Tatsuro Yamashita

Singer-songwriter and producer, born 4 February 1953. Husband of [a656253]. Heavily influenced by American jazz, soul, and big band music. His first album, [r=9917037], which contained cover versions of songs by The Beach Boys and other golden age American songs, is now extremely rare and sought-after. His major debut came in 1976 with [r=1798821], which was recorded in New York and Los Angeles, the former of which included the participation of conductor and arranger [a154498].

His popular breakthrough came in 1980 with the release of [r=3282392], whose title track peaked at #3 on the Oricon singles chart. Maxell also used it in a TV ad for audio cassettes that featured Yamashita. He is probably best-known for composing and performing his 1983 song "Christmas Eve." This track appeared on his album [r=2053580] that year and was notably covered by [a=Pentatonix] for the Japanese release of their [r=7882379] album. A version featuring English lyrics was written by [a398438], a frequent Yamashita collaborator.

He is also famous as a record collector and the DJ of Japan's most famous oldies radio show, called "Tatsuro Yamashita's Sunday Songbook" (TOKYO FM). This program started on October 3, 1992, as A Saturday Songbook, but changed to The Sunday Songbook on April 3, 1994. It is a long-running program that is still ongoing.