When Tabuchi was in college, he formed a band called The Bluegrass Ramblers, which led them to win a national contest in Japan.

After performing successfully for a few years he built one of Branson's most elaborate theaters, which was completed in 1990, and began hosting his own show.

Besides country music, The Shoji Tabuchi Show has incorporated polka, gospel, Cajun, Hawaiian, rap, rock, and taiko drumming.

[8] Mary Jo, a patron at a financial-district restaurant where Tabuchi played for tips, became his first wife in 1968, after which he became an American citizen.

They moved to Kansas City, and Tabuchi began performing at the Starlite Club in nearby Riverside, Missouri.

After moving to Branson in 1980, he met his second wife, Dorothy Lingo, after she attended several of his shows at the Starlite Theater; and he became the stepfather to her two children from a previous marriage.