Toba Ichirō(鳥羽一郎)'s father was a fisherman, and his mother was a shell diver. He himself also worked in the fishing business for five years, going to Panama and the Indian Ocean to catch thunnus (tuna) and skipjack. In this dangerous line of work, he often found peace with Funamura Tōru(船村徹)'s songs such as "Farewell at the Lone Japanese Cedar(別れの一本杉 Wakareno Ipponsugi)" and "Teary Boat(なみだ船 Namidabune)."
He originally worked to become a Japanese chef: he even has a cooking license. However, his younger brother found success in Tokyo as an enka singer. Unable to leave behind his dreams of singing professionally, he moved to Tokyo at the age of 27 and became a student under Funamura.
Three years later in 1982, he made his professional debut with "Siblings Boat(兄弟船 Kyōdaibune)" using his stage name created from his hometown, Toba City(鳥羽市) in Mie Prefecture. That year, he swept most of the newcomer's awards.
Most of his songs have lyrics about fishermen in the open sea, their fighting spirit, and the bonds fishermen develop on these difficult fishing journeys. As a result, his songs have become popular among the Japanese fishermen.
He has appeared on the Kōhaku Utagassen for twenty times, in 1985, from 1988 to 1993, and from 1995 to 2007(as of 2014).
This blog post translates information from the Wikipedia article 鳥羽一郎 which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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