Shoji Tabuchi: East Meets the Louisiana Hayride

 May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and a perfect opportunity to look back at an earlier time in the career of a star musician from Japan, Shoji Tabuchi, who made Bossier City home for a decade in the 1970’s.  If you’ve visited the entertainment city in the Ozarks - Branson, Missouri - or know anyone who has within the past 40 years, you’ve likely heard of the showman with classical violin training, who reveres the country classics, and put enough flash into the performance to even make it Las Vegas-worthy. You may even know some of his ‘unlikely’ story as a young violinist growing up in Japan who set a goal to be a country music star in America, and attained that goal and then some. Here, we will look at some aspects of Shoji’s Bossier days, gleaned from the History Center bookshelves and newspaper resources. 

Shoji Tabuchi was born in Daishoji, Japan in 1944. He began studying the violin at the age of seven. He was trained classically, but like many in his country, he got caught up in enthusiasm for American country music. He was inspired by Howdy Forrester, fiddler for Roy Acuff, who toured Japan. The young Shoji determined that someday he’d go to the home of country music, America and to the Grand Ole Opry and the Louisiana Hayride, the country music radio show broadcast live from Shreveport through the 1950’s, with occasional comebacks, to be more specific. In 1967, he finally made it to America and eventually Nashville, TN, “Just to listen”.  He looked up Roy Acuff, who got him opportunities to play. Then he registered as a resident alien so he could stay longer. That made him eligible for the draft and he spent a couple years serving the United States during the Vietnam War. 

In his 2000 book, “Tillman Franks: I Was There When it Happened,” the Louisiana Hayride’s local musical legend Franks, who had then become a talent manager, got a call from a booking agent who insisted he found what Franks had been looking for, a fiddler for his Bossier City talent David Houston. The scout said the incredible fiddler he found, Shoji Tabuchi, lived in Wichita Kansas, was working as a lab or medical assistant at a hospital and playing music on the weekends. Tabuchi agreed to travel to Shreveport so they could hear him play. Tillman hired him on the spot. Tabuchi and his wife Mary Jo moved from Wichita to Bossier soon after. 

Shreveport-Bossier’s Louisiana Hayride had a nickname as “the cradle of the stars”.  One could say that it, or at least one of its stars, Tillman Franks, provided the cradle to Shoji’s stardom, too. Franks was so impressed with Shoji’s sound and showmanship, he had no intention of keeping him sequestered as backup. He gave him a top billing, too. Saying he didn’t want there to be “any surprises,” he billed Tabuchi as the “World’s Champion Japanese Fiddler,” a title he just grabbed out of thin air. Country music writer Townsend Miller, who was stunned by the performance of the breakout star with David Houston in Austin, TX, confirmed Tillman’s hunch when he wrote in the “Austin American” on April 15, 1972, “Tillman got more than a fiddler. He got a star, and he knows it.” 

Tillman Franks did know he had a star on his hands, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t let him go. Houston and Shoji were friends, and Houston was proud of the success of his fiddler, according to Franks. An article in the “Wichita Independent” of Wichita, Kansas, announced David Houston and Shoji performing at a jamboree there, and said that “David Houston will proudly tell you he is John’s (the then-very young son of Shoji and Mary Jo) godfather”. And he was the one who introduced Tabuchi to bass fishing, a favorite pastime of Tabuchi’s for years to come. But whatever the reason (and country music fans will proffer a variety), after about the mid-1970’s, Houston’s accolades were fading, while Shoji’s act was “burning up” the fiddle, and the stage. Houston felt Tillman’s time to promote him was being diluted by his efforts on behalf of Tabuchi, as well as the Shreveport NFL star with dreams of a music career, Terry Bradshaw. So Tillman Franks cut Shoji as a client at the end of August, 1976.

It was also not long after the split with Franks that Shoji and Mary Jo split. Tabuchi would not say, though it appeared, according to Franks, that all the time on the road wasn’t helping the young family. When he discovered Branson on his way home from a concert in Illinois and was invited to play a 6-month engagement there in early 1980’s, he took the opportunity to stay put for a while. Ultimately, he moved there, met his second wife, Dorothy, and in May 1990 he opened his own theater and performed with his wife and daughter. 

Shoji’s Branson shows and theater were wildly successful, and the city of Branson recently honored the family for its impact on the community and its businesses. According to Franks, however, success was especially important to Shoji for earning the honor and respect of his family back in Japan, most notably his father. (Shoji’s move to the United States was made with the clandestine help of his mother while his father was away on a business trip.) Now, however, Tabuchi is pushing 80 and perhaps entering another new chapter. Performances paused during covid. The family did a year-long comeback in a more intimate theatre. Shoji’s 1990 grand theatre complex in Branson is currently up for sale. 

Do you have, or know someone who has, photographs of northwest Louisiana music history that can be shared with the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center? Visit us at the History Center, or ask us how to use our online catalog, which includes digitized images. We are located at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA and are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok

Images: 

• Shoji Tabuchi, dubbed the “Japanese Cowboy” in the January 3rd, 1971 Wichita (Kansas) Eagle
• Advertisement in the Bossier Press on June 29, 1972, for David Houston and the Persuaders and Shoji Tabuchi performing in Bossier City for “I Love America Week”

Article by: Pam Carlisle