It’s been a few weeks since the passing of Shirley Temple Black at 85, but we thought it would be fun to check out this recently unearthed gem from her trip to Japan in 1937.
From the Japanese-American Veterans Association:
… this was purportedly a very rare ‘novelty’ recording of Shirley Temple singing two famous Japanese nursery rhymes, “Yuyake Koyake (夕焼け小焼け)”, and “Kutsu ga naru (靴が鳴る)”, in Japanese. According to sources, Temple was briefly visiting Japan for promoting her film “Dimples” and recorded this on March 11th, 1937, at Japan Polydor Studio at Tokyo, Japan. Despite the fact she learned the lyrics phonetically, there’s basically no errors on pronunciations; and it is pretty astonishing for a 8 year-old girl. This record had very few circulations; it was only released in Japan, and after WWII broke out, the Japanese government prohibited listening to records made by any ‘American enemies’, so it is even rare in Japan.