TAKANAKA

Born on 27th March, 1953

It is pretty famous that TAKANAKA debuted as a bassist of FLIED EGG in 1971. Then he played guitar for SADISTIC MIKA BAND which is also a legend group in Japanese pops history. Some of his famous songs such as 黒船 (means black ship) were composed in that era.

After playing in sadistics, TAKANAKA became a solo guitarist and produced his first solo album SEYCHELLS in 1976. For his second to forth albums, TAKANAKA wrote many latin flavored instrumental songs and those helped establishing huge fusion movement in Japanese music scene.

It was not surprising that it did not take long time for TAKANAKA to be recognized as one of the top guitarist in Japan due to his success of his 5th album JOLLY JIVE in 1979. BLUE LAGOON recorded huge hit. His songs were used everywhere and even TAKANAKA himself was seen on TV ads. There was no place you could live without his music in those days. His blue YAMAHA SG became his trade mark and all guitar kids desired to own the same SG.

In 1981, TAKANAKA produced 虹伝説 (The Rainbow Goblins) which was a collection of songs dedicated for Ul De Rico's colorful picture book THE RAINBOW GOBLINS. This album recorded huge sales. That year, his show was held at NIPPON BUDOKAN, part of the show can be seen in Rainbow Goblins Story (Live At Budokan) DVD and TAKANAKA SUPER LIVE VHS.

Other news around that ear was that TAKANAKA and Santana hold joint shows in Japan.

TAKANAKA changed his record company from Kitty MME to Toshiba-EMI after he produced album 夏・全・開. It was coincidence that TAKANAKA started to compose pop music and the fusion boom led by TAKANAKA was unfortunately ending. It might be because of new marketing decision, TAKANAKA kept introducing pop music (with vocal) until the early '90s.

After a few times working with Miami Sound Machine in Miami, TAKANAKA found himself comfortable in The Bahamas and decided to spend his time over there. Since then, TAKANAKA did composing work at his studio in The Bahamas during the winter time, came back to Japan in the Spring for the rest of work - promotion, recording, cd production and shows.

In 1997, TAKANAKA produced album THE WHITE GOBLIN for Ul De Rico's new book. His show was held at NIPPON BUDOKAN again as if it was traditional, which was seen in TOUR '97 虹伝説II ACT-I THE WHITE GOBLIN and TOUR '97 虹伝説II ACT-II 過去へのタイムマシン DVDs.

TAKANAKA left Toshiba-EMI in 2000, and started releasing CDs from his own label, Lagoon Records. Hunpluged was the first album which also was his first unplugged solo album.

In 2001 TAKANAKA sold his condo on West Bay Street and moved to Karuizawa, Japan.

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