When I was in Osaka (it seems a life time ago now), I frequented a very small bar off a street in Kita. One of those bars where the smoke perpetually hangs off the ceiling and a gaijin is a weird, tense presence. At precisely 10.30pm, the guy behind the counter would stop whatever was playing, switch the cables to his turntable and put on a record. The record was the same on each day I went.
In the haze of smoke and hard alcohol, I never managed to ask the bartender what he was playing, but for some reason had captured a brief recording of one of the songs on my phone. I had completely forgotten about it until a few weeks ago, when in the process of clearing out space on the phone, I found the recording.
Memories came flooding back. Of the bar, of the gnarly old dude on the table next to me on my last day yelling at the world, of the peanuts magically laced with nori. Mostly, the memory of that voice. Raspy, soaring, passionate and powerful.
I Shazamed the song.
That song was Hustlin’ Dan by the great Asakawa Maki from her 1972 album, Blue Spirit Blues. A quick YouTube search later, I was devouring the whole thing.
Asakawa Maki made dozens of albums and recordings but her work from the 70s are truly a league apart. The followup to Blue Spirit Blues, Rear Window is just as amazing.
Both these albums are on constant rotation on cloudy, stormy Bangalore evenings and nights where her voice and my memories of that bar in Osaka carry me through.