Hound Dog is a Japanese rock band formed in 1976 that is centered around Kohei Otomo. Examples of popular songs include , "Only Love" (1988) and . During the second half of the 1980s, the band boasted a tremendous effort of touring Japan with a series of live performances. In the late 1990s, they became less active and in 2005 lead vocalist Otomo began to express interest in pursuing a solo career. This ultimately developed into a lawsuit throwing the band into a state of confusion. As of 2018, Otomo is the only official member left in the band. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, Hound Dog are best known for the single "R★O★C★K★S", one of the opening themes to the ''

Naruto ''Naruto'' is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. It tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, a young ninja who seeks recognition from his peers and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the leader of his village. T ...

'' anime.

History

While attending

Tohoku Gakuin University is a private university in Sendai, Japan. It was founded under a Christian background (specifically the German Reformed Church, which later was known as the Reformed Church in the United States. A large part of the Reformed Church in the United S ...

in 1976, guitarist and founding member Yoshihide Takahashi (高橋良秀 ) gave the impetus to form the band when he called out to Kohei Otomo by saying "Let's do it together!". Otomo then adopted the name of the band from an

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

hit song of the same name that he adored very much. In 1980, the band achieved its debut with the single . Despite many ups and downs such as changing members in 1984, Hound Dog had since then managed to continue a lasting activity within the

Japanese rock , sometimes abbreviated to , is rock music from Japan. Influenced by American and British rock of the 1960s, the first rock bands in Japan performed what is called Group Sounds, with lyrics almost exclusively in English. Folk rock band Happy ...

scene. The said activity is considered to mainly consist of their live performances. Without any hit songs at all, the band managed to gather a crowd of roughly ten thousand people for their first public debut at Nippon Budokan, after which they continued their live tour for a period of around three years. For the sake of local students, who despite buying tickets, were not able to go due to school guidelines, the band organized another live performance at the same place once again in an effort to communicate their message of "music being heck of a wonderful thing". Students were allowed to use their graduation certificates as tickets (which essentially meant that it was free of charge). Also, the live concert's closing time was set to an earlier hour for the sake of safety, and it was decided to have it take place somewhere not dangerous for the students. This entire arrangement left the band with an unprecedented achievement on their track record. In 1989, Hound Dog performed a 15-day live concert marathon, which came to be the longest string of performances in the history of Nippon Budokan. This record has not been broken as of 2017. Beginning with 1981, the Rock'n'Roll Olympics were held annually near the outskirts of Sendai City, turning into the forerunner of Japanese outdoor rock festivals. Furthermore, fund-raising and charity live activities such as the Hiroshima "Peace Concert" and the "Dream Island Live Concert" were performed by Hound Dog over the years as a form of social participation events.

Selected discography

*''Welcome to the Rock 'n Roll Show'' 1981 *''Stand Play'' 1981 *''Power Up!'' 1981 *''Roll Over'' 1982 *''Brash Boy'' 1983 *''Dreamer'' 1984 *''Spirits!'' 1985 *''Love'' 1986 *''Be Quiet'' 1987 *''Gold'' 1989 *''Voice'' 1990 *''Back to Rock'' 1991 *''Bridge'' 1992 *''River'' 1993 *''Rock Me'' 1994 *''Across the Rainbow'' 1996 *''Baby Universe'' 1998 *''Happy Star'' 2000 *''Big Dipper'' 2002 *''11 Rooms for Sky'' 2004 *''Omega'' 2005

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1976 establishments in Japan Japanese musical groups Japanese rock music groups Musical groups established in 1976