was a Japanese guitarist, lyricist, composer, record producer, and businessman. He was known for producing for

Kiyotaka Sugiyama is a Japanese singer-songwriter. Sugiyama's career began after joining the band "Kyutipanchosu," and subsequently winning 19th Popcon with the single, "Gospel No Yoru." After being scouted by producer Koichi Fujita, Sugiyama's band became " Kiy ...

, Carlos Toshiki,

Toshiki Kadomatsu is a Japanese city pop singer-songwriter, musician, and producer. He has released many studio albums, as well as several instrumental and live albums. He has been active since at least 1981 and is still active, having released his most recent al ...

Momoko Kikuchi is a Japanese actress, entertainer, singer, and scholar who was formerly represented by the talent agency, Parfit Production. On June 22, 2020, Kikuchi announced that she has left Parfit Production and gone independent. Her ex-husband is profes ...

, and Lazy.

Biography

Early life and career

Fujita was born on March 20, 1947, in

Chiba Chiba may refer to: Places China * (), town in Jianli County, Jingzhou, Hubei Japan * Chiba (city), capital of Chiba Prefecture ** Chiba Station, a train station * Chiba Prefecture, a sub-national jurisdiction in the Greater Tokyo Area on ...

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to the ...

, Japan. As a child, he loved playing football, but spent most of his days alone because his mother died and his father remarried. He attended Chiba Prefectural Chiba High School where he heard a

Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...

record, and bought an electric guitar. He was scouted by

Watanabe Productions is a multimedia management company in Japan dealing in recordings, films, television, music publishing and artist management as well as the main subsidiary of the Watanabe Production Group. Formed by bandleader Shin Watanabe and his wife Misa W ...

and debuted in 1967 as a member of Out Cast. He served as the guitarist after the previous guitarist, Shuichi Katagiri, left the band shortly before the band's debut. He left in the summer of 1967 after writing three songs, and would form The Love with Yuji Takamiya, Arai Hideo, Yasufumi Tajima (known as "Fumio Shimada" and "Heckel Tajima"), and Hiroshi Kobata. The band dissolved in 1969.

Production career

In 1980, he scouted

Shinji Takashima Shinji Takashima (Japanese: 高島信二, ''Takashima Shinji''; born October 23, 1960 in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese musician, composer, and music producer. He is known for being the guitarist of Omega Tribe. Takashima ...

, and

Toshitsugu Nishihara was a Japanese music project led by producer Koichi Fujita from 1983 to 1995. With the help of composers Tetsuji Hayashi, Tsunehiro Izumi, and Hiroshi Shinkawa, the project had three different bands with three different lead vocalists: Kiyotak ...

from the band Kyutipanchosu. In 1983,

Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe Omega Tribe (Japanese: ; sometimes stylized as Ωmega Tribe) was a Japanese soft rock and city pop project that was led by producer Koichi Fujita, with the bands being handled by industry veterans Tetsuji Hayashi, Tsunehiro Izumi, and Hiroshi ...

debuted with "Summer Suspicion", which peaked at No. 9 on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

charts. He produced all albums by the band. After the band broke up, he scouted Carlos Toshiki, making him the lead vocalist of 1986 Omega Tribe before the name changed to Carlos Toshiki & Omega Tribe. Fujita produced all albums for both variations. In 1979, Fujita listened to

's demo tape. In 1980, Lazy keyboardist Shunji Inoue and the choir group Trois formed the unit "BIG BANG." In March 1981, he produced their cover of

Ai No Corrida ''In the Realm of the Senses'' (french: link=no, L'Empire des sens, Japanese: , ''Ai no Korīda'', "Bullfight of Love") is a 1976 erotic art film written and directed by Nagisa Ōshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of a ...

, establishing Bermuda Music Publishing in the same year. In 1982, he produced Kadomatsu's album, ''Weekend Fly to the Sun,'' and in 1984, produced and wrote for

's debut album, ''Ocean Side.'' Many of the songs and albums Fujita produced were hits and succeeded commercially. They were known as the "Triangle Sound".

Later life and death

After 1995, he stopped producing and concentrated on being president of his company. Fujita died on October 11, 2009, from diabetes.

References

{{Authority control 1947 births 2009 deaths Japanese composers Japanese lyricists Japanese male composers Japanese record producers People from Chiba Prefecture Omega Tribe (Japanese band) members 20th-century Japanese male musicians Deaths from diabetes