39 f Shimauta King


Sanshin player, singer and producer Sadao China has a special place in modern Okinawan music. John Potter enjoys his hospitality.


I


t’s a sizzling hot Wednesday after- noon in August on the subtropical Ryukyu island of Okinawa and at last I’ve caught up with singer, san- shin player, songwriter and producer Sadao China. In fact, I’m sitting in the liv- ing room of his home, a spacious house in Kitanakagusuku only a stone’s throw from the radiant blue Pacific Ocean.


Probably best known overseas as pro- ducer of the four-woman group Nenes, China himself is something of a legend in the Ryukyu Islands as a performer and last year won a national record award in Japan for his 6-CD box set Shimauta Hyakkei, a magnum opus comprising 101 traditional songs. I’ve been trying to arrange this meeting for a couple of months but China’s son Sadanori, who runs his father’s Dig Promotions music company, was under strict instructions not to make any appointments while Sadao was busy pro- ducing a new album for the latest line-up of his protégées Nenes. Well, the album is finished now and Sadao China has sug- gested we meet at his home. We’ve come across each other a few times before but always on neutral ground so I feel privi- leged to be invited into the family home. The entrance and several rooms are deco- rated with framed photos and posters, not just of China’s achievements but also of his own father, the late minyo (traditional song) singer Teihan China.


Sadao China’s wife keeps us well refreshed with coffee and then the island’s popular jasmine tea while her husband relaxes into the sofa next to the open win- dows where we try to get a cooling breeze. China is certainly a busy man. He runs his own music club or ‘live house’, known as Shimauta, on the main entertainment street Kokusai-dori in the island’s capital Naha, and he has produced a number of albums for other artists on his Dig label. He has also helped organise the annual Ryukyu Festivals held in Osaka and other venues around Japan. This has meant that his own recording has not been as prolific as it might have been. It picked up a bit over the past decade with the release of a duet album with Seijin Noborikawa and then a solo album Utamai in 2005. Never- theless it was a great surprise when he sud- denly came up with the Shimauta Hyakkei box set at the end of last year. At first I thought it must be a collection of older recordings or re-releases, but not so, these are all brand new recordings.


China explains: “This plan had been going on for quite a long time and we had many discussions about it. Manabu Oshiro,


a professor at the University Of The Ryukyus, had been saying that he wanted me to do a big compilation album. The idea began about ten years ago but then there were some difficulties. For example, one of the directors of King Records, who released the album, became ill and there were various other problems. But Oshiro strongly wanted to have my songs record- ed for posterity. I was a little unsure at first because I feel that I’m still a singer and my career is still going on so I haven’t finished yet! Anyway, I did this project in the end to show my thanks and appreciation to everyone such as the great older artists who inspired me, including those who are dead, and also to say thanks to other singers and friends. It’s because of them I’m still singing and doing this work.”


With such a large project it must have been difficult to choose the songs to be recorded. The songs are grouped by theme and so there are songs of celebration, songs of play and didacti- cism, immigration and travel, songs from plays and drama, songs about the islands, and finally two CDs of love songs. A single album was also released, entitled Utadamashi, which includes selections from the major work.


“In making the choices, I just record- ed the songs I want- ed to sing one after the other. Manabu Oshiro then sorted out the songs into each of the themes. I didn’t think about which song was from which particular island, it was more like doing a live performance in the studio. Almost all of the songs were record- ed in one take. There were only


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