Tracklist

1-1	ワタマシ [Watamashi]	23:33
1-2	道成寺 [Dôjôji]	29:11
2-1	菊池くずれ [Kikuchi Kuzure] 一段~三段	50:59
2-2	菊池くずれ [Kikuchi Kuzure] 五段より	19:51
3-1	あぜかけ姫 [Azekakehime]	59:08
3-2	インストルメンタル [Instrumental Excerpt]	1:55

Companies, etc.

• Manufactured By – Japan Traditional Cultures Foundation
• Distributed By – Victor Entertainment, Inc.

Credits

• Liner Notes [English, Japanese] – Hugh De Ferranti
• Liner Notes [Japanese] – Hyôdô Hiromi*, Kimura Rirô*
• Narrator [語り], Biwa [琵琶] – 山鹿良之*

Notes

1-1 recorded on July 31, 1963; 1-2 on October 14, 1989 at Yamashika's home; 2-1, 2-2 & 3-2 on September 26, 1974 at RKK Kumamoto Broadcasting Studio; 3-1 on October 6, 1970 at Yamashika's home.

Includes a 58 page booklet of lyrics and notes in Japanese and English.

'The music on this CD-set is a selection of recordings representative of the repertory of Yamashika Yoshiyuki (1901-1996), a blind musician and ritualist of Nankan-chô in central Kyushu's Kumamoto prefecture. As the last person to have earned his income from performing a repertory of narratives, songs and rites with biwa, to many he seemed to be a twentieth-century apparition of the medieval biwa hoshi - blind singers associated in Japanese popular culture with the carnage and strife that led to the start of warrior rule in the late twelfth century. Yamashika's identity as a musician and individual was far more complex, but from the mid-1970s he became well known as 'the last biwa hoshi', and was the subject of several books, television programmes, and an award-winning documentary film.'
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