75-year-old singer Linda Yamamoto appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on May 1st. She talked about her singing career, from the story behind the creation of her debut song "Komacchau Na," released in 1966, to her latest collaborations.
On the day Yamamoto first visited composer Minoru Endo to prepare for her debut, she was "very nervous, thinking that the famous teacher was right in front of me," when he asked her things like, "What kind of songs do you like?"
Then, when asked, "Do you have a boyfriend, Linda?", I was surprised. I was nervous, and although I knew he was asking me something, I wondered what he was asking, and I unintentionally muttered, "I'm in a difficult position." Less than two or three weeks later, when we met for the second time, he said, "Linda, I've written a song." That song was "I'm in a difficult position." "The words I said had stuck in (Endo's) mind, and he told me, 'I wrote both the lyrics and the music in the car on the way home that day, Linda.'"
Her debut song was supposed to be a different song. She was told she had some time and could sing any song she liked, so she chose "Komacchau Na." She was told to sing freely, so she went into the recording room and sang freely, thinking of it as practice, and was told it was OK. "When I went into the room where the teachers were, they told me, 'We've decided to make this your debut song,'" she reveals.
Last year, she released "Komacchau Na," a collaboration with influencer Miyu Kaneko, as a digital download. "Ms. Kaneko is a young woman who only distributes her music online, and she releases all sorts of songs. She picked up my song 'Komacchau Na,' and Mr. Minoru Endo's daughter and people at his company also gave their approval," she said, explaining how the collaboration came about.
Even at 75 years old, she still performs on stage about 100 times a year, both large and small. She never misses a day of practice for these performances. "If it's just songs I'm familiar with, I don't need lessons, but if there are new songs or choreography to work on with new dancers, I have to practice really hard because I'm clumsy," she says.
During training, he wears two sauna suits. "I sweat a lot. If I leave them on, they get cold if there's a short break, so I quickly change them then," he revealed.
