- Son of famed Japanese actor Ken Uehara.
- Has 4 children with wife Megumi Matsumoto: Nobuhiro Ikehata, Tetsuo Yamashita, Mayuko Azusa, and actress Emi Ikehata.
- Is considered to be the Japanese Frank Sinatra in his home country.
- In March 2016, Kayama made a special art piece to commemorate 2,500,000 million downloads for the mobile game Terra Battle, that is featured as the background for the game's title screen.
- As a guitarist, he took inspiration from the American instrumental group The Ventures, and performed a form of psychedelic surf music in the 1960s with his Mosrite guitar. One of his best-known instrumentals is "Black Sand Beach".
- One of the last activities involves the song "Sarai", which he had written together with singer-songwriter Shinji Tanimura. The song was made as theme for the NTV charity program 24-Hr TV, and Kayama announced that 2022's edition of the program would be his last live performance of the song.
- He showed his ability for drama when Akira Kurosawa cast him for his films Sanjuro and Red Beard.
- Kayama rose to stardom in the 1960s in the Wakadaisho ("Young Guy") film series.
- Kimi to Itsumademo" ("Love Forever"), another of his compositions, sold over two million copies, and was awarded a gold disc in 1965. At that point it was the biggest selling disc in the Japanese recording industry's history.
- He announced that, by the end of 2022, he would be retiring from concert activities.
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