You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Japanese. (October 2012)Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Japanese article. Machine translation, likeDeepL orGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. Youmust providecopyright attribution in theedit summary accompanying your translation by providing aninterlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary isContent in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:小田和正]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template{{Translated|ja|小田和正}} to thetalk page. For more guidance, seeWikipedia:Translation.

Kazumasa Oda (小田 和正,Oda Kazumasa, born September 20, 1947) is a Japanese singer-songwriter, and composer. He was the leader offolk rock bandOff Course from 1969 to 1989, and has done solo work since 1985.

As the vocalist of Off Course, Oda wrote many Japanese standard numbers in the 1970s and 1980s. The group's most successful singles—"Sayonara" (1979), "Yes-No" (1980), and "Kimi ga Uso o Tsuita" (1984)—were written by Oda.

In 1985 he began work as a solo musician. He produced many hit singles as singer-songwriter, such as "Little Tokyo" (1989), "Itsuka Dokokade" (1992), "Tsutaetai Koto ga Arunda" (1997) and "Kirakira" (2002). His most successful single was "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni" (1991), the theme song of a Japanese TV drama calledTokyo Love Story. It sold over 2,580,000 copies and became the ninthbest-selling single in Japan.

This section of abiography of a living persondoes notinclude anyreferences or sources. Please help by addingreliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately. Find sources: "Kazumasa Oda" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Kazumasa Oda and Yasuhiro Suzuki began performing together in 1964 while the two were inSeiko Gakuin Junior High School. In 1969, they formed the band The Off Course, which they later renamed to Off Course. The pair worked as a duo for their first six albums. Oda primarily played keyboards and Suzuki played guitars, with the two sharing songwriting and vocals.

For their seventh album, in 1979, Off Course added three new permanent members and moved to more of a pop/rock sound. Oda and Suzuki continued to provide the vast majority of the songwriting and lead vocals. After five albums as a five-man band, Suzuki left the group in 1982 to pursue a solo career. The remaining members continued on for four more albums. Off Course officially came to an end after their final concert on February 26, 1989.

In 1985, Oda collaborated withYumi Matsutoya and Kazuo Zaitsu and released the No. 1 hit single "Imadakara". It was mostly written by Matsutoya and Oda, and played by the formerSadistic Mika Band members. In the same year, Oda began his own solo career. His first solo albumK.Oda (1986) was produced by Oda andGrammy Award-winning recording engineer^[1][2]Bill Schnee, who was known for his work withSteely Dan,Olivia Newton-John,Boz Scaggs,Pablo Cruise, andHuey Lewis and the News. Schnee was one of Oda's friends, and had also worked on the Off Course albums. Oda's solo debut album was recorded by many influential musicians;Jeff Porcaro on drums,David Hungate on bass,Dann Huff on guitar and others.

Three years later from release ofK.Oda, he released self-produced studio albumBetween the Word and Heart. Around that year, the work as Off Course was getting destroyed. He released third studio albumFar East Cafe in 1989. In this album,Nathan East performed bass guitar, but other instruments and chorus were mainly recorded by several Japanese musicians. The title of the album was also his management office name. In later year, he has run same-titled café.

In 1991, he wrote the theme song forTokyo Love Story, the drama series which was broadcast byFuji Television. At first, he wrote the song called "Far East Club Band Song", but the producer Akira Ota refused that song and ordered Oda to write another song. Eventually, "Far East Club Band Song" was featured as theme song on another program, and instead of "Far East", he wrote "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni". On February 6 of same year, it was released as the double A-side single with "Oh! Yeah!" (It was used as the background music on TV advertisement ofThe Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company.) The single sold nearly 2,600,000 copies and became best-selling compact disc in Japan at that time. At the stage now, it is ninth best-selling singles in Japan. Because of these succeeded tie-up, a lot of his songs were used as theme songs for advertisements, movies, and TV dramas in later years. After the hit of "Oh! Yeah!", Oda released same-titled first compilation album. Following the success of the single, this album sold over 1.5 million copies.

In the 21st century, he released three albums and all of them reached number one on the official Japanese music chart, Oricon.^[3] Above all, compilation albumJiko Best (2002) sold over 2,200,000 copies.^[3][4][5] With the release of his albumSoukana in 2005, he became the oldest solo music artist to reach number one on Oricon's album chart.^[6][7] His 2007 single "Kokoro" also made him the oldest solo music artist to reach number one on Oricon's single's chart.^[8] (This record has since been surpassed byJunko Akimoto, in 2009).

In 2018 he released a single which included the song "Kono michi o", theme song forTBS dramaBlack Pean.^[9][10] Oda returns with "Sono saki ni aru mono", theme song for season 2 (2024).^[11][12][13]

• K.Oda (1986)
• Between the Word and the Heart (1988)
• Far East Café (1990)
• Sometime Somewhere (1992)
• My Home Town (1993)
• Looking Back (1996)
• Kojin Shugi (個人主義, "Individualism") (2000)
• Looking Back 2 (2001)
• Soukana (そうかな) (2005)
• Domo (どーも) (2011)
• Oda Biyori (小田日和) (2014)
•  Early Summer 2022 (2022)

• Oh! Yeah! (1991)
• Tsutaetai Koto ga Arunda (伝えたいことがあるんだ) (1997)
• Jiko Best (自己ベスト) (2002)
• Jiko Best 2 (自己ベスト-2) (2007)
• Ano Hi Ano Toki (あの日 あの時, That Day, That Time) (2016)

TheJapan Record Awards is a major music awards show held annually in Japan by theJapan Composer's Association.

• Kazumasa Oda Official Web Site Far East Cafe(in Japanese)

• 1947 births
• Living people
• 20th-century Japanese male singers
• 21st-century Japanese male singers
• 20th-century Japanese singer-songwriters
• 21st-century Japanese singer-songwriters
• Japanese male rock singers
• Japanese male singer-songwriters
• Singers from Yokohama
• Tohoku University alumni
• Waseda University alumni
• Ariola Japan artists

• Webarchive template archiveis links
• CS1 Japanese-language sources (ja)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from December 2019
• Biography articles needing translation from Japanese Wikipedia
• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts
• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• BLP articles lacking sources from September 2012
• All BLP articles lacking sources
• Articles with Japanese-language sources (ja)