The Sports Car

Emy Jackson (エミー・ジャクソン) was born in Essex, England as Emy Eaton. As a teenager in Yokohama she still couldn’t read Japanese well, but her ability to speak both English and Japanese fluently landed her a job as a youth DJ for the Good Hit Parade on Radio Kanto. In her notes to the excellent compilation Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966-1970 Sheila Burgel writes: Her DJ career was cut short when her colleague Reiko Yukawa found Jackson singing “You Are My Sunshine” whilst strumming the guitar and sent word to A&R man Akira Izumi at Columbia Records. Akira insisted that Jackson break with the cover-pops tradition and tackle original songs written by Japanese songwriters in her native language of English.