Tatsurō Yamashita (山下 達郎 Yamashita Tatsurō) (occasionally credited as Tatsu Yamashita[1] or Tats Yamashita,[2] born February 4, 1953) is a Japanese singer-songwriter and record producer.
Yamashita is best known for the song "Christmas Eve", which initially appeared on his album Melodies in 1983 and later became a hit throughout the decades.[3][4] It is considered one of the standard Japanese Christmas songs, winning the Special Prize at the 45th Japan Record Awards 20 years after its release
In 1973, Yamashita formed the band Sugar Babe with musicians including Taeko Onuki and Kunio Muramatsu, and released their sole album Songs two years later.[6] After the group disbanded in 1976, Yamashita signed to RCA and launched his own career, with release of the solo album Circus Town. That same year he teamed up with Eiichi Ohtaki, who was the producer of Sugar Babe,[7] and brief Sugar Babe member Ginji Ito to release an album titled Niagara Triangle Vol. 1. The collaboration was cited by MTV as one of the six Japanese supergroups that changed the history of Japanese music.[8] When his 1979 award-winning album Moonglow gained moderate success, Yamashita rose to fame.[9] In 1980, his song "Ride on Time" peaked at #3 on the Japanese Oricon, and the same-titled album topped the chart subsequently.[10][11]
As a solo artist, Yamashita has released 17 studio albums, 2 live albums, multiple compilations and over 40 singles. He has been one of the most commercially successful Japanese male solo recording artists in the history of the Japanese album chart, selling approximately 9 million albums in total.[12][13] He has also composed for films and television commercials, and worked on records by other artists. He is particularly successful as a musical collaborator for Mariya Takeuchi, who married him in 1982. They have one daughter
