Yoshio was my first friend in Japan. He had hair down to his shoulders, which he wore under one of those red, gold, and green Jamaican knit caps. He worked in a coffee shop that, unlike most coffee shops in Japan at the time, offered free refills.

I used to go to the shop, drink the free coffee, practice my Japanese with all the customers, and hang out with Yoshio. We were both Bob Marley fans and hit it off right away.

One night, a couple of weeks after I met him, Yoshio said, “You know, if you like Bob Marley so much, you’ll probably like this guy, too,” and handed me two LPs.

He was right. I did like that guy’s music, and still do. The LPs were by one of the few naturally funky Japanese musicians I’ve ever heard, Okinawan Shokichi Kina.

Kina is the man who put Okinawa mimyo on the map. The literal meaning of minyo is folk music, but it’s different from what Westerners usually call folk, the music produced by singer-songwriters or interpreters on acoustic guitar. (The Japanese call that fuo-ku.) Minyo is people music that’s been performed throughout Japan since at least the 16th century. The version played in the main islands, while still alive and well today, can sometimes seems stiff and cold to Western ears.

The fun-loving Okinawan version, however, is a different story. Like Jamaica, Okinawa is an island in the sun, and like the best of reggae, Okinawa has an infectious beat, an irrepressible bounce, and a grinning-from-ear-to-ear cheerfulness that will get you dancing on even the hottest summer day.

The main instruments used in the Okinawan variety include the sanshin, a three-stringed, plucked instrument whose body is covered with snake skin. It resembles the shamisen of the main islands (and probably shares a common ancestor with the banjo). They also use taiko drums of various sizes.

Kina was the son of a musician who played traditional Okinawan minyo (see photo with his family; Shokichi is on the left in the front row). His stroke of genius was to form an electric roots music band, with drums, bass, and electric sanshin, and as a teenager he already was fronting the house band in a nightclub in the entertainment district adjoining the military bases on Okinawa. His first hit and signature song, composed at the age of 16, was Haisai Ojisan (Hey, Mister!), which hit big when he was in jail serving time for a pot bust. The song was about a bum who panhandled for sake in the street near Kina’s neighborhood.

He recorded four discs from 1977 to 1983: the first two were an eponymous (in Japan) debut, recorded live in his nightclub with his then-wife Tomoko sharing vocals, and Blood Line, with guest Ry Cooder adding slide guitar on some tracks. These were the discs Yoshio lent me. Kina followed them up with the slightly overproduced but still worthwhile Matsuri (Festival), and Hana (Flower),

After a seven-year drought with no releases, Kina came roaring back in 1990 with the excellent Nirai Kanai Paradise, the tough and funky Earth Spirit in 1991, the superb departure In Love in 1992, and a greatest hits compilation in 1993.

If you like roots music reworked for modern audiences with electric instruments and drums, you won’t have any problem getting into Shokichi Kina. Generally speaking, he belongs to the same overall tradition as people like Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf, Stax or reggae in the 60s, and other modern roots blends of the 60s and 70s in the Caribbean and Africa. Modern Japanese music tends to be synth-happy, but he avoids that trap for the most part, and you won’t hear any of the computers, drum machines, or other digitalia that plague music today.

The first (mostly) live album is essential with a capital E, and is in print in the West from a British label under the title Music Power of Okinawa. You can buy it at Amazon.com here. David Byrne also released a compilation album called Peppermint Tea House on his Luaka Bop label that is still in print; you can buy it here. He unfortunately included some tracks from a collaboration with a guy who plays synthesizer. I don’t know why; Byrne displayed more roots sense on some of his other Luaka Bop compilations. Judging from the sound clips on Amazon, that’s also a studio version of Haisai Ojisan rather than the definitive live version.

Try these capsule reviews by Cliff Furnald on Rootsworld for an overview of all his work, except the discs of the latter 90s. I’d agree with most of it, with a few reservations: Nirai Kanai Paradise is good and includes several reggae-influenced tracks (Kina is the only Japanese who should be allowed to do reggae), but I sometimes think he should have stuck to closer to his Okinawan roots here. Even our favorite musicians record tunes that make us roll our eyes and groan. Furnald likes the tune Gaia here, but I’m sorry–singing “Don’t cry Gaia” in English makes me roll my eyes and groan, no matter how well-intentioned the singer.

Comparing the female background chorus in minyo to cheerleaders is a bit silly, even though they are more energetic than the ladies heard on the home island variety. Earth Spirit was recorded both in Tokyo and in Paris, and he used some African musicians for the latter sessions. Those are exceptionally solid tracks and as funky as the dickens. Unfortunately the Tokyo tracks don’t work as well for me, and you can immediately tell the difference. Furnald hears soukous guitar licks in In Love. I don’t, and I know soukous when I hear it. (There’s a nice soukous-influenced tune on Earth Spirit, however). It’s Furnald’s turn to roll his eyes with In Love, but I like the disc a lot. I think there’s a lot of originality on display here, despite the groan-inducing English lyrics on the title track.

Since these were recorded, Kina’s goofball tendencies have grown. He wanted to sail to the U.S. in a white ship (reversing the course of Commodore Perry’s black ships), but was refused permission to land. He also wanted to jam with Bill Clinton playing saxophone. And goofball or not, he was elected to the Upper House of Japan’s Diet last year as a member of the main opposition party; that’s him in the photo attending his first Diet session in traditional Okinawan garb.

He’s come a long way since doing time for reefer, running a Naha nightclub called the Chakra, and becoming the foremost roots musician in Japan. I wonder what Yoshio would think.