"Is it okay for me to be Japanese?"
On October 18, 2015, at Madison Square Garden in New York, Japanese guitarist Toshi Yanagi took to the stage to perform the national anthem before the NHL (National Hockey League) New York Rangers game. Many people will recognize him as a guitarist who appears on the nationally broadcast ABC show "Jimmy Kimmel Live." He has been a regular on the show for 13 years, since its inception.
The American national anthem, sung before the first game of the season in professional sports, is a very sacred event, and it is an honor to be nominated as a singer or player. "Jimmy Kimmel Live was being filmed in New York for exactly one week, and my agent who books my work on the East Coast asked me if I would like to sing the national anthem for the Rangers," Tosi said, explaining the circumstances.
"At first, I wondered whether it was okay for me, a Japanese person, to do it. But it's not often that we get the chance to perform the American national anthem at a professional sports game in front of so many people. I thought it would be fun, so I decided to give it a try. Then, I thought we'd need a singer rather than just a guitar, so I invited the singer from Kimmel Live's band to perform together."
It was after he was approached that Tosi started his own research into how to express the American national anthem on the guitar. He recalls that it has always been like that. "After I said yes, I would practice how to play it and study how to play it." Tosi's style is to go along with any interesting offers and then desperately come up with a plan.
In the American film industry, several Japanese faces come to mind who have established themselves in Hollywood and are active in the industry. However, what about Japanese people who are active in the American music industry? In this environment, Toshi is a musician who appears regularly on national network television. What path did he take to achieve his current status? The story goes back 30 years.
One-way ticket to San Francisco
In April 1985, Tosi was on board a flight from Narita to San Francisco. Raised by an opera singer father and a piano teacher parents, Tosi was captivated by rock music in addition to classical music. After graduating from high school, he wanted to go to America and become a guitarist in the home of rock! It was his mother who supported his passionate dream by giving him a one-way ticket to America. Thus, at the age of 19, who had just graduated from high school and could barely speak English, he left Japan with a guitar and a passport.
After moving to Los Angeles via San Francisco, Tosi enrolled in a music school that still exists in Hollywood. He says that he was impressed by the following words his teacher said to him at the school:
"It takes at least 10 years to make a living in the music industry." As Toshi heard this, he vaguely thought to himself that he wanted to make a living from music by the age of 30, get married, start a family, and if possible, buy a house. And one by one, his dreams were fulfilled.
After graduating from school, through interactions with studio musicians, Tosi was accepted to join their band Cecilia and the Wild Clams, and that's where Tosi's story in the music industry began. The band's base of operations was the long-established live music venue Baked Potato in Hollywood. Tosi visited Baked Potato almost every day, even on days when there were no performances. It was at the venue that he actually met Steve Lukather of the rock band Toto, who he had admired in high school and who sparked his desire to move to the United States.
He also participated in the band World Color as a shamisen and guitar player, and his ability to play the shamisen helped him obtain permanent residency.
The more he continued his musical career, the wider his network became. By 1996, 11 years after moving to the U.S., he was being asked to participate in world tours by big musicians. It was around this time that he participated in tours by Sheryl Crow and Bryan Adams.
When he returned home to Los Angeles, good news was waiting for him: he was offered a position as the in-house guitarist for the music show "Vibe" produced by the legendary music producer Quincy Jones.
Tosi is now the exclusive guitarist for the show, but he also recalls a heart-stopping experience he had on the show: "James Brown appeared as a guest. The atmosphere was so tense that everyone around me started calling him 'Mr. Brown.' When we started rehearsing his classic song 'Sex Machine,' Mr. Brown suddenly pointed at me without starting to sing and said, 'Hey, you guitar player,' which shocked me. I froze up, wondering what I'd done, and he told me, 'Your groove is off.' It was that one word from Mr. Brown that made me realize that it's not enough to just play the music as written."
And by securing a stable income from appearing on "Vibe," the words of his vocational school teacher, "It takes 10 years to make a living from music," became a reality. Toshi, who was already married at the time, looked at properties with his wife, and they purchased their dream house not far from the studio. However, the show "Vibe," on which he was a regular, suddenly came to an end. Just as he was about to start paying off the mortgage on his house...
© 2015 Keiko Fukuda
