Tatsuro Yamashita

Japanese singer-songwriter and record producer, born February 4, 1953, Ikebukuro, Tokyo. Japan. Husband of Mariya Takeuchi. Father of Minako Yamashita. Heavily influenced by American jazz, soul, and big band music. His first album, Add Some Music To Your Day (Japan 1972) (opens in a new tab), which contained cover versions of songs by The Beach Boys and other golden age American songs, is now extremely rare and sought-after. His major debut came in 1976 with Circus Town (Japan 1976) (opens in a new tab), which was recorded in New York and Los Angeles, the former of which included the participation of conductor and arranger Charlie Calello.
His popular breakthrough came in 1980 with the release of Ride On Time = ライドオン・タイム (Japan 1980) (opens in a new tab), whose title track peaked at #3 on the Oricon singles chart. Maxell also used it in a TV ad for audio cassettes that featured Yamashita. He is probably best-known for composing and performing his 1983 song "Christmas Eve." This track appeared on his album Melodies (Japan 1983) (opens in a new tab) that year and was notably covered by Pentatonix for the Japanese release of their That's Christmas To Me (Japan 2015) (opens in a new tab) album. A version featuring English lyrics was written by Alan O'Day, a frequent Yamashita collaborator.
He is also famous as a record collector and the DJ of Japan's most famous oldies radio show, called "Tatsuro Yamashita's Sunday Songbook" (TOKYO FM). This program started on October 3, 1992, as A Saturday Songbook, but changed to The Sunday Songbook on April 3, 1994. It is a long-running program that is still ongoing.