Sakamoto Fuyumi(坂本冬美)

Sakamoto Fuyumi(坂本冬美) came up with her first name because her skin was white like snow.

She was a fan of Ishikawa Sayuri and had already made up her mind to become an enka singer when she was a junior high school student. She was a catcher of the softball team and also the captain of the team.

After graduating from high school, she worked as an accountant for a restaurant's owner company, but left after four months to join an umeboshi company where she checked the amount of salt used in the umeboshi. While working, she took singing lessons hoping to one day achieve her dream of becoming an enka singer.

In 1986, she became famous while singing on NHK's "Win out Kayo Heaven(勝ち抜き歌謡天国 Kachinuki Kayō Tengoku)." With encouragement from Inomata Kōshō(猪俣公章), the program's singing producer, she moved to Tokyo and became his student.

In 1987, she made her professional debut with the single "Rampaging Drum(あばれ太鼓 Abare daiko)" which ended up selling eight hundred thousand copies.

Since 1988, she has appeared in every Kōhaku Utagassen except 2002 when she was being treated for pancreatitis. She has sung in the tori(トリ) position once in 1996.

This blog post translates information from the Wikipedia article 坂本冬美 which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.