How Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" Saved the Life of Japanese Soul Singer Nao Yoshioka
On stage at the Daikanyama Loop club in Tokyo, Nao Yoshioka, a petite Japanese songbird with a big voice, has the crowd in the palm of her hand. She performs with a confidence beyond her years, baring her soul both in her songs and intimate between-song patter. It's hard to believe the cool, feisty performer had ever entertained doubts about her career.
That night, Nao performed most of her second album "Rising," her major debut from Yamaha Records. Opening with the rousing "Make the Change," the set ranged from the James Brown funk of "Love is the Answer" to the gospel-inflected "Joy" and "I Need You," with a detour to some grooving covers of Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody" and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' "Wake Up Everybody," which provoked a joyous sing-along from the crowd.
The tight six-piece band brought dynamic tension to every song, building to a rhythmic crescendo before BAM!, stopping on a dime and starting over from the ground up with just bass and cymbal. It was old-school funk (reminiscent of d'Angelo circa the Voodoo tour), and the perfect background to Nao's soulful purrs and turbo-charged gospel vocals.
It's been a long and arduous road for Nao to get to where she is right now, on the threshold of major success. This summer she's headlined at Blue Note Tokyo, appeared at Summer Sonic festival, and guested with bassist Nathan East at Billboard Tokyo. In between gigs, she can be found singing her heart out for small crowds at record stores up and down Japan. It might not be the chitlin' circuit, but it's close.
Escape to New York
When we meet at her record label's airy office and photo studio in Yoyogi Uehara, Nao Yoshioka is charming, confident and fluent in English. It's hard to believe that she once thought about giving up singing.
Before she went to New York in 2009, all her friends in Osaka and Tokyo warned her not to live in Harlem. So where did she rent an apartment? "Lexington and 116th Street." Aretha's legendary Spanish Harlem. "I didn't realize it was in Harlem until I moved in," she laughs.
Although she's always loved old-school soul (or "monochrome" music as she calls it from the black-and-white video clips on YouTube), Nao hadn't really connected with the music until she arrived in New York and found a vocal coach in Harlem. The epiphany came when he asked her to sing Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come," an anthem of the black liberation movement.
"My life in New York had been pretty tough and lonely," she says, "and in my late teens I'd suffered from depression and didn't leave the house for almost two years. I'd even given up singing. The lyrics of the song really synched with my feelings. It was as though the song was about my life! It was the first time a lyric had really touched me. And the more I sang it, the more courage I got from it. I felt my heart being healed."
After two-and-a-half years studying in New York, Nao returned to Japan to launch her career. "I was always waiting for a change to come, always practicing so I'd be ready for that moment," she continues. "But when I got back to Japan, nobody here took any notice of me. Nobody cared that I'd won a prize at the Apollo Theater, or got to the finals of the largest gospel competition in the U.S."
Making the Change Happen
The change finally came with a chance encounter with a producer who'd compiled an album for Sweet Soul Records. He introduced her to Naoki Yamanouchi, president of the label, and Nao finally found a company willing to listen. A frustrated drummer and disillusioned entrepreneur, Yamanouchi had a vision for a borderless record label releasing the best real music from Japan and the rest of the world.
Sweet Soul Records is that label, a family of artists who collaborate on each other's records like the Motown or Stax stable, but who use the latest technology to market, publicize and even crowd-fund their releases.
Their first collaboration was "Make the Change," the label's mission statement. Written by bassist and music director Hiro Matsuda and with lyrics by Sasha Vee, another Sweet Soul Records artist, the song embodies change in its very tempo, switching back and forth from stomping verse to syncopated chorus.
In 2013, Nao returned to New York for a vocal lesson with Grammy award-winning producer and composer Gordon Chambers. "It was amazing! Before, I had a complex about singing in front of people. When I got on stage, it was as though I had to prove myself to an audience who were there to judge me, so I always took on a boxer's stance. Gordon taught me that I wasn't there to fight, but to bless the audience. It was like an icy core inside me started to melt. It was really emotional for me, and for him."
In September 2014, Nao traveled to Ferguson, Missouri, to perform at the Heal Ferguson concert organized by Brian Owens in the aftermath of the Michael Brown killing. "There were photographs and messages everywhere, 'I love Ferguson,' 'Respect Each Other,' etc. As a Japanese, I was a little nervous walking into a charged racial moment. But when I got there, it was as though everyone had already gone past that, so instead of a tearful concert, it was a really inspirational one. You could feel the community coming together." To producer Yamanouchi, Nao's appearance as a Japanese soul singer, overcoming race, language and nationality with the universal language of music, had real meaning in itself.
A Long Time Coming
Nao Yoshioka is currently in the middle of a 13-venue Japan tour taking in clubs and halls from Hokkaido to Hiroshima. The tour culminates with a performance at the Iino Hall, Tokyo, on November 21.
She is set to make her debut at the legendary Blue Note Club in New York on September 25, followed by other dates in Wilmington, Birchmere and Baltimore.
It's been a long time coming, but she's finally on her way.
