Don G. Dinsdale Loc: El Cajon, CA (San Diego County)

Meet The Musicians Behind Japan's Vibrant Bluegrass Scene


Bluegrass Police is a popular act at the Tokyo bluegrass club Rocky Top. From left to right are mandolin player Satoshi Hoshikawa (obscured), fiddler Yuuko Wakabayashi, bassist Tomonari Hiraizumi, banjo player Tatsuya Kuwahara and guitarist and vocalist Mitsutaka Sometaya.

Naomi Gingold

When he was 17, Tatsuya Kuwahara picked up a banjo for the first time. It was supposed to be a one-off for a song he was writing; he normally played rock guitar and drums.

Now, we're out in the stairwell at a small club in Tokyo called Rocky Top, where his band Bluegrass Police has just finished its first set. Today, Kuwahara, now 29, is one of the hottest banjo players in the local bluegrass scene. And, in his country of Japan — which has the second-largest music industry in the world — the genre he loves is experiencing a bit of a revival.

Kuwahara's path to bluegrass and the banjo was not a straight line. In junior high, he started listening to a lot of punk, then British rock. And next, he says, he got really into Bob Dylan — which led him to American folk music, and then bluegrass. When he finally did pick up that banjo, he never looked back.

At first, it was hard to find like-minded listeners. "No one around me was interested in bluegrass," Kuwahara says. "My friends didn't listen to it. My family didn't know anything about it." He eventually met and started jamming with the musicians who now make up Bluegrass Police at Japan's long-running bluegrass festivals.

Old Joe Clark / BLUEGRASS☆POLICE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ihPaVcrYE0

Blue Ridge Cabin Home / BLUEGRASS ☆ POLICE & all Player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPWXpFxGtsU

Bluegrass Police - 99 years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5lGYciMqlY

Foggy Mountain Breakdown / BLUEGRASS ☆ POLICE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3UqBnQsrtA

Bluegrass Police - Lonesome Road Blues / Chicken Fried

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUfic_tZXqU

Blue Ridge Mountain Home - Bluegrass Police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msc74HS0A6Q

Cotton Eyed Joe / 〈Bluegrass★Police〉

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py6PB7bP6So

bahmer

It seems odd watching Japanese playing and singing bluegrass music but they are good.

Blue Leader

Banjo and fiddle! " Appropriating" positive aspect of another culture is a good thing. Proof: Dynamite Bluegrass.