Takeshi Terauchi: Nippon Guitars [BIG BEAT]

Why you'll love it

Ace Records' Big Beat imprint licensed these 14 tracks from King Records in Japan, with liner notes drawn from a 2011 interview with Terauchi himself. Known as Terry, he was Japan's great electric guitar hero, and here he plays folk melodies at surf-rock speed.

This edition

• Liner notes from a 2011 interview with Terauchi

About the album

Most guitar heroes start in a garage. Takeshi Terauchi started on American military bases in Japan, playing rhythm guitar in country bands such as Jimmie Tokita & His Mountain Playboys, before forming The Blue Jeans in 1962 and The Bunnys at the end of 1966. His weapon of choice was a black Mosrite with a white pickguard, and his style was all frenetic picking, tremolo and a very busy vibrato arm.

This set covers his eleki heyday from 1966 to 1974, when he took Japanese folk tunes and plugged them straight in. "Sado Okesa" and "Touryanse" get the full surf treatment, "The Clamour of the Sun" and "South Pier" twang like a Pacific Coast instrumental, and "Tsugaru Yamabiko Uta (Mountain Echo)" and "Tsugaru Eleki Bushi" turn the music of northern Japan into wild tremolo workouts.

He won the arrangement award at the 1967 Japan Record Awards and kept The Blue Jeans going right up to 2021. Fair warning for anyone who owns a guitar: this record may leave you suspecting you've been holding it wrong.

Also at Kops: more Takeshi Terauchi on vinyl · browse World

Tracklist

Listen

On Big Beat / Ace (cat# WIKD 297), the 2011 compilation.