Which was the first western vocal pop/RnR band to tour Japan in the 1960s?

Vocal means not a strictly instrumental group like the Ventures (who were big in Japan by 1965).

The well researched article ' Outselling the Beatles: Assessing the Influence and Legacy of the Ventures on Japanese Musicians and Popular Music in the 1960s ' by Michael Furmanovsky claims it was the Animals in June of 1964.

I have not found any other supporting evidence. Does anyone know more?

Not to make too much of this but "House of the Rising Sun" was only released that month in the UK (August in the US), in Japan it came out as Odeon OR 1146, which using the Beatles' OR numbers places this September/October 1964 (OR-1139 I Should Have Known Better / I'll Cry Instead first came out on September 5th 1964).

There is no doubt that UK group The Liverpool Five played at musical events held in conjunction with the Tokyo Olympics in September of '64, supposedly playing to thousands of people at every performance.




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