Shigeichi Negishi, the Japanese engineer who invented the karaoke machine in 1967, has died at the age of 100. Even though Negishi actually died on January 26, 2024, the news out of Japan was only reported on March 14. His daughter, Atsumi Takano, reported that he died after suffering a fall.
Though never patented, Negishi’s 1967 Sparko Box was the first device to facilitate what would become karaoke, an internationally popular musical pastime.
Negishi was the head of an electronics company when he first envisioned what would become the Sparko Box —a blueprint for the karaoke machine. Legend has it that Negishi, who loved singing along to radio and television programs, was singing to himself as he walked into his office one day in 1967. After an employee poked fun at his sub-par crooning, Negishi realized he would sound better with the help of a backing track. Eventually he had an employee wire together a speaker, tape deck, and microphone, testing the prototype with an instrumental version of Yoshio Kodama’s “Mujo no Yume” for the very first karaoke session. The word “karaoke” is derived from two Japanese words: kara which means “empty” and oke, which means “orchestra.”
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