Maki Asakawa
Japanese female jazz and blues singer, lyricist and composer. Born in January 27, 1942 in Ishikawa-ken. Died January 17, 2010 in Nagoya. Sang at US Army bases in Japan before getting her big break in a series of concerts organized by underground playwright Shuji Terayama in 1968.
Maki Asakawa
2019 Repress. A stunning survey of the 1970s heyday of this great Japanese singer and countercultural icon. The “Queen of the Japanese Underground” stuck to her unique personal style – long black dress, dark glasses, cloud of cigarette smoke…Deep-indigo, dead-of-night enka, folk and blues, inhaling Billie Holiday and Nina Simone down to the bone. A traditional waltz abuts Nico-style incantation; defamiliarised versions of Oscar Brown Jr and Bessie Smith collide with big-band experiments alongsi…