Former Mainichi Shimbun reporter Kenichi Ohashi (66), now mayor of Wakayama City. Famous in his Mainichi days as the "singing reporter," he is now the "singing mayor." Elected in 2002, he is in his third term and since summer 2011 has also served as chair of the Core City Mayors' Association. During his Mainichi years he worked at the Osaka head office and the Tokyo head office in Palaceside Building.
Mayor Ohashi has published "Hyakka Jiten by a Former Reporter-Mayor"—a follow-up to "Zatsugaku Jiten by a Former Reporter-Mayor" (2007), which collected essays serialised on his website (he calls them miscellany).
On "Wakayama Blues," for example, he writes:
Kiyono Kiyo, who has sung this song for forty-four years, was born in Ota, Gunma Prefecture and had no original tie to Wakayama. In 1965, at eighteen, she became a pupil of composer Tada Yoshida and debuted on record; in September 1968, her eighth single was "Raised in Kushimoto." As often happens, "Wakayama Blues" (lyrics by Shizuo Yoshikawa, music by Tada Yoshida) was the B-side; "Raised in Kushimoto" was better known at first, but centered on Wakayama City, "Wakayama Blues" spread gradually. Eleven years after release, in 1979, it caught fire in Kyushu; requests reached Osaka wired broadcasts, then radio and TV. One theory holds that many staff at Sumitomo Metal Wakayama Steel Works came from Kyushu, learned the song, and spread it on hometown visits.
Also Shino Manayo's "Fly to Istanbul," a 1978 release that hit No. 3 on Oricon. In 1890 the Ottoman warship Ertugrul was wrecked in a typhoon off Oshima, Kushimoto Town, Wakayama Prefecture; 589 died or went missing, but sixty-nine survivors were rescued at risk of life by Kushimoto people—a story that appears in Turkish textbooks. That bond led to friendship between Wakayama and Turkey; Manayo released the album "Kumano Kodo Landmark Song: Forest of Miracles" with Turkish ties and held a concert in Kushimoto in 2008.
"Hyakka Jiten by a Former Reporter-Mayor" arranges one hundred songs from "Ashita ga aru sa" to the city song of Wakayama in gojuon order with commentary. Published by Agathos Co., Ltd. (073-428-1010), price ¥1,500.