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Tokyo-based entrepreneur, Shigeichi Negishi, who is best remembered for inventing the first karaoke machine, has passed away at the age of 100. The inventor's daughter, Atsumi Takano confirmed the news with journalist Matt Alt, stating he died of natural causes on January 26, 2024, after a fall.
Matt Alt, who interviewed Nagashi for his book, Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World, later wrote his obituary in the Wall Street Journal.
Shigeichi Negishi was the head of an electronics company that assembled consumer products like transistor radios, when he first prototyped what would later become the "Sparko Box." It is rumored that Negishi, tired of his colleagues making fun of his singing, invented the machine in 1967 in hopes that he would surely sound better with the help of a backing track.
Shigeichi Negishi loved singing along to radio and television programs
Shigeichi Negishi was born in Tokyo on November 29, 1923. His father was a government official who managed regional political elections and his mother owned a tobacco store. Negishi studied economics at Tokyo's Hosei University.
Negishi also reportedly fought in the Japanese Army during World War II and spent two years in a prison camp after the Japanese defeat in Singapore. Following his release in 1947, he began a career in the electronics industry, riding the post-war business boom in Japan.
In an interview with Matt Alt, the entrepreneur explained he loved to sing along to radio and television programs. He eventually improvised a prototype by wiring together a speaker, tape deck, and microphone, testing it to an instrumental version of Yoshio Kodama’s "Mujo no Yume."
Per Alt, after the successful trial run, he took the prototype home and reportedly "convened history’s first karaoke party with his wife and children." Before Sparko Box, karaoke-like activities in Japan involved using live bands or recorded instruments to provide backing tracks.
Discussing how Shigeichi Negishi came about coming to his invention, he told Alt his distributor rejected the idea of calling it karaoke. In Japanese, karaoke is a contraction of words that mean "empty" and "orchestra." However, his distributor stated "Karaoke sounded too much like kanoke" which means coffin. Hence, Sparko Plug was born.
According to Alt's book, the inventor never patented his machine, and spent time as a traveling salesman, driving around Japan and demonstrating the machine in bars, restaurants, and hotels. Sparko Box utilized eight-track cassette tapes of instrumental recordings commercially available, with lyrics provided in a booklet. Shigeichi Negishi sold 8000 units before he dissolved his business in 1975, after facing distribution troubles.
Despite being the first to create the machine, nightclub musician Daisuke Inoue is frequently attributed as the inventor of karaoke. Inoue independently came up with his own version in 1971, called the "8 Juke." Three other Japanese inventors created a version of the gadget. However, Negishi's machine preceded them.
Notably, the patent holder for the karaoke machine is a man from the Philippines, named Roberto del Rosario (1975).
After retiring, Shigeichi Negishi spent time indulging in his hobbies like basket-making, sculpting, and singing. Per Alt, his family watches over the only remaining and still functional Sparko Plug.
