By Meredith Young
It’s Sunday night at Shakey’s Pizza in Glendale, Calif. Families are devouring pepperoni pizza and Mojo potatoes while their kids sling tokens into pinball machines.
In the background a fifty-year old Japanese man sings “La Bamba” while playing a pedal bass, electric guitar, chimes, keyboard, symbols, tambourine, harmonica, and a drum machine.
Arthur Nakane, one-man band, is known by all as an omnipotent power that lurks on the street corners of Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and at Bar Mitzvahs and Festivals all over So Cal.
Francis Ford Coppola said, “He’s a genius,” while Kevin and Bean, KROQ DJs, said “Arthur, you rock!”
Despite the attention that he has received from appearances on The George and Alana TV Show, Sevcec (Spanish TV show), at the Roxy, the Viper Room, Jenny Jones and as the subject of a short film in the Sundance Film Festival called “Secret Asian Man,”
Nakane said, “The one thing I don’t want or enjoy is ‘You’re so talented.'”
The father of six said, “Anyone can be a one-man band. All you have to have to do is learn one thing at a time and keep on adding. It doesn’t take any special talent. The key is never to doubt whether or not to do it. Then you can never fly or get to the moon.”
The native of Kyoto, Japan, started playing professionally in 1963. After a 20-year career in a Japanese piano bar, Nakane knows 1000 Japanese and 1000 American songs.
He plays pop, rock, oldies, standard, traditional, folk, country/western, Latin, Hawaiian, Japanese and more. “Songs are like persons; sometimes you fall in love then you get tired,” Nakane said when questioned what his favorite song to play was.
“For 33 years I never did anything funny,” he said.
Dressing up like Elvis, a Japanese Chef and a cowboy are just some of the “funny” things that Nakane has added to his performances.
“I don’t want to be too much of a freak show. I didn’t want to be a one-man band. People started calling me a one-man band so I decided to learn more instruments.”
After criticizing the bands opening for Everclear in 1996, The Hollywood Reporter said, “Far more entertaining was the unexpected insertion between groups, of goofy cowboy-dressed Arthur Nakane, playing electric guitar to a drum machine, crooning lounge-like versions of ‘Don’t Be Cruel,’ and ‘Achy Breaky Heart.”
“If you think I am good – my father was a genius. And he was so ridiculed,” Nakane said.
“I half-expected to be laughed at and possibly ridiculed by teenagers. Instead, most of them showered me with compliments and encouragement. I guess my unorthodox style of music suits their rebellious nature and defiant attitude. They tell me I am cool and my performance is awesome,” he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Japanese Daily News.
Nakane was a high school teacher who taught math, wood shop, electronics, photography and drafting at La Canada High in Pasadena, Calif.
He is a Japanese translator by day and a one-man band by night.
“I don’t want to be a one-man band all my life,” he said.
Nakane’s three rules are 1) To be professional 2) Know what you are doing and get the job done 3) Always try to improve.
“It’s not what you have, it’s what you are made of,” Nakane said. He wanted it to be clear that he does what he does because he wants to inspire people to follow their dreams however outrageous they may seem.
“I did not play (at Sundance) to be a show-off. I did it because people will miss so much fun if I didn’t do it. I’m a very giving person. I just wanted to give something back. I don’t want you to emphasize that I am gifted, only that I am gifted in that I have a big heart,” Nakane said. Even though his father tried to discourage him from becoming a musician, Nakane said he knew his only love was art. Years later he is still following that dream although he said that music is his least talented area.
In an interview with Star-News, he said, “Oh, when I’m in a hurry I may just throw them (his instruments) into the back end of my car, but I really think that they are a part of me, or someone working for me. Without those things I’m nothing.”
