Early years: 1941–1949 Childhood in Kawasaki and Kasama Sakamoto was born on 10 December 1941, in
Kawasaki,
Kanagawa Prefecture, to Hiroshi Sakamoto, a cargo tender officer, and his second wife, Iku. The youngest of his father's nine children, he was nicknamed , meaning "Li'l Nine", with
Kyū also being an alternative reading of the
kanji of his given name, . In the summer of 1944, during the
air raids over the greater Tokyo area, Kyu's mother took her three children to live with their maternal grandparents in rural
Kasama,
Ibaraki Prefecture. They moved back to Kawasaki in 1949. Their father's company had been closed by the American occupation forces and he opened a restaurant.
1956–1958 Teenage life In 1956, Kyu's parents divorced. His mother was given custody over her three minor children including Kyu, and they adopted the mother's maiden name, Ōshima. His older half-siblings kept their father's surname, Sakamoto. Kyu started playing guitar in high school, but he soon began singing.
First recordings (1959–1960) JVC and Toshiba Records In May 1958, when Sakamoto was 16 years old, he joined the Japanese pop-band
The Drifters that had been formed three years earlier. Sakamoto was unhappy about his position in the band as second vocalist, and this often led to fights with the other members. His big breakthrough as a band member came 26 August 1958, when he sang at the annual music festival Western Carnival at the Nichigeki Hall. After a quarrel that ended in a fight with two of the other members, Sakamoto left the band in November 1958. For a short period of time, Sakamoto returned to his studies and focused on entering university. By December 1958, he joined his classmate's Hisahiko Iida's band called Danny Iida and Paradise King. He replaced Hiroshi Mizuhara as singer. Sakamoto's career began to rise to expectations, where he ended his studies and left school. In June 1959, the band got a record deal at the JVC record company. The Paradise King and Sakamoto released their song "Kanashiki Rokujissai" in August 1960, which became a great hit. In the time after they released a number of songs that became very popular. This led to Sakamoto obtaining a record deal at the
Toshiba Records company and left the Paradise King aiming at a solo career.
Solo career (1961–1985) Debut album and international success (1961–1964) '' during the Summer Olympics in October 1964 Sakamoto's solo career was inaugurated with the song "
Ue o Muite Arukō" written by
Rokusuke Ei and
Hachidai Nakamura. The song was first heard on the
NHK entertainment program
Yume de Aimashō on 16 August 1961. It became a smash hit and was released on red vinyl on 15 October. It remained the highest selling record until January 1962, three months after its release. His international breakthrough came in 1963 during a visit to Japan by
Louis Benjamin, an executive of British record company
Pye Records. Hearing the song several times, Benjamin decided to bring it back to England. Due to concerns that the title would be too hard for English-speakers to pronounce or remember, the song was renamed "
Sukiyaki", after the Japanese cooked beef dish familiar to the English. The new title was intended to sound both catchy and distinctive in Japanese, but other than the language, it had no actual connection to the song. Initially, Pye Records released an instrumental version of the song recorded by
Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen. After that became a hit in England,
His Master's Voice released the original, which also sold well, reaching sixth place in the label's most sold records. In 1963, Capitol Records released the song in the US with the alternate title, eventually selling over one million copies, and remaining number one on the
Billboard Hot 100 number one single for three weeks in June 1963. After the international success of "Ue o Muite Arukō", Sakamoto went on a world tour that lasted from summer of 1963 to the beginning of 1964. Among the countries he visited were the United States (including Hawaii), Germany, and Sweden. During his time in the U.S., he was invited to appear in several television shows. On 13 August 1963, he landed at
Los Angeles International Airport and that evening, was a guest of television program
The Steve Allen Show. Sakamoto was also expected to appear on
The Ed Sullivan Show, but his appearance was canceled owing to a scheduling conflict with the production of his upcoming movie,
Kyu-chan Katana o Nuite. Sakamoto had only one other song reach the U.S. charts, "China Nights (Shina no Yoru)" (Capitol 5016), which peaked at number 58 in 1963. His only American album,
Sukiyaki and Other Japanese Hits (Capitol 10349), peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart (now known as the Billboard 200) in 1963 and remained on the Pop Albums chart for 17 weeks. He received his sole foreign
Gold Record of the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) by Capitol Records on 15 May 1964 in
Hotel Okura,
Tokyo.
Later appearances During the
1964 Summer Olympics, he was featured on the Swedish TV-program
Hylands hörna broadcast live from Tokyo. In 1968, Sakamoto and Hachidai Nakamura participated in the
Festival Internacional da Canção in
Rio de Janeiro with the song "Sayonara, Sayonara" and finished in 7th place.
Marriage and family In 1971, Sakamoto married Japanese actress
Yukiko Kashiwagi. The couple had two daughters,
Hanako and .
Death On 12 August 1985, Sakamoto was aboard
Japan Air Lines Flight 123 (departing from Tokyo), heading to Osaka for an event. The plane suffered a severe structural failure and
decompression before crashing into two ridges of
Mount Takamagahara in
Ueno, Gunma, a disaster that remains the
deadliest single-aircraft accident in history with 520 people killed, including Sakamoto. He was interred at Chōkoku-ji Temple in the central
Minato-ku area in Tokyo. ==Legacy==