Hibari Misora was born in Isogo-ku, Yokohama, Japan. Her father was , a fishmonger, and her mother , a housewife. Misora showed musical talent from an early age after singing for her father at a World War II send-off party in 1943. When he saw this, he used much of his family's savings to allow his daughter to start a musical career. In 1945 she gave her first performance in a concert hall in Yokohama, at the age of eight. She used the name , which her mother had proposed. A year later she appeared on a NHK broadcast, and impressed the Japanese composer Masao Koga with her singing skill. He thought she was a prodigy with the courage, understanding, and emotional maturity of an adult. In the next two years, she became an accomplished singer and was touring notable concert halls to sold-out crowds. Her recording career began in 1949 at the age of twelve, when she changed her stage-name to and starred in the film . The film brought her nationwide recognition. She recorded her first single for Columbia Records later that year. It became a commercial hit, selling more than 450,000 copies. After that, she recorded "Kanashiki kuchibue", which was featured on a radio program and was a national hit. As an actress, she starred in about 160 movies from 1949 to 1971, and won many awards. Her performance in "Tokyo Kiddo" (1950), in which she played a street orphan, made her symbolic of both the hardship and the national optimism of post-World War II Japan. Her third single was from the film and was another hit, "Watashi wa machi no ko".