Known as "King of Rock", and sometimes "King of Live (performance)", Kiyoshiro Imawano was one of the Japan music scene's most revered and prolific figures for forty years, working across a wide range of disciplines including lyricist, composer, and producer, band member, and actor. Born in Tokyo in 1951, Imawano formed the band RC Succession in 1968 with some of his junior high school classmates, debuting in 1970 with the song "Takarakuji wa Kawanai." Over the years,...

Known as "King of Rock", and sometimes "King of Live (performance)", Kiyoshiro Imawano was one of the Japan music scene's most revered and prolific figures for forty years, working across a wide range of disciplines including lyricist, composer, and producer, band member, and actor. Born in Tokyo in 1951, Imawano formed the band RC Succession in 1968 with some of his junior high school classmates, debuting in 1970 with the song "Takarakuji wa Kawanai." Over the years, he charted with such hits "Boku no Sukina Sensei" (1972) and "Ame Agari no Yozora ni" (1980).  In 1982, Imawano teamed up with Ryuichi Sakamoto to release the single "I-ke-na-i Rouge Magic," which became a smash hit. When RC Succession was peaking commercially in the early 1980s, kids across Japan adopted the "Kiyoshiro look", imitating is distinctive hairstyle and makeup.  Not just a rocker singing about girls and cars, Imawano, who believed that music should document and influence the times, and he also performed songs with a political message - relatively uncommon for Japanese musicians. At one point, sales of his anti-nuclear power album "Covers," and that of an album that included a punk version of "Kimi ga Yo," Japan's national anthem, were temporarily suspended. At a concert in 2003 that was being broadcast live on an FM radio station, he suddenly sang the national anthem and "Akogare no Kita-Chosen," or "Longing for North Korea," forcing the radio station to cut off its broadcast.  Imawano was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx in July 2006 and admitted to hospital. After treatment, he held a comeback concert at Tokyo's Budokan in February 2008. However, in July of the same year, it was confirmed that the cancer had spread to one of his pelvic bones, and Imawano was forced to put his career on hold to undergo radiation therapy.  After a long battle with the cancer, Imawano passed away on May 2, 2009.