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In November 2025, Masayoshi Takanaka announced his first ever UK solo gig. Originally slated for London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, there was such demand that it was upgraded to two nights at Brixton Academy – nearly 10,000 people will flock to see a 72-year-old Japanese jazz fusion virtuoso play a surfboard-shaped guitar in March. Come the summer, he’ll headline an outdoor festival in London’s Crystal Palace park. “I was actually planning to fade out [my career],” he says on a video call. “But now I feel like this might be my second coming. My life has changed so much in the last few years.”
Born in Tokyo in 1953, Takanaka picked up the guitar in middle school, taking inspiration from western artists such as Cream, the Beatles and Ten Years After. He hung out in Shibuya jazz clubs while still in school uniform, asking bands if he could jam with them, and by 1972 he was playing with Sadistic Mika Band, who became the first Japanese rock band to tour the UK when they were invited to support Roxy Music in arenas. “They were already rock stars, so they had a limousine,” recalls Takanaka. “We were driving a Rover.”
Sadistic Mika Band appeared on the BBC’s music television show the Old Grey Whistle Test during that visit, in a performance Takanaka proudly recalls being praised by fellow guitarist Jeff Beck. But when vocalist Mika Kato opted not to return to Japan with Takanaka and the rest of the band, amid the breakdown of her marriage to guitarist Kazuhiko Kato, it was the end. “I’ve not been back to the UK for 50 years,” Takanaka says.
So the UK missed out on the entirety of Takanaka’s long and wildly successful solo career in Japan. His 1976 debut Seychelles “helped pioneer Japan’s rock fusion scene”, according to the Japan Times in 2015; 1978’s Brasilian Skies, recorded in Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles, featured Ryuichi Sakamoto and members of Toto, and took inspiration from bossa nova and samba. In 1979, the instrumental Blue Lagoon was a hit single in Japan, and 1982’s Saudade reached No 1 on the country’s album charts. “At some point, my record company asked if there was anyone I wanted to perform with,” Takanaka recalls. “I ended up performing a joint concert with Santana at the Yokohama baseball stadium.”
Collaborations with Tina Turner and Little Richard followed in a career that made him a guitar hero in Japan. “Eventually,” he says, “I bought a condominium and a cruiser in the Bahamas. I have a huge affinity towards tropical islands and the summer, and so I’d spend a few months there during the winter each year making music.”
Fast forward a few decades, and Japanese jazz and pop music from the 70s and 80s unexpectedly started amassing millions of plays on YouTube as a result of the algorithm recommending it to western listeners. The anonymous founder of the Instagram fan page Takanaka Vibes – created in 2023, now boasting 122,000 followers – remembers discovering Takanaka via a video of a 1981 performance at Tokyo’s Budokan. “The aesthetic was really cool; he’s a playful character and that really shines through in his performances.” Halfway through that performance, he recalled, Takanaka “and the band wear goblin masks. From there, I entered the rabbit hole.”
Meanwhile, in 2019, the tastemaker reissues label Light in the Attic Records licensed Takanaka’s 1979 track Bamboo Vender for the first of its wildly popular Pacific Breeze compilations of Japanese “city pop” music. The label’s Greg Gouty believes the revival of interest in retro Japanese pop is down to its encapsulation of the country’s spirit in the late 70s and 80s as it headed towards an economic boom.
“It was a time when Japan was a kind of dreamland, where’s everybody’s got work and money. And you can feel it reflected in the music being produced at the time, and even in the artwork.” Gouty points to the cover of the 1979 Takanaka compilation All of Me: the guitarist is giving a thumbs up while skydiving. “You want to buy the record because he’s smiling so much,” says Gouty. “This is good vibes music.”
Takanaka became huge on streaming services too. Last year, as his wild guitar soloing appeared on the soundtrack to the Dwayne Johnson sports drama The Smashing Machine, he performed in Los Angeles for the first time in nearly 40 years. “In Japan, most of the people at my shows are in their 50s, 60s or 70s,” says Takanaka. “But in LA, most people were in their 20s. You could really feel their energy, and hear the audience cheering so loud. It got me really emotional.”
Now, his first world tour is taking in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, and almost all dates have sold out. “It’s hard to grasp and understand,” says Takanaka. “It doesn’t feel real.”
Fans who managed to snag tickets can expect a set list drawn from dozens of albums across the virtuoso’s 50-year career. But what of his signature red surfboard guitar?
“Actually, I gave it away after using it at a lot of my shows in Japan,” says Takanaka, but he got it back to use on the world tour. “I thought I didn’t need it any more. But life is short, and you have to do what you really want to do while you’re still alive – that was why I made the guitar in the first place.”
