Award-winning Japanese lyricist Miyuki Ishimoto has died at the age of 85 in Yokohama, Billboard reports. He had succumbed to heart failure after suffering from diabetes for the last decade.
The writer of around 4000 songs, Ishimoto's career spanned six decades, and his lyrics were familiar to multiple generations.
His first hit was 'Akogare no Hawaii Koro', recorded by Haruo Oka in 1948, and he went on to write lyrics for Japanese singing megastar and 'living national treasure', the late Hibari Misora.
It was in the early eighties that his achievements were particularly recognised, when he was awarded Japan Record Awards two years running. In his later years Ishimoto was active in industry organisations such as the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (or JASRAC) of which he was chairman from 1989 to 1994.