Although post Group Scene band Flowers were gaining increasing popularity in late '60s Tokyo, founder and guiding light Yuya Utchida was becoming increasingly frustrated that cult status was not translating into commercial success. Watching a rehearsal for the Tokyo version of the hit US musical Hair, Utchida's wily gaze fell upon the Afro-sporting cast member Yamanaka Akira, aka Joe. Utchida liked what we saw and heard so much that he invited Joe to sing guest lead vocals at the next Flowers gig, and so impressed was he with the audience's response to the singer's opening number that he knew a direction-changing discovery had been made. Gone was Flowers and its place Flower Travellin' Band emerged with a whole new sound and a charismatic and talented front man leading the charge, a relentless process that would see the singer become the sound of FTB with his career ascending as the fortunes of the band decreased. Eventually the inevitable happened and Utchida disbanded FTB in 1975, after which the band's record label, Atlantic, offered the world one final, posthumous release in the greatest hits package, The Times, with the title, Joe Featuring Flower Travellin' Band becoming the band's epitaph. Sadly Joe died of cancer in August 2011, but he will long be remembered as the voice of Japan's most successful and enduring musical ensembles, Flower Travellin' Band.