BIOGRAPHY

​Tyrone Hashimoto (real name:Shunichi Suzuki ) is an accomplished Japanese singer-songwriter, composer, arranger, performer, music producer and voice-over talent, with eight solo CDs to his credit as well as a catalog of over 600 original songs and jingles written for many of the biggest brands in the world.
 

His latest EP, Mandela, is a tribute to a man he admired as a brave leader and humanitarian and a strong influence on his life and world view. This original song is musically what can best be described as “World/Soul” , mixing African rhythms with horns, Pat Wright and The Experience Gospel Choir, with Tyrone’s soulful vocals on top of it all. The EP also features two remixes of Mandela and another original, Dance in the Sunshine.
 

Born in Yaita, Tochigi, Japan, his love of music took early flight. At the age of 17, influenced by both Japanese and Western folk artists, like Simon & Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary, Tyrone won the prestigious Grand Prix Award at the 1st all Japan Folk Music Festival. Following that jump start to his career, Tyrone participated in Harry Hosono's Tin Pan Alley, was a seminal part of the Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1st album and later became an original member of La Orquesta Del Sol, the 1st Premier Salsa band in Japan.
 

As a young man, Tyrone’s musical life was significantly altered during a first time visit to Berkeley, CA where he attended a Taj Mahal concert. Taj’s music touched him in a way no music ever had before and sparked a lifelong interest in Afro-American music, Tyrone immersed himself in the blues music of artists like Robert Johnson and T-Bone Burnett, jazz artists like Joe Williams, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, soul singers, like Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway while opening himself up to the worlds of Reggae,

Calypso, Salsa, Haitian and Nigerian “Juju” music. 

While Tyrone flew to Seattle in 1987 to mix his 1st solo album, Moments Of Love, he happened to participate in a Gospel Music gathering at the Langston Hughes Cultural Center, where he was asked to sing, You Are So Beautiful. The audience there was so skeptical and some of them even chuckled. But when Tyrone started singing, they evaporated and applauding for so long after he finished singing. This event was the beginning of his love of Seattle and his lifelong relationship with Pat Wright and the Experience Gospel Choir.
 

The following year, Tyrone celebrated the release of his first solo album, Moments Of Love, produced in Japan, but written entirely in English. To help the launch of the CD in the US, he did a showcase in Seattle called Samurai Soul. The concert was a great success and led to many articles about Tyrone in Seattle’s major newspapers and magazines (Seattle Times, The Seattle Weekly and the other alternative weekly at the time, The Rocket). Seattle television and radio embraced Tyrone with features on KIRO and KUOW, culminating in Seattle’s NBC affiliate, KING5, producing a documentary on Tyrone which aired on Evening Magazine and was syndicated to 37 other cities around the US. Suffice to say, Seattle’s enthusiasm for his music and story was just what Tyrone needed to catapult him to a long and varied music career in Japan and the United States.
 

The success of Moments of Love led to seven more albums, produced in both Japan and the US, which gave him opportunities to work with some of the best musicians and producers in the world, including the late Joe Sample, David T Walker, Leroy Bell, Bobby Watson (Rufus), and Peter Bunetta and Rick Chudacoff (Kenny G.,The Temptations, Michael Bolton)

On the heels of the success of his recording career, Tyrone built his own studio and started writing tv and radio commercial jingles and doing studio production work. Over the past two decades, Tyrone has become one of Japan's most successful jingle writers and voice over talents.
 

He has written and performed for over 600 clients, including some of the world’s biggest, like McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Nissan, Canon, Sharp, Kodak, Tokyo Disneyland and many others. He won a Bronze award at the 41st Cannes Commercial Film Festival for an ad he did for Panasonic.

His commercial work has taken him to unexpected places, including hiring the late James Brown to sing a commercial for UCC, the large Japanese coffee company, flying to Augusta, Georgia to record with one of his musical heroes.
 

Tyrone continues to record, perform and write on his musical journey from his home in Japan, but with regular trips to his second

home in Seattle and other stops along the way.