Country and Eastern
Now 69, Sekiguchi operates an independent design studio from his split-level home in Highland Park. A hardbound copy of Hank Williams: The Complete Lyrics lies on a coffee table. Near the fireplace is a modest CD collection (a Hank Williams box, Merle Haggard’s Chill Factor and Blue Jungle, The Best of Floyd Cramer). He fetches a caricature of Haggard drinking from a shot glass in front of an American flag, which he designed when the singer was a spokesman for George Dickel whiskey. The drawing incorporates Sekiguchi’s patented “Yoshimation” technique, which uses a grid design and a clear lens to create the illusion of motion. As Sekiguchi moves the grid from side to side, Merle knocks back the shot again and again. “My man!” Sekiguchi exclaims. “He’s the best.”
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Sekiguchi grew up in Yokosuka, a city of 300,000. With the largest harbor and shipbuilding facilities in Japan, it became the headquarters of the Imperial Navy. Sekiguchi’s father was a navy officer, and all three of his brothers were pilots; two of them died in kamikaze operations. “I believe we were the only family which dedicated two sons to the suicide missions,” he says. “If the war had lasted a few more years, I would have done the same thing. But I’m a kamikaze dropout.” The name “Yoshi” means “spared samurai.”
After the war the city was flooded with American servicemen. “The town was full of either Navy personnel or shipbuilders,” says Sekiguchi. “Restaurants and bars catered to them.” Soon after he made his singing debut, all the GIs began calling him Hank. “My tag became ‘the Japanese Hank Williams,’” he recalls. “I also did more traditional things like ‘You Are My Sunshine’ or ‘Clementine.’” With his heavy drawl and good-natured stage presence Sekiguchi became a fixture in the variety shows that toured U.S. bases. The performers wore custom-made western outfits, and sometimes the GIs gave them boots. “Most of the bands were formed by college-age students to entertain American servicemen on the bases and ships of American Occupation Forces. This was before Japanese radio or television stations really picked up country music.”
One day at the El Paso, Sekiguchi was perusing the classifieds in Horizons travel magazine when he spotted an advertisement for the Wild Horse, a dude ranch in Tucson, Arizona. He wrote to the owners, Howard and Grace Miller, to ask for help with his cuisine, and by a strange coincidence, the Millers were in Yokohama when their daughter-in-law received Sekiguchi’s letter. He agreed to show the Millers around Yokohama and Tokyo. “Since my restaurant wasn’t doing well and I wanted to pursue my career in graphic design, I took the Millers up on their offer when they said to come on over to the States.”
When VIP folded in 1975, Sekiguchi was offered a job at Playboy, but by then he’d decided to open his own studio. Often he’ll work late into the night or early morning, listening to Merle Haggard on his stereo. In Inside Design (Where a Concept Unfolds), a 1987 book he published with designer Morton Goldsholl, Sekiguchi quotes Haggard’s song “Big City”: “Been working every day / Since I was 20 / Haven’t got a thing to show / For anything I’ve done.” Adds Sekiguchi, “I am glad to say, I now have something to show.”
