Musical artist
Shoko Sawada (沢田 聖子, Sawada Shōko, born March 13, 1962) is a Japanese singer-songwriter, reporter, and radio personality. Since the start of her professional singing career in 1980, Sawada has recorded over 27 studio albums.
Life and career
At the age of five, Sawada became a member of the Otowa Basket Lily Association and started singing nursery rhymes and appeared as a child actor. She appeared in a TV commercial for "Panshiron" sponsored by Rohto Pharmaceutical Co. in 1968, alongside Kiyoshi Atsumi.
On May 25, 1979, Sawada released "Campus Sketch", her recording debut with Crown Record. At that time, young female singer-songwriters were rare in Japan, but she benefited from her Japanese idol good looks and attracted a male audience. Many of the songs she performed were not written by Sawada. She also struggled to make love songs.
Sawada also gained popularity via NHK-FM's radio program "Requests". In October 1989, she hosted the KBS Kyoto radio program "Hyper Night" every Thursday. Guests on the program included Tarako and Airi Hiramatsu. She also wrote and composed the song "Shin'ai naru Hitoe" (lit. "To the Dear Person") in memory of Kōzō Murashita who died in 1999.
Sawada released album History 2 on October 21, 2004, to commemorate her 25th anniversary as a recording artist. She has performed in the "Furano Chapel Concert" at Shin-Furano Prince Hotel for a few days every winter. She has been in the group "The 4/9" with Reiko Sada, the sister of Masashi Sada, since 2005.
Sawada is a radio personality on Yamanashi Broadcasting System's "Jamboree Saturday of Sawada Seiko". She has also hosted "Paradise afternoon – Subete ni Arigato" every Monday at the Japanese FM's community radio Music Bird.
