Research Division on completion of his graduated degree in 1923. His main work at the South Manchurian Railways was on

unionization The organizing model, as the term refers to trade unions (and sometimes other social-movement organizations), is a broad conception of how those organizations should recruit, operate, and advance the interests of their members, though the specific ...

; however, his highly

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

viewpoints alienated both his managers and the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

, and he found himself sidelined to a position in a library. After seven years in Manchukuo, he returned to Japan, where his brother was running a Chinese restaurant near Waseda University.

Music career

Shōji made his debut as a recording singer in 1933. He attempted to become a Western classical

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...

singer, but finally became a popular singer. His first major hit popular song written about

Kunisada Chūji was a popular figure in the Edo period. He was a bakuto (gamblers commonly seen as forerunners to the modern yakuza). His story is mainly responsible for the romanticised "chivalrous bandit" or "Robin Hood" image in Japan. An example was when ...

. The song was released in 1934 and sold 400,000 copies. This song became a model for many lesser known singers in the 1930s and early 1940s about tragic or semi-tragic Japanese anti-heroes. .Ewbank, Alison J. and Papageorgiou, Fouli T.
Whose Master's Voice?: The Development of Popular Music in Thirteen Cultures
'. ''

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

''. via Greenwood Publishing Group. 1997. 161. From 1934 to 1936, the young actress

Hideko Takamine was a Japanese actress who began as a child actress and maintained her fame in a career that spanned 50 years. She is particularly known for her collaborations with directors Mikio Naruse and Keisuke Kinoshita, with ''Twenty-Four Eyes'' (1954) ...

and her mother lived with Shōji, although she refused his offer to formally adopt her. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, many of his songs were banned by the American occupation forces as too nationalistic. In the 1960s, his popularity revived, riding a wave of nostalgia for songs of the early

Shōwa period Shōwa may refer to: * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufacturer, affiliated with the Honda keiretsu Japanese eras * Jōwa (Heian ...

. Shōji appeared four times on the

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

,'' starting with the first broadcast in 1951, followed by 1955, 1956 and 1965. He performed at the

Asakusa International Theater was a 3,860-seat theater located in Asakusa, Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, which was used for concerts and theatrical performances. It opened in 1937 and was closed in 1982. It was demolished and replaced by the Asakusa View Hotel in 1985. It was owned ...

in 1957 and in 1963 became honorary chairman of the Japan Vocalist Association in 1963. He was awarded the “special recognition” award at the

Japan Record Award is a major music awards show, held annually in Japan that recognizes outstanding achievements in the Japan Composer's Association. Until 2005, the show aired on New Year's Eve, but has since aired every December 30 on TBS Japan at 6:30 P.M JST a ...

s in 1965 and the 4th class of the

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight ...

in 1969.

Death

Shōji suffered from

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

. However, he recovered from the illness in 1964. He died from

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

in 1972.

Partial discography

* : 1933 * : 1934 * : 1936 * : 1938 * : 1938 with Shinbashi Kiyozo * : 1938 with Bin Uehara * : 1940 * : 1941

References

*Birnbaum, Phyliss. ''Modern Girl, Shining Stars, the Skies of Tokyo: Five Japanese Women''. Columbia University Press. (2000).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shoji, Taro 1898 births 1972 deaths Musicians from Akita Prefecture Waseda University alumni People from Akita (city) 20th-century Japanese male singers 20th-century Japanese singers