Fumio Ishikawa
Fumio Ishikawa
Genres: bluesrock, blues, harmonica, Contemporary Blues, harmonica blues
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About Fumio Ishikawa
Fumio Ishikawa is an awesome Japanese blues harmonica player. I could not find a full biography on him on the internet but he is mentioned in the interesting blog below titled: 'FIFTY LONG YEARS: A Brief Overview of Japan’s Blues Harp Scene' [Originally posted on October 29, 2012] — A few months ago, Tom asked me to write an article about the blues harmonica scene in Japan. It was such a big topic I had to sit down and think how to structure it. After spending some time doing research, I have come up with this overview: The harmonica environment here in Tokyo is quite rich in both hard and soft aspects. As you know, two of the world’s major harmonica manufacturers are Japanese: Tombo (est. 1902) and Suzuki (est. 1952). If you go to a musical instrument shop like Taniguchi Gakki in Tokyo’s famous Ochanomizu musical instrument district, you can find all kinds of harmonicas of any make and model as well as harmonica accessories. On top of the availability of hardware, luckily enough, we have a lot of Tokyo-based great harmonica players to learn from, including the godfather of the Japanese blues harp community, Ryuichiro Senoh, known as Weeping Harp Senoh, who has led the scene as a pioneer over the last 40 plus years. In Japan, the first Blues boom took place in the early 1970s after the folk movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Of course, dual hole harmonicas were introduced in Japan in the 19th century and became very popular over the 1940s. After WWII, jazz and then rockabilly music were received with enthusiasm. In the 1960s, folk singers such as Bob Dylan ignited the popularity of diatonic harmonicas perhaps for the first time in Japan. It was followed by the big-time Blues boom in the 1970s. In 1971, B.B. King toured Japan for the first time, and in 1973, the album “The Legend of Sleepy John Estes” by Sleepy John Estes accompanied by Hammie Nixon on harmonica made a big hit in Japan. Estes and Nixon came to Japan in 1974 to perform at the first Blues Festival (the very beginning of today’s Blues and Soul Carnival). Under these circumstances, some of the pioneering Japanese blues bands including the West Road Blues Band (formed in 1972; opened B.B. King in 1972 in Osaka) and Yukadan (made a debut in 1975) emerged in the Kansai area (Kyoto and Osaka). Senoh, who was born in 1949 in Osaka and moved to Tokyo to go to college in the late 1960s, also came under the spotlight at about the same time. He formed his blues band, Weeping Harp Senoh and his Roller Coaster in 1974, releasing his first album “Messin’ Around” in 1976, which sold unexpectedly well. The other pioneer in the era may be Koichi Matsuda, born in 1947, who has also been a leader of the Japanese blues harp scene. Those who followed their footsteps include Yasujiro Asami, Fumio Ishikawa, Hiro Nishimura, Chikara Tsuzuki, Nobuo Yagi, and Yushin Yoshida, who were all born in the 1950s. Their followers include Tsuyoshi Fukazawa, Satoru Hiramatsu, Takeshi Iai, Hiroshi Imade, Kotez, Tamotsu Suzuki, Tsukasa Suzuki, Koei Tanaka, and others, who were born in the 1960s and 1970s. In addition, there are a couple of well-known Japanese harpists based overseas: Tetsuya Nakamura in L.A. and Wabi (Seiji Yuguchi) in Chicago. The youngest of all is 1990-born Taro Senga, who was known as a child prodigy. He began to play the 10-hole blues harmonica at age 2, playing with his father and blues musician, Akimitsu Senga. In 1996, Taro played the famous Apollo theater in NYC and received high praise from the audience in the Blues land. Today he is in his early 20s and is still very active as a blues harp genius. What is worth mentioning is that most of these Japanese pro harpists play not only the 10-hole diatonic harmonica but also the chromatic harmonica and that they have a great facility for jazz and pops as well as the Blues. Generally speaking, Japanese harpists are fine players and excel in techniques. This tradition is handed down to the younger generation yet to come. Suzuki, Tombo, and Moridaira (the distributor of Hohner) aggressively introduce new models and host harmonica-related events featuring those pro harpists. The biggest annual event is the over 30-year-old F.I.H. (the Fédération Internationale de l´Harmonica) Harmonica Contest in Japan, which is sponsored by Moridaira and held in early June every year. Many of the above mentioned blues harpists were well recognized by the Contest and made it a steppingstone of their success. The blues harp environment in Japan is thus well set up to invite more people to start playing this intriguing instrument! - See more at: http://bluesasianetwork.com/2014/01/29/fifty-long-years-a-brief-overview-of-japans-blues-harp-scene/#sthash.Tk4T0gUN.dpuf
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