In 1973, at age 18, she debuted as Kasuga Harumi and tried to become a pop idol with the release of the songs "Shinjuku Tenshin" and "Kantsubaki no Shima Kara".
She adopted stage name Miyuki Kawanaka and launched her second debut as an enka singer.
In 1980 Kawanaka's single Futarizake (ふたり酒) hit, with sales over a million copies.
[1] Her second biggest hit, "Niren-sou" (二輪草) in 1998, which sold more than a million copies in Japan alone, spending 80 weeks in the top 100 of the oricon chart.
Kawanaka was invited to perform at the annual NHK Red and White Song Festival for 24 non-consecutive years, the 7th most on the all-time list for a female artist.