Tone Glow 219: Masayoshi Takanaka
An interview with the Japanese jazz-fusion guitarist about his first guitar, playing at military bases as a teenager, and reflections on his decades-long career
Masayoshi Takanaka
Masayoshi Takanaka (b. 1953) is a Japanese jazz-fusion guitarist largely known for his large string of solo albums released throughout the 1970s and 1980s. During the early 1970s, he played in different rock bands, including Brush, Flied Egg, and Sadistic Mika Band. The latter group was the first Japanese band to tour the UK, opening for Roxy Music in 1975. The year after, Takanaka released his debut solo album, Seychelles (1976), and has continually released music since, including An Insatiable High (1977), Brasilian Skies (1978), and The Rainbow Goblins (1981). Throughout the past decade, his music has become increasingly popular with a new generation of listeners in the West, largely due to the the proliferation of Japanese city pop, jazz fusion, and soft rock via YouTube algorithms and beyond. He’s currently on a world tour, the dates of which can be found at his website. Joshua Minsoo Kim spoke with Takanaka via Zoom on March 31st, 2026 shortly before he went on stage at the O2 Academy Brixton in London. The two discussed his upbringing, his first bands, and the way he approaches songwriting. Special thanks to Monika Uchiyama for interpreting.
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Can you tell me about the earliest memories you have? These can be related to music or not.
Masayoshi Takanaka: I’ll tell you a bit about some music-related memories, actually. Early on, I was only familiar with Japanese music—people like Hibari Misora and bands like Crazy Cats, which was more of a comedy group. Hitoshi Ueki was part of Crazy Cats, and they produced a lot of movies about this band. They had a song called “Sudara Bushi” (スーダラ節), which was about being a drunkard—I remember liking it a lot. Then around 6th grade, my brother who’s three years older than me introduced me to The Beatles and The Ventures. We watched A Hard Day’s Night (1964). It was a shock to learn about Western music after knowing Japanese music for so long. Soon after, I asked for an electric guitar and started taking lessons.
Can you share a little about your parents? I know your father is Chinese and your mother is Japanese, but what kind of people were they? Were they invested in your interest in the arts?
My parents had records at home. This was a time before discotheques; they had these dance halls where people learned to dance, especially Latin dances like the cha-cha or mambo, and my mom definitely liked that kind of music. Back then, records were quite fragile and I remember that, as a kid, I broke quite a few (laughter). Also, my house was right next to a late-night café, so there was always music playing. I’d go to sleep while hearing the vibrations of “Mambo No. 5.” I can’t say if that was a good or bad environment to grow up in, but I was naturally surrounded by music.
What was it like when you first got your guitar? Do you remember what guitar it was and the first song you learned to play?
The guitar would’ve been a Japanese one by this brand called Teisco. It would’ve been very cheap—like 10,000 to 20,000 yen. I didn’t have an amp initially, which made it pointless, but I did eventually acquire one. And because I couldn’t read music, I remember I had a book that taught you how to play guitar, but the examples were all children’s songs and simple guitar exercises. This was around the time when you’d see tabs of Beatles songs published in various magazines, but sometimes the chords would be incorrect—the person writing them did them wrong! (laughter). But otherwise, I was listening to a lot of music, and there were these kids who were older than me that’d take over a classroom and have band practice after school. I would watch them and learn their techniques. Like, I remember they’d bend a note by pushing on the guitar string and I’d think, “Oh, that’s how you make that sound.” So those were my beginnings.
Did you end up playing with these older students?
Initially I was just watching, but then I started getting better at playing guitar and some of the older kids asked me to play with them. These would’ve been students who were three years older than me, and I’d even join them in going to a kissaten after school. In a sense, I was a little bit of a bad kid because I was hanging out with older students.
You mentioned living next to this café, about living close to a dance hall. Were these places that you spent a lot of time at in general as you got older?
I did take part in band contests from as early as 9th grade. Yamaha, the music company, would hold these competitions and I remember that my band didn’t even make it through the first round. Later on, when I became a studio musician, I was eventually reunited with one of the older kids who was responsible for beating my band in that first round (laughter). He apologized, saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry I did that.” (laughter). That’s a good memory.
When was the first time that you performed in front of people, and not just in front of family or friends?
In the 9th grade, I played in the school music festival. Many people came to see it. But even before I was in a band, I would try to learn the lyrics to Beatles songs. A song like “I Should Have Known Better,” I would just listen and try to write the lyrics down according to the phonetic sounds—I’d write them out in katakana. I remember that instead of “I should have known better,” I wrote “I chewed have known better” because I couldn’t hear correctly. I thought I was good at this though—I was quite confident—and I remember me and a friend sang this song in front of our class. Looking back, it’s both funny and embarrassing.
The first time I was on a stage was at a Christmas party with some of the older classmates. I also remember that there was a rooftop beer hall in a neighborhood called Gotanda in Tokyo. You could play in the evening and get paid about 1,000 yen if you were part of the band. I thought, if I played there every night, I could make 30,000 yen in a year, which at the time was so much money. You’d just play for the people who were drinking there, and there were smaller stages in front of the main stage for go-go dancers. This would’ve been when I was 15.
I know you were eventually in the band Escape and played at US military bases. What was it like being in that environment and playing for these American G.I.s?
I was actually in two bands during that period. There was Escape, which was a band with all Japanese members, and then there was another band but I don’t remember what we were called. On the military base, I would play with other high schoolers, and these were American kids—I must have gotten paid in dollars. At these US bases, in places like Yokosuka or Tachikawa, there were these things called Teen Clubs. The singer of the band was Black and the drummer and bassist were white. I spoke a little bit of English, and because they were growing up in Japan, they spoke a little bit of Japanese. I remember it was a hodge-podge of both of those languages. The thing is, if you’re coming together to play music, it’s not like you’re gonna talk about anything complicated like politics, so we could understand one another well enough and play.
I know in the 1970s you were in bands like Brush, Flied Egg, and Sadistic Mika Band. What do you think was important about being in these groups? What do you feel like you learned that was crucial before you ended up making your own solo music?
So when I was 18 I was in a band called Flied Egg and that would’ve been with Shigeru Narumo, who was on guitar, and Hiro Tsunoda, who was on drums. And because they were older than me, they told me that I had to play bass. But the basslines at the time were quite easy, so it was very quick for me to learn them. Narumo-san took music quite seriously and he tried to teach me some music theory, taught me how to create harmonies by playing along to the piano, and he also went to England for—it wasn’t exactly study abroad, but he wanted to experience things there. When he came back, he wanted us to practice moving together to the rhythm with our instruments—that’s something he brought back. He’s someone I learned a lot from, as far as being in a band. Me and Tsunoda, however, would just hang out and play pachinko, so I didn’t learn anything from him (laughter).
I know that you were a studio musician and played for a lot of different artists. You played on an album by Maki Asakawa called Blue Spirit Blues (1972), can you tell me anything about that?
Ah, well I worked on so many records as a studio musician. So while I remember working with her, I don’t even remember the songs we did.
Are there any albums you worked on as a studio musician that stand out, then? Were any of them particularly challenging?
As far as challenges, it’s hard for me to say because I think for a lot of the projects I was a part of, they would let me play very freely. They would tell me the specific type of vibe they wanted me to go for, but they’d essentially let me play however I wanted. I really liked those opportunities because it allowed me to showcase the unique qualities of my guitar playing. I also remember there were times when they’d ask me to bring my guitar, my amp, and also my acoustic guitar to the studio. I’d have to cram all this into a taxi. I eventually bought a car, though, but it was a Toyota Century. At the time, this was a car that chauffeurs mostly drove with their boss inside. The back seat was incredibly lush and comfortable, but the thing is, I was the only person who had a driver’s license! I’d be driving while our roadie—we called him a “band boy”—would sit in these cushy seats with all the instruments (laughter). I thought that was pretty funny.
You eventually started making your own solo music with Seychelles in 1976, and you continue to make music today. Do you see any differences between the person who was making music back then and the person you are today? What things have changed?
It’s difficult to answer this because when I think about that time and the person I was, it was already 50 years ago. And as humans, our cells are continually changing over and, in a year, your body is that of a different person. From the outside, people might say, “Hey, Tanaka you’ve changed!” But I wouldn’t be able to answer that question. To do so would take me a month.
There’s a question I end all my interviews with and I wanted to ask it to you. Do you mind sharing one thing you love about yourself?
The fact that I’m pretty silly. I have these strange ideas and just decide to do them. If you think about it, hollowing out a surfboard and making a guitar is an absurd idea, but I thought it’d be interesting to try it out. So I think it’s my ability to think outside the box. I remember as a kid, there were these magazines you could buy where they had these cutouts of war planes and other things—you’d take out the parts and put them together. I quickly realized, though, that I could do the same thing myself with a separate sheet of paper; once I learned the technique, I could apply it to something else. It’s the same with music. Throughout my career, I’ve been constantly arranging and applying different techniques to generate something new.
Masayoshi Takanaka is on tour now. You can find the dates and other info on his website.
Thank you for reading the 219th issue of Tone Glow. The wooden model kit to guitar hero pipeline.
If you appreciate what we do, please consider donating via Ko-fi or becoming a Patreon patron. Tone Glow is dedicated to forever providing its content for free, but please know that all our writers are paid for the work they do. All donations will be used for paying writers, and if we get enough money, Tone Glow will be able to publish issues more frequently.