Tag: Shin Akimoto

Kelly Stockwell has been back home in Vermont for a week or so, after a Chroma Technology business trip to Japan with her company president Paul Millman. She offers these radom observations on leaping into the breach with a bunch of Japanese bluegrassers she’d never met. Kelly joined in with a group of Shin Akimoto’s bluegrass pals at the Yokohama Jug Band festival earlier this month during the weekend portion of her business trip.

First:  We were SEVERELY tired due to jet lag and the tight schedule of business travel, and it was kind of a blur and some of it is even hard to remember!

Bluegrass in Japan is like bluegrass anywhere.  Folks are happy to join in, be a part of the show, or sit and cheer on the band. No wonder karaoke is popular, the whole country is a cheering squad. With no rehearsal or a chance to “vet me” as legit or not they were willing to give it a shot based on a friend’s recommendation.

Some songs are named/sung in English, some in Japanese, and there’s no warning or explanation, you have to listen, hang on and jump in.

Stoves is a bar anybody in the US would be happy to have in your home town. They like black & tans and Zima. Paul in particular thought it was a great bar that would be right at home in Vermont.

Fellow musicians were willing to loan me instruments, tell me the chord number – or not (no 6 in their version of Sitting on Top of the World!). The banjo player tuned down in F and using a capo for G reminded me of the loose bassy sound of my New York banjo friend Bob Mavian.  He even concentrated like Bob Mavian.  There was a nice Gibson RB-3 banjo there at Stoves too.

Sarcasm doesn’t appear to be common in Japan. Paul made a “joking” sarcastic comment to a Japanese customer group that I had misquoted our product on the low side and I would be disciplined for it. They were HORRIFIED and apologetic, and Paul had to explain he meant it as a joke.

You notice when you try to talk to people in Japan you start leaving out prepositions and conjunctions and speak the way you type into Google, “Eat, Sushi, Bar?”

I asked our customer Miss Kaori Shimizu how to say “Nailed it!” in Japanese, trying to explain how I use it with dual musical meanings of ACTUALLY nailing a bass break, or just completely blowing the break. After mulling this over, she suggested “Yoku Yatta!” which means “you did it!”

While Osaka and Tokyo are huge spread out business cities, Yokohama is more of a young “happening” kind of place.

Festival souvenir t-shirts come packaged in clear plastic sleeves!

You see nearly zero Japanese wearing sunglasses. When asked about it, they explain that their eyes are “strong” and sunglasses aren’t needed.

Business and First Class on ANA  (All Nippon Air) is the ONLY WAY TO FLY!

Speaking of exhaustion, I had no idea how terrific it would be to get home and sleep 11 straight hours in my own bed!

But I did get home in time to participate as a staff musician at Mandolin Camp North in Charlton MA, where I met mandolinist Mike Compton, “the USA’s Shin Akimoto!  Ha ha!.”

So to all the Bluegrass Today readers who followed my adventures in Japan, try it yourselves if you ever get the chance! And “Yoku Yatta” to all!

… or, USA’s bass pickin’ Kelly meets Japan’s mandolin pickin’ Shin

Some of us folks in the business world do a lot of traveling. For bluegrassers, business travel often spins off into great musical experiences like concerts, jams, vintage instrument stores, festival sites, bluegrass clubs, historical spots and new friends they never would have encountered except for business trips. Who among us hasn’t taken the side trip to Rosine when doing bidness in Beaver Dam?

Savvy bluegrassers learn to plan a musical itinerary around their business trips.

Ms. Kelly Stockwell of Putney, VT is an engineer working for Chroma Technology in Springfield VT – they deposit highly technical vacuum-metallized coatings on all kinds of 21st century optical devices. Their website says Chroma Products include “filters, mirrors, sets and holders, and light sources” and the company is “well known for creating filter sets for the multitude of fluorochromes that are typically used in epi-fluorescence microscopy.”

Well… yeah, of course! Kelly works in technical sales and frequently attends optics industry conventions and sales conferences all over the world. Her role? For fans of NBC’s comedy series, The Office, Kelly readily admits to being “the money beets” in the Chroma Products booth.

Kelly is also a MIGHTY FINE stand-up bass player with the Vermont bluegrass band Hot Mustard, with her banjo picking husband Bruce Stockwell, and April and Bill Jubett who play rhythm guitar and second banjo and lead the singing.

That’s right, “two banjos, two couples, no waiting.”

Kelly is also a long-time staff musician at Banjo and Mandolin Camp North in Massachusetts.

Kelly and Chroma Technology President Paul Millman are visiting customers in Japan this week and staying over the weekend. Kelly’s noggin is spinning with tales of the wonderful bluegrass played in Japan.

Being tight with a bunch of Nashville performers and some well-traveled northeastern pickers, Kelly has heard a lot about the famous “Bill Monroe of Japan – Shin Akimoto”. Kelly has already had the experience of jamming during an international business trip, at Club Oklahoma in Munich Germany.

And she’s already been to Japan for business in the last couple of years, so she’s comfortable about Japan.

A plan begins to hatch… or whatever it is an egg does before it hatches…

Shin Akimoto, of Nishinomiya (city), Hyogo (prefecture), on Honshu Island, is one of the two best known Japanese bluegrass mandolinists, along with Akira Otsuka. In fact, Shin filled in for Akira with Bluegrass 45 when they appeared at the Ryman Auditorium for the Courtney Johnson Memorial.

Shin and Akira both graduated from Kwansei Gakuin University. Shin has played mandolin for 20 years with Akira’s brother Joshes’ band Leaves of Grass. Two things distinguish Shin – he is a stone cold Bill Monroe disciple, and he’s left-handed, playing a custom made left handed mirror image F5 style mandolin (even the maker’s name in the peghead is inlaid in mirror image – you can only read it in a mirror – in the mirror Shin and the mandolin look right-handed).

Shin has been coming to US festivals and IBMA for decades, first as a picker on pilgrimage, more recently representing B.O.M. Service (owned by the Watanabe brothers). B.O.M. Service publishes Moonshiner – the leading Japanese bluegrass magazine, and is also the major Japanese purveyor of all things bluegrass. Shin speaks excellent English and knows jam etiquette, so he is welcomed aboard anywhere he travels around Nashville.

He is a particularly close friend and admirer of Mike Compton, the ultimate Bill Monroe devotee.

Since 2000, Shin has also hosted the monthly Osaka Bluegrass Night.

So Kelly has overcome her innate shyness and reached out through mutual friends to contact this borderline mystical Shin Akimoto. “Is there any bluegrass in Japan the weekend of April 7 so that I could meet you?” she emailed. Well, it turns out, yes, sort of. There’s a huge jug band festival in the seaport city of Yokohama near Tokyo that weekend and Shin’s Ragpapa’s Jug Band is performing, He replied “come on and find me!”

Shoot, on Friday Kelly and Paul are going to be in Osaka only 515 kilometers away by bullet train, and Paul is an old folkie, totally up for it, so WHY NOT?

As we post this article, Kelly and Paul are hard at work selling optics and Shin is rehearsing for the festival. WILL THIS INTERNATIONAL CAPER WORK OUT? Well, isn’t this how any of us would plan a trip to Japan? Stay tuned – more details to come!

In the meantime, the American embassy is on high alert for “an international incident” unlike anything since President George H. W. Bush went to that banquet.



Photos courtesy Kelly Stockwell and Shin Akimoto.