The Yokohama, California album was first released in March 1977 in San Jose, California. The band wrote and performed songs describing the Asian American communities in the 1970's, songs of identity and songs encouraging Asian Americans to make positive changes in our communities. The band's name comes from a book of short stories about the Japanese American communities in the 1930's in the San Francisco East Bay area that was referred to as “Yokohama, California”, written by Toshio Mori and published in 1949. The band included Peter Horikoshi, Rev. Keith Inouye, Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo, Michael Okagaki, and Sam Takimoto. Jose (now Ahmad) Alarcon, Sara Aurich, the late Doug "Duke" Santos, Rick Takahashi and Steve Yamaguma also performed with the band.
These songs reflected issues and events that happened in the 1970s. Unfortunately, due to recent events, songs like The Greatest Changes speak to situations that are eerily similar to the way that things were back then. There is still the need to stand up and speak out on issues that affect our communities.
In addition to the original nine songs, bonus tracks written by the members of the group from the same time period, have been added. Comes with a 24-page booklet containing photos, the lyrics to the songs as well as descriptions about them.
The CD lists the original nine songs and the seven live bonus tracks:
1) Tanforan (Horikoshi/Takimoto)
2) The Greatest Changes (Kikuchi-Yngojo)
3) Turning My Back (Horikoshi)
4) Manongs of Walnut Grove (Kikuchi-Yngojo)
5) Hot August Morning (Horikoshi)
6) Different Picture (Kikuchi-Yngojo)
7) Vegetables (Kikuchi-Yngojo)
8) One Step Closer (Takimoto)
9) Tomorrow (Okagaki)
10) Ikaw Ay May Kasama (Kikuchi-Yngojo)
11) Noriko's Blues (Horikoshi)
12) Bamboo (Kikuchi-Yngojo)
13) Dream for Tomorrow (Kikuchi-Yngojo/Takimoto)
14) Now That You've Gone (Okagaki)
15) Hot August Morning - live (Horikoshi)
16) Music for the People (Kikuchi-Yngojo)
