Takeshi Terauchi & The Bunnys

??????????. First with his band The Bunnys and later with The Blue Jeans, guitarist Takeshi ?Terry' Terauchi covered many popular genres, from garage, fratrock and surf guitar instrumentals, through sentimental ballads, via his own inimitable take on the popular classics. Born in January 1939, in the small town of Tsuchiura, in the rural prefecture of Ibaraki, north of Tokyo, Terauchi started his career in the 1950s, playing rhythm guitar in the Country & Western group Jimmy Tokita & The Mountain Playboys, but swapped to the hip new ?eleki' style in 1962, with the formation of The Bluejeans.

With Terauchi now playing a Ventures-style Mosrite guitar, the band's 1964 LP KOREZO SURFING (?This Is Surfing') was a huge hit, enabling Terauchi and his wild whammy-bar stylings to support both The Ventures and The Astronauts on their Japanese tours. However, the coming of The British Invasion saw Teraucki jump ship to the vocal sounds, and he formed The Bunnys in early 1966. His self-referential songs included the December single ?Terry's Theme' and the LP LET'S GO TERRY, which featured wild performances including their legendary mind death riffothon ?Test Driver'. Then came Terauchi's commercial masterstroke, an eleki version of traditional Japanese songs for the LP SEICHO TERA UCHI BUSHI, which included the hit single ?Kanjincho/Genroku Hanami Odiri". Sales came in from people young and old alike, and over 100, 000 copies sold made the LP the all-time best-selling Group Sounds album. With their street credibility less important now than sustaining a high level of commercial success, Terauchi unleashed the pitiable album LET'S GO CLASSICS, featuring eleki versions of popular classics. In 1968, Terauchi quit his own band, leaving them to record an instrumental version of the then popular HAIR soundtrack(!). And, as the Group Sounds wavered, 1970 saw the guitarist dressing as a WW2 Japanese commander and singing Japanese war songs in an ironic style on the LP ELEKI IPPON GUNKA DE SHOBU TOTSUGEKI. However, Terauchi had by now squeezed the last remaining drops of patience from his fans, and thereafter was forced to call it a day.