Peggy Hayama

Peggy Hayama belongs to a generation of Japanese singers whose careers are inseparable from the country's postwar recovery. Born Shigeko Kotakari in Yotsuya, Tokyo, in 1933, she was discovered singing jazz as a high school student, debuted at eighteen in 1952, and appeared on the New Year's Eve Kohaku Uta Gassen broadcast just two years later. That timeline still amazes me: a teenager stepping onto the biggest stage in Japanese music while the country was still rebuilding itself. What I hear in her recordings is not technical display but delivery, a singer who trusted the song and let the words land. Japan recognized this formally, awarding her the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1995 and the Order of the Rising Sun in 2004, honors that very few popular singers receive. She died in April 2017 at the age of 83. Her career was, in effect, a running commentary on how Japanese popular song grew up.

Name (English)

Peggy Hayama

Name (Japanese)

ペギー葉山

Reading

ぺぎー葉山

Born

December 9, 1933 – April 12, 2017

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Sagittarius / Rooster

Origin

Yotsuya-ku, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

singer / tarento

Awards & achievements

• 1995 Medal with Purple Ribbon
• 2004 Order of the Rising Sun, 4th class

• Official sitehttps://peggy.sunnyday.jp/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy%20Hayama
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9A%E3%82%AE%E3%83%BC%E8%91%89%E5%B1%B1
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11337361

Tags

• Tokyo Prefecture
• singer
• tarento

Last updated

2026-08-07

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.