His big breakthrough as a band member came 26 August 1958, when he sang at the annual music festival Western Carnival at the Nichigeki Hall. Sakamoto was unhappy about his position in the band as second vocalist, and this often led to fights with the other members. In May 1958, when Sakamoto was 16 years old, he joined the Japanese pop-band The Drifters that had been formed three years earlier. Kyu started playing guitar in high school, but he soon began singing.įirst recordings (1959–1960) JVC and Toshiba Records His older step-siblings kept their father's surname, Sakamoto. His mother was given custody over her three minor children including Kyu, and they adopted the mother's maiden name, Ōshima. Their father's company had been closed by the American occupation forces and he opened a restaurant. In the summer of 1944, during the air raids over the greater Tokyo area, Kyu's mother took her three children to live with their maternal grandparents in rural Kasama, Ibaraki Prefecture. Kyū is also an alternate reading of the kanji of his given name, Hisashi ( 九). He was the youngest of his father's nine children, which is why he was nicknamed Kyū -chan ( 九ちゃん, Kyū- chan), meaning "lil nine". Sakamoto was born on 10 December 1941, in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, to Hiroshi Sakamoto, a cargo tender officer, and his second wife, Iku. Kyu Sakamoto with his mother, Iku, in 1951
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