Momoe Yamaguchi (Japanese spelling 山口百恵, "Yamaguchi Momoe") is a singer and actress from Japan. She first appeared on a televised talent contest called "Star Tanjo" in 1972, when she was thirteen years old. In 1980, at the age of twenty-one, she retired to get married. Despite her retirement, she is still very famous in Japan.
She initially applied for the television talent contest along with many other friends from middle school. She passed through several untelevised audition stages and made it to the televised stage, where she sang a song "kaiten mokuba" (wooden horse). She was then signed on by Hori Productions, an entertainment company.
She was initially promoted with two other young female singers, Junko Sakurada and Masako Mori, who were all in their third year of middle school as the "Hana no chusan trio" (the three flowers of the third year of middle school).
Initially her songs were written for her by the production company's songwriters, lyricist Kazuya Senge and composer Shun'ichi Tokura. The songs chosen for her, such as her first single, "Toshigoro", or her first hit, "Hito natsu no keiken" were suggestive songs which contained euphemisms about adolescent sex and losing virginity. These were very untypical songs for such a young singer.
As Momoe's career continued and her popularity increased, she became able to choose her own songwriters and songs. Her biggest hit of all, Yokosuka Story, was written by husband and wife songwriting team Ryudo Uzaki and Yoko Aki. Her outstanding singing ability and power of expression meant that she was able to sing virtually any kind of song.
She also appeared in about twenty films and ten television series. In twelve of the films she was paired with her future husband, Tomokazu Miura, a good-looking but lightweight actor, in romantic stories. Her most famous television roles were in the "Akai" (red) series, a series of melodramas in which she starred as a daughter with complex family relationships. Although each of the series is a completely different story, in each one of them actor Ken Utsui played her father.
Some of this family melodrama was reflected in Momoe's real life. She was born on 17th January 1959 as the elder of two daughters of a badly-off single parent family. Her father was married to another woman, with whom he had children. Despite their lack of money, he often borrowed money from Momoe's mother. When Momoe became famous, her father started doing outrageous stunts such as holding "press conferences" without her permission and tried to sue her mother for parental authority to get Momoe's money. It ended in tragedy, with Momoe refusing to speak to him ever again.
Before her retirement, she published an autobiography called Aoi Toki which detailed her relationship with her family and Tomokazu Miura, how she entered the music business, her feelings about music, and fashion, how she felt about the "suggestive" songs she had sung at the early stage of her career, and her reasons for retiring.
In the book she claimed that she was retiring because she wanted to be able to devote all her time to Tomokazu Miura.
After retiring she lived as a housewife in suburban Tokyo, bringing up two sons, with an interest in quilt making. Although many people expected Momoe to come back to her career in entertainment after some time, she never once performed since her farewell concert in October 1980. Her husband, Tomokazu Miura, continues to work as an actor. In 1999 he wrote a book called Hishatai ("photographed object") detailing his struggle to maintain a private life in the face of the near-obsessive interest in his wife, which continues to this day. The book describes how people would hang around their house and in one case even broke in. In 2011 he wrote another book, Aisho ("compatibility") about his married life with Momoe.
Her songs are still covered by many Japanese singers today. The Irish singers "The Nolans" released a CD "The Nolans Sing Momoe" of cover versions of her songs with English lyrics.
See Momoe Yamaguchi Part 1 (a translation of a Japanese blog article) for a fuller biography and more about Momoe.
In Japanese.
A regularly updated site, which often has information on upcoming television broadcasts of old TV series as well as information on publications. It also has a very complete collection of scans of the record covers of Momoe recordings, a complete discography, and so on.
In English.
A reprint of an article from a book called "The Encyclopedia Of Japanese Pop Culture" by Mark Schilling. Mark Schilling is a film reviewer for the Japan Times.
This article is an interesting introduction to Momoe, but it is marred by errors. The article mistakes the name of Momoe's song "Cosmos" as "Aki Zakura", and her final hit, "Ichie", as "Watashi Wa Onna", and misspells Yoko Aki as "Agi" and and Ryudo Uzaki as "Usaki". It mistranslates a passage from Momoe's autobiography, and claims "she never ventured farther from Japan than the Yokosuka bar district catering to U.S. sailors" - which is nonsense - she recorded one of her albums, "Golden Flight", in London, and another, "LA Blue", in Los Angeles, with one of her TV series being partly filmed in Paris, and having made films set in Spain and San Francisco.
A large collection of high resolution photos of Momoe.
In Japanese.
Excerpts from an interview with Momoe from 1980 for Japanese Playboy magazine, by journalist Tetsuya Chikushi, who later became a well-known newsreader.
In Japanese.
Blog mostly about Sade (the singer known for "Your Love is King" etc.), but has several articles on Momoe, including a selection of her best songs, including links to youtube.com.
In English.
Fan site on Momoe, contains very extensive information on her music, recent news about Momoe herself, as well as TV series and films.
In English.
An article about Miura's 2011 book "Aisho", by someone who doesn't seem to know very much about Momoe Yamaguchi.