John Rich Has Neighbors Upset And Japan Has A Country Music Scene

Backstage & Backroads will bring the excitement of the country music entertainment business and the adventures of field and stream to living rooms across the nation. Featuring country recording artist Daniel Lee Martin (ChinMusic Records), the show will offer viewers a glimpse of the inner workings of the music business, a backstage pass to live concerts and behind-the-scenes happenings and then return to the place where all sportsmen call home-the great outdoors. Daniel Lee along with many of his celebrity friends will do what they enjoy most in life–performing, hunting and fishing. Celebrity guests scheduled to appear on the show are Darold Knowles, Billy Ray Cyrus, Bronson Arroyo, Doni Harris, Craig Morgan, Andy Griggs and more. Hunting expeditions and fishing trips will take audiences from the lakes and streams of Northern Wisconsin to the flatlands of the middle-south.

Yoshinao Tsuji has just one regret in life. He wanted to be born a cowboy.

He has the gear. The black leather chaps, tailor-made by Navajos in Arizona. He’s got the turquoise accessories. The boots, the big Stetson hat. For one month every year, he lives on a dude ranch.

“I love everything about horses,” he says, insisting on being called “Johnnie.” “If only I wasn’t a city boy from Kyoto.”

Johnnie isn’t alone.

Cowboys and cowgirls from across Japan turned out by the thousands recently for Country Gold, an annual event in the foothills of Mount Aso, a southern Japan landmark, that has become probably the biggest homage to the Wild West this side of Tucson.