Mayuko Nishimura -- Tenshi no Tsume（天使の爪）/Hitokoi Someshi（ひと恋初めし）

 

This will be a short file on aidoru Mayuko Nishimura（西村まゆ子）since she only recorded two singles in her brief career in the geinokai including a role in a movie in 1977. Born Mayumi Nishimura（西村真優美）in Kumamoto Prefecture in 1960, she was attending high school when she won the sophomore edition of Horipro's audition campaign known as the Horipro Scout Caravan（ホリプロタレントスカウトキャラバン）out of 23,508 entries in 1977. She then went to Tokyo and attended the school of the stars, Horikoshi High School near my old English school.

Touted as the second coming of Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）...yeah, no pressure there, eh?...she was given the stage name of Mayuko Nishimura and in 1978, she released two singles "Tenshi no Tsume" (An Angel's Nails) and "Hitokoi Someshi" (The Beginning of One Love). The above video supplied by YouTuber Showa Channel has both of those A-sides. Both songs' arrangements and the delivery of Nishimura does indeed remind me of the early Momoe with the shimmery strings along with the brass section and the wailing electric guitar. Both of them were written by Makoto Kitajo（喜多條忠）, composed by Takashi Miki（三木たかし）and arranged by Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）. "Tenshi no Tsume" ended up selling 70,000 records while "Hitokoi Someshi", which has a bit of that mariachi flavour, sold 50,000 records.

However, midway through that same year of 1978, her contract with Horipro was abruptly terminated and Nishimura briefly retired from show business, but returning to her old high school in Kumamoto and graduating in 1979, she joined Kumamoto Productions, an entertainment company run by her uncle's good friend, and she became a TV personality locally. Nishimura then retired for good in the 1980s and got married.