(May 10, 1940- )
Born in Osaka, Japan
Birth name was Yusuke Inoue
Drummer in a cover band in Kobe, Japan
Invented the karaoke machine (1971)

He cannot read music and said, 'Of 108 club musicians in Kobe, I was the worst.'
He never realized he had a patentable invention and lost an estimated $150 million in potential royalties.
His only karaoke-related income these days is from selling a repellent to keep cockroaches from building nests inside the machines.
He first used a karaoke machine on his 59th birthday.
He launched 8 billion drunken, off-key renditions of 'My Way.'

He is remarkably sanguine about losing out on $150 million.
He modestly declared, 'I'm no inventor. I simply put things that already exist together.'
Karaoke became a $10 billion-a-year industry.
He received a standing ovation after singing 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing' at the 2004 Ig-Nobel Prize ceremony.
Time named him one of the 20th century's most influential Asians, writing 'As much as Mao Zedong or Mohandas Gandhi changed Asian days, Inoue transformed its nights.'

Credit: C. Fishel

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