is a Japanese tenor. He was born in Yomitan,

Okinawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city o ...

. He was blinded shortly after birth when a midwife put overly-strong drops in his eyes. When he was a year old, his parents divorced and his

Mexican-American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

father went back to the United States. His mother, who was Okinawan, remarried when he was still a child, and Tsutomu was sent to live with his maternal grandmother. His grandmother raised him until he was 14, when she died, leaving him without relatives in Japan. One day Tsutomu heard a hymn on the radio. This led him to visit a church, where he told the minister about his life. Sympathetic to Tsutomu's loss, the minister took him in and raised him as family. It was this meeting that led Tsutomu both to sing and to become a Baptist minister. The song, "

Sugar Cane Field Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or doub ...

" , was top three in classical CD sales in Japan in 2002. The Fuji TV movie ''Mada Minu Chichi e, Haha e'' ��だ見ぬ父へ母へ(''To the Father and Mother I Still Haven't Seen'') is a dramatization of his life.''Japan Times''.
Comic child-detective, comedians visit the poor, blind singer docu-drama
" December 6, 2007.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aragaki, Tsutomo 1952 births Living people Japanese tenors Blind classical musicians Musicians from Okinawa Prefecture 21st-century Japanese singers 21st-century Japanese male singers