Gospellers


The Gospellers are a Japanese a cappella vocal group made up of Tetsuya Murakami, Kaoru Kurosawa, Yuji Sakai, Yoichi Kitayama and Yutaka Yasuoka.
Originally formed by Murakami and Kurosawa in 1991 as a group within a college chorus club "Street Corner Symphony" at the University of Waseda, they recruited 3 new members in order to fill the vacancy for the recording of The Gospellers, their first major label release in 1994. They spent the next 6 years working towards national recognition, releasing 13 singles and 5 albums, until they finally came up with a hit single "Towa ni", which stayed in the Oricon chart ranking for 44 consecutive weeks in 2000 and 2001. They became the first a cappella group to be in the top 3 of the chart in Japan with their 16th single, "Hitori".
In early 2006, the group made a side-project release, Gosperats, which featured the members in blackface and singing with more soul and jazz-like accompaniment, with Rats & Star members Masayuki Suzuki, Nobuyoshi Kuwano and Yoshio Sato, who originally, along with such a style, established the popularity of R&B and Doo-wop in the 1980s in Japan.
Their single "Sky High" was used as the opening theme for the anime Nodame Cantabile: Paris.

Discography

Singles