In 1981, R&B group A Taste of Honey had a slow version of Sukiyaki that topped the charts. That September, lead singers Janice Marie Johnson and Hazel Payne flew to Japan on a Capitol Records promotion tour for the song and met Nakamura, who was ill at the time and had just been released from a short hospitalization on Amakuza Island.
Died from heart failure precipitated by chronic diabetes mellitus, from which Nakamura had suffered most of his life.