Eri Morishita -- Blue Jean Boy!（ブルージン・ボーイ！）

 

In the mid-2010s, I wrote about a Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）winter-themed song titled "Mafuyu no Date" （真冬のデート）that had originally been recorded by a singer named Eri Morishita（森下恵理）although I got to know the Takeuchi cover first. I realize that I didn't contribute much information on Morishita, who was born Eri Nobori（登恵里）in Sapporo in 1967, so let me make amends. 

Although she's been cited by J-Wiki as a singer-songwriter, I think that her early works were in the aidoru vein just from what I've heard of her discography back in those first years and the fact that she was the runner-up to aidoru Hidemi Ishikawa（石川秀美）in a 1981 audition contest sponsored by Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）. You can read some specifics on that contest on that singer's article. But even though she missed out on the top prize, she was able to be signed up to a contract with her debut single being "Blue Jean Boy!" released in June 1985 (although that's a pretty long time between contest and debut).

Along with "Mafuyu no Date", "Blue Jean Boy!" has that feeling of a 50s sock hop night (despite the synths), albeit in a much more uptempo arrangement, so perhaps Morishita was seen as a rock n' roll teenybopper. Kazumi Yasui and Kazuhiko Kato（安井かずみ・加藤和彦）were behind lyrics and music respectively for this song which hit No. 29 on Oricon and would be her most successful hit.

During her first run in the geinokai as an aidoru, Morishita released 6 singles and 2 albums up to 1988 during which she also started writing her own tunes. She also became a popular TV personality appearing on several variety shows, but in 1989, she retired due to marriage and a family. But in 1996, she re-entered show business under the new stage name of Eri and then later began a band known as moneji.