Though you may not immediately identify the country-tinged rock genre with Japan, you should. Even before the Internet, rock music was sweeping the globe and dominating the charts–and Japan was no exception.

The Early Days

As a teen in postwar Japan, your only options were to listen to your favorite songs on the radio, purchase the album, or discover a musician who did covers. This also resulted in an intriguing trend in Japanese rock music. As rock and roll and rockabilly were so similar, Japanese labels didn’t bother explicitly separating the genres. That could drive a music nerd insane today. In the 1950s and 1960s record companies only cared about album sales.  

As a result, the distinction between rock and roll and rockabilly in Japan could best be described as fuzzy.

Nonetheless, there were many brilliant musicians performing both rock & roll and rockabilly. When labels were looking for a genre for a new musician, they frequently chose rockabilly. The “Three Rockabilly Men,” Keijiro Yamashita, Masaki Hiraou, and Mickey Curtis, who all performed regularly at the Nichigeki Western Carnival, were the three biggest rockabilly stars of the period (and who did genuinely play real rockabilly). The Western Carnival, which also featured country western music, was a revelation for Japan’s youth and put on some some thrilling concerts.

Screaming fans and paper streamers thrown from the audience may seem tame to current audiences. However this was the pinnacle of decadence for many of the young fans at the time.

Keijiro Yamashita, a model-turned-singer who recorded a rocking, gritty rendition of “Jailhouse Rock,” and Michiko Hamamura, a model-turned-singer who produced a belting rendition of “Jailhouse Rock,” are two of our favorite vocalists from the era. Despite the fact that men appear to have dominated the rockabilly scene, there was certainly room for women to succeed.

The carnival, which generally mirrored the growth and collapse of rockabilly, lasted nearly 20 years. Its debut event in 1958 and its final 56th show in 1977.

The comeback

Rockabilly, like in the United States, gradually fell out of fashion. Whilst, just like in the West, “oldies” experienced a comeback in the 1970s that lasted through the 1980s, rockabilly itself had a tremendous revival in the 1990s and early 21st century. Not only in music, but also in extreme fashion reimaginings!

Carol and The Cools were two of the first bands to reintroduce rockabilly to Japan. The bands, all dressed in black leather slicked their hair back with oil and performed onstage with motorcycles. Carol lasted only a few years (from 1972 to 1975). The Cools, however, have been popular since their formation in 1977.

The 1980s saw the formation of even more rockabilly bands, notably the Black Cats, who toured the United States with the Go-Go’s. They garnered fame both domestically and internationally, especially in Japan. Though the band disbanded in 1986 after only five years together, their fashion took the Cools’ greaser/biker image and added the ducktail haircut that later rockabilly fans and bands would become famous for.

The stand-up bass is one of the best aspects of rockabilly. That deep, throbbing groove hits you like a thunderbolt in the chest. Who can say no to its invite to the dance floor? Magic, a Shibuya-based rockabilly band active from 1988 to 1999, has one of the greatest bass passages in the genre with their song “Rockabilly Carnival.”

The Hillbilly Bops were hugely influential on the Japanese rockabilly scene in the 1980s until they broke up in 1990, adding a bit of a punk flavor, comparable to the psychobilly bands who rose to international popularity in the 1990s. Despite the fact that their original singer died in 1988, they continued for another two years with a new singer before calling it quits. But that is not the end of the story for this band; they regrouped in 2004 and continue to perform to this day, albeit in a much more limited capacity. You don’t stop rocking just because you grow up and got a job. It simply means you won’t be able to rock out as frequently.

Following the Hillbilly Bops’ first breakup, Tsuyoshi Kawakami, the band’s bassist, created the Vincents. They even opened for the Stray Cats when the American rockabilly band visited Japan. Despite their success, the Vincents disbanded after only four years. Nonetheless, they left a legacy of records.

You’re undoubtedly wondering what happened to the female singers by now. Blue Angel, a band that contains the incredible vocals of Akiko Urae are still active and performing throughout Japan. If you get the chance to see them, you must go.

The Mackshow, a Tokyo-based three-piece band, is also active and recently put out a new album. Though their music leans more toward traditional rock and roll, many of their tracks feature the heavy pounding bass of rockabilly. 

Peppermint Jam is another great Japanese rockabilly band. A proper rockabilly band featuring a stand-up bass, melodic gang choruses, and of course leather jackets. Though the band hasn’t produced an album since 2008, they’re still active and touring.

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The first music genre to be known as honky-tonk was a form of piano playing emphasizing rhythm more than melody. The style originated as a reaction to an environment in which pianos were often out of tune and neglected. This honky-tonk music had a significant impact on the boogie-woogie piano style.

The term as we know it today is most commonly used to describe a pub where country music is performed.

The portraits on the walls are yellowed, and the wooden dance floor creaks beneath your feet. However the beer is cold and the music is good.

Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, one of Lower Broadway’s early honky-tonks, was strategically placed to serve as the Ryman’s unofficial green room. When the Ryman hosted the Grand Ole Opry, performers would often come through the backdoor of Tootsie’s. At Tootsie´s they could let loose and play a few songs not included in their Opry performance.

Honky-tonks have represented the democratic nature of country music for as long as they have existed. Patrons can enjoy live music for the price of a single beer. The musicians and composers have historically experimented with new instrumentation and themes in their songs.

Honky-tonks were rowdy places that served alcohol to a working-class clientele while playing country music throughout the Deep South and Southwest. Some provided dancing to music played by pianists or small bands, while others were brothels.

The honky-tonk became synonymous with a musical style.

In tonal structure, honky-tonk is similar to classic blues, but with a little faster tempo. It’s a good beat for a lot of African-American dances.

Indeed, it is thought that the characteristic sounds that echo off the walls of honky-tonks fostered the development of a musical style by the same name. The honky-tonk style, which became popular in the 1950s, is most known for its emphasis on rhythm. Because the pianos in these no-frills establishments were frequently beat-up and out-of-tune, harmony and melody were less crucial to the overall sound. A traditional honky-tonk ballad is replete with steel guitar, fiddle, and, yes, sadness.

Though the exact origin of the term “honky-tonk” is unknown, one popular idea maintains that it is an onomatopoeic allusion to the loud, unrestrained style of music that spilled out of these establishments.

These one-of-a-kind locations have been memorialized in classics such as Kitty Wells’ It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels. These can still be heard being performed at the revered Robert’s Western World. With lyrics like those from Jason Aldean’s “Crazy Town,” many modern hitmakers pay respect to their humble honky-tonk roots.

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The musical scene changed during the next five years as Americana music became a legitimate hot property. Traveller by Chris Stapleton was the seventh best-selling album of 2016. It sold nearly one and a half million copies, placing it just below recordings by pop megastars Adele, Beyoncé, and Rihanna.

According to Merriam-Webster, Americana music is “a form of American music with origins in early folk and country music.”

Country and western, Appalachian, gospel, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B, and blues are all represented in this tapestry. Americana bands often comprise of mostly acoustic instruments, although they can also include a complete electric band.

It was early folk and gospel singers who laid the groundwork for coutrny and Americana music. Some of the modern blueprints came from the Western swing movement of the 1920s and 1930s. Its icon, Bob Wills, attained a national profile in the 1930s. Wills had a direct influence on Willie Nelson, helping to define his open-minded approach to music.

Nelson has paid a heartfelt tribute to Wills while also acknowledging a greater obligation to one of music’s true pioneers: Hank Williams. Williams, who died on January 1, 1953, at the age of 29, crammed a lot into his short life. These include the 29 songs he recorded, including “Hey, Good Lookin’, and ” “Why Don’t You Love Me? The Smithsonian Institution recognized him as a guiding light in 1999, with its first-ever discussion about country music.

Williams, like many pre-war musicians, learned to sing in a church choir (in Alabama).

His music blended the musical styles of his Deep South surroundings. This included Western swing, Appalachian mountain music, honky-tonk, country blues, and gospel music. It was his knack for penning painful confessional story songs that distinguished him as a very talented song writer however.

Williams was one of the first American singer-songwriters to articulate the common people’s profound personal feelings, dreams, and heartaches in direct and evocative songs. Leonard Cohen described his songwriting as sublime. Bob Dylan stated that Hank’s songs were the model principles of poetic songwriting. Artists as different as Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, and Al Green have covered Williams’ compositions.

Williams influenced hundreds of musicians, including country giants like Johnny Cash, who made an entire tribute album to the idol. These include singers like George Jones, Gram Parsons, and even modern rock stars like Beck, Keith Richards, and Tom Petty. When Ryan Adams and his fellow alt.country singers of the 1980s and 1990s tried to find their path, they turned to the man who could write a masterpiece like “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.

Williams, who was hard-drinking and straight-talking, was possibly country music’s first rebel. This trait was copied by the self-proclaimed outlaw country artists of the 1970s. They sought to take some of punk music’s defiant spirit into country’s mainstream. Hank Williams was Americana 70 years before the term became popular.

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In the late 1940s, radio was broadcasting blues, rhythm and blues, and gospel music, thrilling listeners across North America. It inspired young, white, working-class musicians to mix Black music styles with the country music styles they were already familiar with. The music was initially labeled country-and-western rhythm and blues, but it became known as rockabilly.

Presley recorded two songs that would lay the groundwork for rockabilly in July 1954, in his first session for the Sun label in Memphis, Tennessee. “That’s All Right,” written by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, and a hopped-up version of “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

Presley sung with more emotional intensity and African-American inflections than other country singers of the time.

The trio pioneered rockabilly’s characteristic instrumentation. Presley accompanied on strummed acoustic guitar, Scotty Moore provided fills on electric guitar, and Bill Black added driving upright bass.

Rockabilly songs often featured a tremendously animated vocalist breaking into a bluesy tune while thrashing away on an acoustic guitar. Backing was provided by a slapping bass, frequently backed by a drummer; an electric guitarist filled in the gaps and delivered an intense solo. The overall sound was amplified by a studio effect known as slap-back, or “Sun echo.”

In 1954 and 1955, Presley, Moore, and Black, together with drummer D.J. Fontana, toured the South practically nonstop, enthralling audiences. Furthermore, they influenced many performers, including Buddy Holly and Marty Robbins. Whilst they were already established stars they soon converted from country to rockabilly. Almost all of the early rockabilly recordings were made by musicians who had heard Presley perform. In 1956 captivated millions with his prime-time television performances and sold millions of records. Labels searched for similar talents, discovering vocalists such as Gene Vincent, whose “Be-Bop-A-Lula” quickly hit the charts.

Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley, Sonny Burgess, and many others recorded rockabilly for Sun. Carl Perkins was one of the label’s greatest performers, and his rendition of “Blue Suede Shoes,” the genre’s best-known song, was a hit for Presley. Albeit Perkins’ version was considerably more traditionally rockabilly. Nashville country stars, as well as young female performers also jumped on board.

Other states with thriving rockabilly scenes included Texas and California.

Nonetheless, few of the thousands of rockabilly songs recorded in the 1950s made it to the charts. More sounds entered rockabilly as it evolved—piano, saxophone, harmony singing, background vocal groups—thus diluting its sound. Rockabilly had run its course by the end of the 1950s.

Several events, including Presley’s death in 1977, contributed to a rockabilly rebirth in Europe in the late 1970s. Fans dressed in 1950s attire, acquired ancient recordings, and brought veteran rockabillies to concerts all over the world. Some former rockabillies, such as Charlie Feathers and Johnny Burnette’s Rock and Roll Trio, garnered more attention during the resurgence than they had during the genre’s heyday. Younger bands emerged, most notably the Long Island, New York-based Stray Cats. After finding success in England, they took a hard, lean form of rockabilly to the United States, where their exaggerated style made a big impression during MTV’s early days. Rockabilly gained popular in places as diverse as Japan and Russia as a result of the rebirth.

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