Nippon No Heel - Southern All Stars

Southern All Stars (サザンオールスターズ), also known as SAS and Sazan, is a Japanese pop/rock band led by Kuwata Keisuke. The band is considered one of the most influential groups in Japan, being the 4th best-selling artist and having sold more than 47,083,000 copies in Japan.

The band's roots trace back to 1975, when Kuwata Keisuke was part of a popular group Better Days. The group saw many changes to its name and members. It was when keyboardist Hara Yuko and bassist Sekiguchi Kazuyuki joined the group that it had a permanent name.

After more and more changes of members, the group finally saw light as they released their debut single 'Katte ni Sinbad' in 1978.

January of 2000 saw the release of TSUNAMI, which was #1 on the Oricon charts for 5 weeks, selling almost 3 million copies. The single was marked the 3rd best-selling one in Japan.

In 2003, HMV Japan announced Southern All Stars to be the No.1 Japanese pop artist in its survey of “Top 100 Japanese pops Artists” all-time.

Members:
Kuwata Keisuke (桑田佳祐) (Lead vocals, acoustic & electric guitars)
Sekiguchi Kazuyuki (関口和之) (Bass)
Hara Yuko (原由子) (Vocals & keyboards)
Matsuda Hiroshi (松田弘) (Drums)
Nozawa Hideyuki (野沢秀行) (Percussion)

Former Members:
Omori Takashi (大森隆志) (Guitar) (Left August 2001) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.