That same year, Kitaro also made his first live tour of North America and sold two million albums in the U.S. The album featured an array of American musicians and garnered Kitaro his first of many Grammy nominations in the New Age category. Fuji, Kitaro produced his 1987 release, The Light of the Spirit, with the help of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. For instance, after years of creating albums in the privacy of his home studio near Japan's Mt. Kitaro, however, was still considered an underground artist in America until he signed with Geffen Records in 1986, which re-released seven of his earlier albums and gave him the support to expand his scope in many ways. Several albums of music from Silk Road were released to a growing international contingent of fans who admired his combination of lush, majestic textures and gentle, almost naive, melodies. Two years later, he produced the first of several soundtracks for Silk Road, a Japanese television documentary series that ran for five years. His first solo album, Astral Voyage, appeared in 1978 and quickly gained a cult following. He built his first synthesizer and began experimenting with all kinds of unusual sounds. In 1972, however, he met the innovative German synthesist Klaus Schulze during a trip to Europe. In the early '70s, Kitaro formed the Far East Family Band, which released two albums of progressive rock. Interestingly enough, the famous Japanese composer taught himself to play electric guitar in high school - inspired by the R&B music of Otis Redding.
His style fuses contemplative, highly melodic synthesizer work with acoustic instrumentation, drawing from Eastern musical traditions as well as folk, classical, and rock influences. Kitaro is one of the most popular and influential new age artists of all time, having sold millions of records and toured across the world numerous times, in addition to winning Grammy and Golden Globe awards.
0 kommentar(er)
