Q: While with the Brothers Four, how many tours to Japan did you and the guys do?
A: I honestly don't recall. We toured there every year that I was with the group, except for maybe one, so I know I did over a dozen Japan tours with The Brothers Four. I also did two Japan tours with The Kingston Trio, but they weren't as extensive as the Brothers Four tours. The Bros. caught the fancy of the Japanese with songs that were similar to Japanese folk songs due to their placement in minor keys: Greenfields, 7 Daffodils, Green Leaves of Summer, etc.
Q: When you went to Japan, how long did the tours last?
A: We usually spent a three or four weeks over there on each tour. I think one tour was more like 3 months, tho. Maybe it just seemed that way. After a couple weeks there I found myself dreaming in Japanese, which I thought was quite fascinating. Those dreams made just as much sense as dreams in English.
Q: Did you find you played to larger audiences in Japan as compared to the States?
A: Most of the halls we played in Japan were 3000-4000 seats. We rarely played that large of venue in the states. Especially not as the headliner.
Q: Were all numbers sung in English?
A: We played our normal show for the most part - yes, in English. We found that English was fairly commonly spoken there as a second language, and we were also told that our recordings were used to teach English to Japanese folks because of our precise diction.
We did travel with a Japanese MC who would announce our program to the audience in Japanese. He would come out after each song to introduce the next one. Actually, we would do the introducing and he would translate. We would often have fun with him onstage as he tried to translate our jokes. Sometimes things that are funny in English are hard to translate with the same humor into Japanese.
We had one song that we would sing occasionally in Japanese: "Sakura" - the cherry blossom song. Audiences loved when we did that. Then one year we recorded an entire album in Japanese for CBS-Sony. We put several of those songs into our show for the subsequent tour.
Q: After a Japan tour, did you guys continue in the Far East or just come home?
A: After a month on the road we were usually quite anxious to get back home. A couple times we extended our tour and played a couple dates in Hong Kong, and a couple times we played Korea before returning to the States.
One year we were negotiating for a couple dates in Singapore, but when the promoter got our promo picture he told us we'd either have to cut our hair and shave (I had a full beard at the time) or we wouldn't be allowed into the country. We never went to Singapore.
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