[AJFmzk]

^ Thanks for the info. Very interesting stuff. Yes, I noticed some of the session musicians on her records, as well as her early lives, were very famous. Carlos Rios has worked for a lot of huge artists, Stevie Nicks, for example. Sheila E has worked with (and I think dated) Prince. Namie has been very fortunate to work with such awesome people. It would've been so cool if she HAD gone international, but I think her only public performance outside of Asia was her Hawaii charity show for Okinawa Ex Pats, part of Genius 2000 tour.

I'm not sure exactly when Kenji Sano started with Namie, but I know he directed vocal for her on a lot of her songs, at least according to liner notes. Also that's a very interesting point about Sheila and Lynn writing the songs. I really liked the live version of Mi Corazon that they did on Genius 2000. I love Lynn Mabry, she's such a talented vocalist and artist, she's one of my favorite band members from Namie's tours.
It's too bad they didn't re-unite for her final tour, I definitely would've loved to see that.

EDIT: I just checked out the Facebook post you linked, and it's very thorough. I loved the video tribute you made! Also - where is that band documentary footage from? If you still have it would it be possible for me to get it from you?