Starting Bluegrass 45 was initially “just a fun thing to do”, Otsuka says, with their early performances taking place at a coffeehouse called Lost City in Kobe. Otsuka and the band recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first US tour, at Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom Festival in Indiana.
“We left Japan on 17 June 1971, and we got into Bean Blossom the next day,” says Otsuka. “By the second day, we were on stage.” He recalls seeing Ralph Stanley, whom the band had seen play in Japan only a month before. Along with Flatt & Scruggs, those were the only bluegrass acts they had watched perform live back home in Japan. But now they were watching all of the great bluegrass players that had influenced them. “We were watching Bill Monroe for the first time. We were watching Don Reno for the first time…” Mac Wiseman, Jim & Jesse, all the greats were there, he remembers. “And then we had to get on the stage. We were 22-year-old kids and we were scared to death!”