Keiko Fuji, famed Japanese singer of sentimental folk (“enka”) songs, threw herself off her Tokyo apartment building in an apparent suicide yesterday morning. Fuji, the mother of J-pop superstar Hikaru Utada, was thought of as the Joan Baez of Japan and was famous for playing a white guitar.

From Japan Daily Press:

It was around 7AM when the body of Fuji was found on the street where she lived. She was living with a male friend, who claimed to be sleeping at the time of incident. Only a pair of slippers was left on the railing of her apartment’s balcony. As no suicide note was left, the police haven’t ruled out the possibility of foul play and are still making investigations.

The 62-year old Keiko Fuji, whose real name was Junko Utada, was a famous enka singer and actress in the 1970s. She made her singing debut in 1969 and had her debut album titled Shinjuku no Onna (“Woman in Shinjuku”) a year later. The album spent 20 weeks at the Oricon chart. Fuji, a native of Iwate Prefecture, ended her singing career in 1979 and went to the United States, where she lived for a time. She gave birth to her only child, Hikaru, in 1983 in New York.

Keiko Fuji’s biggest hit was “Keiko no Yume wa Yoru Hiraku” (“Keiko’s dreams blossom at night”). It’s about a prostitute who dreams of a better life while she services her clients.
 

 
Thank you Chris Campion of Berlin, Germany!