‘Do what you really want to do while you’re still alive’: Masayoshi Takanaka, Japanese guitar hero riding the second wave into his 70s | music

IIn November 2025, Masayoshi Takanaka announced his first ever solo concert in the United Kingdom. The show was originally scheduled to be held at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London, but was in such demand that it was upgraded to two nights at the Brixton Academy – where nearly 10,000 people will flock to see the 72-year-old Japanese jazz musician play a surfboard-shaped guitar in March. In the summer, he will headline an outdoor festival in London’s Crystal Palace Park. “I was actually planning on fading out [my career]“But now I feel like this might be my second coming,” he says in a video call. “My life has changed a lot in the past few years.”

Born in Tokyo in 1953, Takanaka learned to play guitar in middle school, inspired by Western artists such as Cream, The Beatles, and Teen Years After. He was hanging out in jazz clubs in Shibuya while still in school uniform, asking bands if he could jam with them, and by 1972 he was playing with the band Mika Sadism, 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 limo,” Takanaka recalls. “We were driving a Rover.”

Sadistic Mika appeared on the BBC music television show Old Gray Whistle Test during that visit, At a performance Takanaka proudly recalls being praised by fellow guitarist Jeff Beck. But when vocalist Mika Kato chose not to return to Japan with Takanaka and the rest of the band, amid the collapse of her marriage to guitarist Kazuhiko Kato, that was the end. “I haven’t been back to the UK for 50 years,” says Takanaka.

The UK therefore missed the entirety of Takanaka’s long and hugely successful solo career in Japan. His 1976 debut in the Seychelles “helped pioneer the rock fusion scene in Japan”, according to The Japan Times in 2015; 1978’s Brazilian Sky, recorded in Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles, featured Ryuichi Sakamoto and the members of Toto, inspired by bossa nova and samba. In 1979, “Blue Lagoon” was a hit 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 made him a guitar hero in Japan. “Eventually, I bought a condo and a cruiser in the Bahamas. I have a big affinity for tropical islands and summer, so I spend a few months there during the winter every year making music,” he says.

A few decades later, Japanese jazz and pop music from the 1970s and 1980s unexpectedly began 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, which now has 122,000 followers — recalls discovering Takanaka via a video of a 1981 performance at Tokyo’s Budokan. “The aesthetic was really cool; he’s a fun character and that really shines through in his performance.” In the middle of this performance, Takanaka “and the band were wearing goblin masks. From there, it went down the rabbit hole,” he recalls.

Meanwhile, in 2019, the tastemaker reissued the label Light in the Attic Records and licensed Takanaka’s 1979 hit Bamboo Vender for the first of its popular Pacific Breeze compilations of Japanese “city pop” music. Greg Gotti, owner of the label, believes the revival of interest in old-school Japanese pop music is due to it embodying the spirit of the country in the late 1970s and 1980s as it headed toward economic prosperity.

“It was a time when Japan was a dreamland, where everyone had work and money. You can feel it in the music that was produced at that time, and even in the artwork.” Gout refers to the cover of Takanaka’s 1979 group “All of Me”: the guitarist gives a thumbs up while skydiving. “You want to buy the record because he smiles a lot,” Gotti says. “This is good vibes music.”

Takanaka has become huge on streaming services as well. Last year, when his guitar solo was featured on the soundtrack to Dwayne Johnson’s sports drama The Smashing Machine, he performed in Los Angeles for the first time in nearly 40 years. “In Japan, most of the people who come to my shows are in their 50s, 60s or 70s,” says Takanaka. “But in Los Angeles, most people were in their 20s. You can really feel their energy, and hear the crowd cheering loudly. “It made me really emotional.”

Now, his first world tour is taking place in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, and is almost sold out. “This is difficult to grasp and understand,” says Takanaka. “It doesn’t seem real.”

Fans who manage to obtain tickets can expect a setlist drawn from dozens of albums across the talented artist’s 50-year career. But what about his signature red surf guitar?

“Actually, I gave it away after using it in a lot of my shows in Japan,” says Takanaka, but he restored it for use on the world tour. “I thought I didn’t need it anymore. But life is short, and you have to do what you really want to do while you’re still alive – that’s why I made the guitar in the first place.”