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.
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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."
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