TV.com

Alan Merrill was born in to the music business. His father Aaron Sachs played saxophone and clarinet with Benny Goodman and Earl "fatha" Hines, and his mother is jazz singer, legend Helen Merrill

He started his professional career in Tokyo, Japan in 1968 with a band called The Lead. The Lead had one hit single on RCA Victor records, called "Aoi bara". His Japanese management changed his professional name from Allan Sachs to Alan Merrill.
After the Lead broke up, in 1969 Merrill went solo and became the biggest foreign domestic pop star in Japan. He did major TV commercials for Nissan cars, Jun Clothing, and GT jeans, and was a frequently featured face in the top Japanese fashion magazines AnAn and NonNo. He had a solo recording deal with Atlantic records.
Merrill also hosted his own 15 minute spot on the teen pop show "Young 720" three days a week, and guest starred in the longest running Japanese soap opera in history, the extremely popular "Jikan Desuyo".
Alan Merrill formed the Japanese supergoup Vodka Collins in 1971, as lead singer/guitarist, and their debut chart hit album "Tokyo-New York" is considered a classic.

His career in Japan had gone as far as it could go, and in 1974 Merrill left Japan to try his luck in Europe, and he immediately landed a record deal in London. Within six months of arriving, he scored a top ten hit as singer of The Arrows with the song "Touch Too Much".

Alan Merrill is probably best known as the singer - songwriter of the first 1975 Arrows version of the American rock classic "I love rock n roll". Alan was the lead singer of the chart hit pop group The Arrows, and the band hosted their own weekly TV series in the UK for two full 14 week seasons on the ITV / Granda network in 1976-77. The most unusual thing about The Arrows is that although they had hit records before their television series, they had no records released during the run of both their TV series. This had to do with a wrangle between their record company and management.
The Arrows were unique in this odd situation, the only band in the history of televised pop music to have no current records released with a weekly series of their own.

In the 1980s Merrill recorded solo and also worked as a guitarist with the bands Meat Loaf, and Derringer.
In the late 80s he acted in the HBO TV series "Encyclopedia Brown", directed by Savage Steve Holland.
During the 1990s, Alan Merrill spent much time back in Japan for the three Vodka Collins re-union albums and tours, and also recorded in New York in a totally separate project, as lead singer of the Jon Tiven Group, and releasing two albums.

In the millenium Merrill has been living in both New York and Paris, and has released three solo albums in the past few years.