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‘Do what you really want to do while you’re still alive’: Masayoshi Takanaka, the Japanese guitar hero surfing a second wave in his 70s

‘Do what you really want to do while you’re still alive’: Masayoshi Takanaka, the Japanese guitar hero surfing a second wave in his 70s

Playing a surfboard-shaped axe, Takanaka was a stadium-level artist at home but little known in the west – until YouTube brought him a huge new audience In November 2025, Masayoshi Takanaka announced his first ever UK solo gig. Originally slated for London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, there was such demand that it was upgraded to two nights at Brixton Academy – nearly 10,000 people will flock to see a 72-year-old Japanese jazz fusion virtuoso play a surfboard-shaped guitar in March. Come the summer, he’ll headline an outdoor festival in London’s Crystal Palace park. “I was actually planning to fade out [my career],” he says on a video call. “But now I feel like this might be my second coming. My life has changed so much in the last few years.” Born in Tokyo in 1953, Takanaka picked up the guitar in middle school, taking inspiration from western artists such as Cream, the Beatles and Ten Years After. He hung out in Shibuya jazz clubs while still in school uniform, asking bands if he could jam with them, and by 1972 he was playing with Sadistic Mika Band, who became the first Japanese rock band to tour the UK when they were invited to support Roxy Music in arenas. “They were already rock stars, so they had a limousine,” recalls Takanaka. “We were driving a Rover.” Continue reading...