Casey Rankin

Casey Rankin (July 10, 1946 - January 2, 2009) Singer / Songwriter / Producer / Guitar / Bass / Piano / Keyboards / Vocals. Born in Kansas in the United States, Casey was a permanent resident in Japan since 1971. After beginning a distinguished career as a songwriter, studio bassist and recording/touring in New York at ABC/Dunhill (Buddah Records) releasing "Plastic People" in 1967, then moving to California in 1970 to work with the Capital records team, Casey moved to Japan in 1971. I needed to get away from all that maddness of the 60's - start again - maybe get a real job, he says. After the insanity of touring with "The Guess Who" "Melanie" "Vanilla Fudge" & Leslie West's "Mountain" things just got out of hand. First I moved to L.A. where I thought it would be healthier but it was the same thing - the only real difference was that the junkies played volleyball and had nice tans. The move to Japan was the best thing i've ever done. The temple experience continues to pay off to this day, I started playing and writing again and . . . . In 1976, he recorded and released his first album in Japan with a band called "Short Hope". The album was released by Polydor on the Kitty Records label. In 1978 Casey wrote the soundtrack for TV Drama called "Ore-tachi-wa Tenshi Da" and joined forces with some studio musician friends to record the album. This led to him and starting a band called called "Shogun". Casey's song and Shoguns first single "Otokotachi-no-melody" sold well over 1,000,000 copies. The Shogun album went on to win the best album award, and Shogun was voted the best new group. Casey received a number of awards as a writer and continues to be as prolific and productive to this day. Casey has released 34 albums to date in Japan, 8 of which have gone gold and 1 going platinum. Shoguns appearance on "American Bandstand" which was broadcast via satellite live to Japan and subsequent tour with the Beach Boys created a sensation in Japan and as such Shogun became the first band ever to perform in baseball stadiums. Since Shoguns semi-retirement Casey's range of writing has become more varied. He now spends quite a bit of time writing soundtracks for feature films, animation films and commercial music as well as writing music for and producing a number of Japanese recording artists, as well as accumulating over 25 solo albums. Casey continues to tour Japan and spends approximately 4 - 6 months a year touring & recording in the US and Europe. Many of Casey's commercial songs have become very popular throughout Japan. In particular, "I Believe in You" (All Nippon Air Lines TV CM theme), "Live is the Feeling" (Asahi Beer TV CM theme), "Met People" (Kirin Mets TV CM theme) "Wonda" (Asahi Can Coffee TV CM theme with tiger woods) and "Bad City" which is a Sapporo Can Coffee "JACK" TV commercial as well as the theme song for a very famous TV drama, are all well known and can be found, along with many of his songs on most Karaoke systems in Japan. Casey's song "Has Everyone Gone Blind" from the self-produced album "The Reality Of Dreams" became the theme song for the International War & Peace Foundation, a sub-committee within the United Nations. The promotion video for "Has Everyone Gone Blind" was introduced to much acclaim during the United Nations Nuclear Proliferation Conference in September of 1998.