Hiroshi Sato

One man, many tracks

Hiroshi Sato (佐藤博) was born on June 3, 1947 in Chiran, Kagoshima, and moved to Kyoto in 1949. He began singing around 12 or 13, inspired by Helen Shapiro, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, decided to devote his life to music after hearing the Beatles in 1963, and taught himself guitar, bass, drums, percussion, harmonica and piano. He recorded early multitrack experiments in a temple warehouse in Kyoto, first on a mono recorder and then on a Sony four-channel open-reel machine. About 1970 he was pianist in a jazz band in Osaka, then worked in blues and folk groups, and in 1974 moved to Tokyo, joining Hackle Back with Shigeru Suzuki and Tin Pan Alley. His first solo album Super Market came out on May 25, 1976, followed by Time (1977) and Orient (June 1, 1979, Kitty). He collaborated with Haruomi Hosono from 1975 to 1978 and was invited to join Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978, which he declined as he had decided to leave Japan.

He lived in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1982, working with Randy Crawford's group, and returned in 1982 to make Awakening (June 25, 1982, Alfa, ALR-28036), his first for Alfa and the first built in one-man multitrack style. English Wikipedia and Japanese Wikipedia both date it to June 25; The Vinyl District says June 21. Later albums on Alfa ran to 1995, including Sailing Blaster (1984, with a Roland TR-909), Sound of Science (1986), Aqua (1988) and All of Me (May 10, 1995), then Oracle (1996), That's All Right (2003), Amazing (2004) and Creamy Aqua (2007). He produced Aoyama Thelma's "Soba ni Iru ne" (2008) and Fukui Mai's "Ikutabi no Sakura" (2011), both award-winning, and engineered and mixed his own albums at his private Studio SARA in Yokohama.

Sato died in October 2012, on the 24th per English Wikipedia and the 26th per Japanese Wikipedia, aged 65. The memorial best-of Golden Best a fine piece of work came in January 2013. Awakening has been reissued many times: CD in 1986, 1995, 2005 and 2014, a 180-gram vinyl cut by Bernie Grundman from a 96kHz/24-bit transfer in August 2016, and a 2022 double LP for the 40th anniversary. Retailers list a Light in the Attic edition. We found no critic reviews.