Mariya Takeuchi is a Japanese singer-songwriter. Takeuchi was born in Taisha city in the Hikawa district of Shimane Prefecture. She spent a year studying in the United States while she was at high school. Her musical career started in 1978 while she was studying at Keio University, with the single "Modotte-Oide, Watashi no Jikan" and the album Beginning. The 1979 single "September" and the 1980 single "Fushigi na Piichi Pai" were both hits. Takeuchi has had at least one song appear on the NHK program Minna no Uta. Up to December 2008, Takeuchi had released 11 studio albums, 35 singles, several compilations and a live album which was recorded in 2000. Her total sales have been estimated at more than 16 million units by 2009. Her 1994 compilation, Impressions, sold more than 3 million copies in Japan alone, and became her best-selling album. Her husband is the musician Tatsuro Yamashita, with whom she has one daughter. [More at Wikipedia]

March 20th, 1955 in Izumo (Age 69)