My dad is putting his photos of Japan into a computer slide show, but he was hoping for a decent soundtrack to go with it.

My collection ranges from Pizzicato 5 to The Boredomes and is a bit too 'up-tempo' for him, Geinoh Yamashirogumi is too weird.
I'm pretty sure he's after Enka or something similar (I'm completely ignorant on this front).
Does anybody know of anywhere I an get some songs that are in the public domain for download. I found a couple, but they're meant to be played on-line only and won't allow you to save them.

Or recommendations that I can purchase myself in Japan next month would also be appreciated.

Are you sure that enka is what he wants? I love it and have several albums, but for a slide show and 'traditional' music, I might opt for something like koto/shakuhachi music.

Do you do Usenet? I've downloaded several enka singles and albums and a smattering of j-pop from alt.binaries.sounds.jpop. I might even be willing to post some if I knew you were going to get it.

Failing that, a quick search of Amazon.com will get you a lot of both, albeit not for free.

JR

To be honest, I have a huge collection of vinyl and CDs, when the time came to start obsessig with MP3s and downloads I started going to Japan instead (couldn't afford to do both!).

The only music player on my Dad�s computer is Real Player, I'm afraid I don�t know anything about Usenet. I�m happy to pay for some songs, I just don�t want to waste money or find I�ve subscribed to some dodgy website.

My parents can�t listen to koto or other traditional music for any length of time, but I did point out some Enka music in Japan and they loved it (it�s very similar to the ballads my mother grew up with in Spain.)

My experience with Enka is kind of limited to the Red & White show they put on at New Years. I know nothing about which singers to start investigating.

There was a bit of a cross over between England & Spain/Italy in the late 60s, some Spanish/Italian singers were popular in Japan (one Italian singer is still a regular guest on Japanese chat shws), a few Japanese singers were relatively popular in Spain.
A peculiar coincidence highlighting the links between my two families is that my mum's favourite singer is a guy called Adamo, MrLapLap's mother was extremely fond of him too. I'd be surprised if many people who read FT knew much about Adamo at all.

EDIT: Crossover example is Koshiji Fubuki (or Koh chan) who covered some Adamo songs.