Former Free and Faces bassist Tetsu Yamauchi dead at 79

Tetsu Yamauchi, former bassist with Free and the Faces, has died at the age of 79. The news was confirmed in a statement released on social media by his family.

"To all of you who have always supported us," read the statement. "On December 4, Reiwa 7 [The year 2025 in the Japanese calendar], Tetsu Yamauchi passed away peacefully, surrounded by family.

"We sincerely thank everyone who enjoyed Tetsu's music and offered kind words until now. Those were fun times. It's a long time, but a short time."

Tetsu Yamauchi was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in October 1946 and joined Japanese progressive rockers Micky Curtis & The Samurais in the late 1960s, with whom he recorded two albums, Kappa and Samurai, both released in 1971.

Later that year, he hooked up with Free guitarist Paul Kossoff and drummer Simon Kirke, plus keyboardist John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick, to record a one-off album after Free had temporarily splintered amid disagreements between frontman Paul Rodgers and bassist Andy Fraser.

The Kossoff, Kirke, Tetsu & Rabbit album was a collection of rootsy blues and funk rock that lacked Free’s bite and Paul Rodgers’s voice, but it got the increasingly troubled Kossoff working again, and Free reunited in early 1972.

Within months, Fraser left the band, and Yamauchi was drafted in to replace him. He subsequently appeared on the Free's final album, Heartbreaker, and co-wrote the classic Wishing Well.

Free broke up for the final time after a US tour in March 1973, and Yamauchi replaced Ronnie Lane in the Faces, where he remained for two years. He played on the 1974 live album Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners, and fully embraced the rock'n'roll lifestyle at a time when his bandmates were attempting to moderate their own behaviour.

"Tetsu was a real wild card after Ronnie Lane left the band," Ronnie Wood told Classic Rock. "Too crazy."

Yamauchi's only studio contribution to the Faces came with the single You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings), which was released in late 1972 and still holds the record for the longest-titled song ever to chart in the UK.

After The Faces broke up, Yamauchi recorded his second solo album, Kikyou (his first, Tetsu, came out in 1972), and worked as a session musician before returning to Japan, where he formed Tetsu Yamauchi & the Good Times Roll Band, who released a live album in 1977.

In 1985, he formed the Ope Band with free jazz drummer Shoji Hano, a relationship that also produced Dare Devil, a 1992 live album recorded with renowned free jazz saxophonist and clarinettist Peter Brötzmann and guitarist Haruhiko Gotsu.

For the last 15 years of his life Yamauchi lived quietly, refusing requests for interviews, although he returned to the stage in 2023 and 2024 as Meets Duo alongside drummer Yoshitaka Shimada, one of the original members of his Good Times Roll Band.

“Just heard that Tetsu passed away," Simon Kirke wrote on social media. "He was a good friend and a great bass player. My condolences to his family and close friends. May he rest in peace."