Welcome to Eiichi Arai homepage

• Born March 1950, Fukuoka, Japan
• He is Korean Japanese and grew up in Japan
• At the age of 15, he worked at a US military base in Japan, where he was exposed to Blues and became interested in learning more. At the age of 21, he moved to US to study music and singing.
• After study music in the US he came back to Japan. Yuuya Uchida, a well-known Japanese Rock musician discovered Arai and recorded his first album, "Baji Toufu" in 1979 which was highly regarded by other musicians, but had limited success with the general public.
• In 1986 he visited Korea, his father's home country, Chong Ha, Korea. Some years later Arai recorded the album titled, "Chong Ha Road 48 Suite" based on visiting his father's home area.
• In 1995, he recorded music for the famous Japanese TV news program, "Tetsuya Chikushi News 23." The song was that station's ending theme and became very popular in Japan and he received the Gold Prize Japan Record Award.
• He calls himself as Korean Japanese since he has Korean blood even born and grown up at Japan.
• In 1996, Korean TV, KBS-TV broadcast did a documentary on Arai. The documentary was also carried on the Japanese television, NHK and TV Asahi.
• Arai is planning on making a number of CDs in the future, which will debut as Eiichi Aria Complete.
  
• Eiichi Arai has been performing actively in Japan and throughout the world, Some background on Arai's performances and albums:
  • 1996 October, performed at Carnegie Hall, New York City
  • 1998 performed at Blue Note Cafe, New York City
  • 1998 Jan, vol.6 album, "Wolf Hunt" was recorded in France.
  • 1999 June, Korean version CD "Chong Ha Road" was recorded.
  • 1999 Aug, released Volume 7 Asian Palm.