If after a long stressful day at work you were being yelled by or yelled at your boss or a saturday night hangover with a grave headache you had any desire to pay a listen to some 60s and or 70s rock songs, psychadelic or not, you’d probably whine about getting no satisfaction or take the stairway to heaven and this assuming you have a very basic knowledge about rock, and of course love some Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin, how many is there who doesn’t really? But not surprising to anyone, rock bands did and still do exist outside UK and USA in many more countries and mine, Turkey is one of them actually. Albeit not of a great level of fame, by that I mean ¨old people living in steep mountain villages near the North Pole know who they are¨ level of fame, we have a solid rock scene since the 1960s and especially in the 1960s and 1970s Turkish bands particular sound consisting of elements of traditional Turkish folk music on a rock’n’roll background had a huge fan base and garnered a great level of attention not only in Turkey but all around the world. In fact, Turkish folk music elements were so eminent in our rock scene in the 1960s and 1970s that this music was ultimately dubbed as Anatolian rock, cementing its status as a specific subgenre under the grand parasol of rock’n’roll. Still today many 70s music aficionados are all about doing a great research about our Anatolian rock scene, collecting vinyls, writing blog posts and creating videos about it and I’m pretty sure many of them found out about our great loss in the latest weeks and are in mourning as much we are now.

Erkin Koray was one of the founders of Anatolian rock. He was a pioneer in many things in music scene, be it the sound or the looks that he was finally called as ¨father of Turkish rock.¨ He started his musical career in the late 1950s when he was in high school, taking the usual route of playing cover songs with his band, and in the early 1960s he started to record his own music. It is said the first single he recorded with his band in 1962 was a double single one side a song in Turkish ¨Bir Eylül Akşamı¨ (A September Evening) and the other side another one in English ¨It’s So Long¨. Especially ¨Bir Eylül Akşamı¨ is remarkable in its similarities with The Rolling Stones’ ¨Paint It Black¨ from the Aftermath album released in 1966.

Later Mick Jagger would say in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine back in 1995 ¨Aftermath has a very wide spectrum of music styles: ‘Paint It Black’ was a kind of Turkish song; and there were also very bluesy things like ‘Goin’ Home;’ and I remember some sort of ballads on there. It had a lot of good songs, it had a lot of different styles, and it was very well recorded. So it was, to my mind, a real marker.” Not that I’m implying there was a case of rip-off or whatever but life is full of mysterious coincidences you know.

He began to release songs in 1966 and his style started to drift from early 60s rock to a more psychedelic sound. This song that was released in 1967 ¨Kızları da Alın Askere¨ was his first mainstream success.

It’s not easy to write a biography of someone who had such a long time career in a single blog post unless I attempt to break a Guiness record or something of the longest blog post ever written in the entire world history or whatever so I will confine myself to summarize his unparalleled art with a notable exemplary of his work, For a detailed biography you can always visit the Wikipedia page dedicated to him, or you can Google translate his longer and much more detailed Wikipedia page written in Turkish.

I will give you notable examples of his music more or less , hopefully, sufficent to introduce you to his artistry and also to Anatolian rock sound. I can easily say that he had one of the most diverse discographies experimenting with various genres ranging from psychedelic rock, to folk music, from Arabic music to heavy metal. This song is a particular favorite of mine.

Also another favorite of mine, Karlı Dağlar (Snowy Mountains) with elements of Turkish folk music and it seems to me as influenced by traditional Indian music too, quite heavily also in many more songs throughout his career. The songwriter is Hayrullah Yurttaş who worked with Erkin Koray for a couple of years.

This one Estarabim is another hugely popular Anatolian folk rock song that is instantly captivating with its unique drum percussion sound and the use of folk instruments in such a great way.

This one Hayat Katarı (The Train of Life) slightly experimenting with reggae is one of the first songs I knew about Erkin Koray and that made me a fan of his work.

This one Arap Saçı (Arabic Hair) is one of his famous Arabic music influenced songs and it was one of the greatest hits of Erkin Koray.

A specific subgenre of music called Arabesque was and still is very popular in Turkey. A sound consisting of the elements of traditional Arabic music and sad, mournful lyrics issued from a devastated psychological state were the key elements. Erkin Koray had some songs that can easily be attributed to this genre. (Of course to the dismay of some rockers, I mean the kind of rockers who would be seen assaulting feverishly at the front row of some Disco Demolition Night.) He also worked with Orhan Gencebay, the one who started it all in Arabesque, they also collaborated together on the creation of Electro Baglama an electrified version of the traditional Turkish musical instrument ¨Bağlama¨. With this version, Bağlama would sound as loud as an electro guitar and be more fit for playing in events and places that require a higher level of volume.

Erkin Koray with Orhan Gencebay

Erkin Koray embraced a heavier sound in the 1990s, in his 1996 album called Gün Ola Harman Ola, there was many hard’n’heavy songs such as Akrebin Gözleri (Scorpion Eyes) that remains one of the most popular songs of Erkin Koray.

But my personal favorite is this one Mezarlık Gülleri (Cemetery Roses) from the same album. Its sound is my uttermost favorite hard’n’heavy sound. With some Black Sabbath (Electric Funeral) vibes, Erkin Koray wrote one of his greatest songs, so captivating that I can listen to it 1000 and more times in a day.

This song Gökteki Yıldızlar (The Stars in th Sky) is particular favorite of mine with it’s lyrics like ¨The stars in the sky my only friends¨ and soulful sound.

Erkin Koray had a meeting with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in France in 1971. It is said that during this meeting John Lennon listened to one of his psychedelic rock songs Mesafeler (Distances) Amazed at the quality of the music he told Erkin Koray to stay in the UK. I wasn’t there, it was way before I was even conceived, so I can’t give you any details about their meeting.

Here is the photo of the said meeting. On the left journalist Arda Uskan on the right Erkin Koray in the middle John and Yoko (like if you wouldn’t know without me writing it.)

How this meeting happened is another story and it includes one of the greatest mysteries of the history of rock. It’s during the Cannes Film Festival in France. John and Yoko has their short film Apotheosis premiered in that festival to an unappreciative audience. John Lennon very upset about their reaction as they were yelling, mocking, or leaving the hall, was not willing to receive any reporters and journalists to have a further discussion about the movie. Erkin Koray being there with journalist Arda Uskan, was still hopeful to meet John but Arda Uskan insisted that there was no hope. Nevertheless Erkin Koray approached John Lennon said something to his ear and returned back. A few moments later John Lennon’s publicist arrived to tell Koray and Uskan that their meeting with John and Yoko would take place the next day.

What did Erkin Koray said to John Lennon to snatch this interview? That’s a huge mystery still to be resolved to this day. According to some reports it’s about the movie Apostheosis, he said something that implied he was very appreciative of the movie and a deeply touched John Lennon was instantly eager to meet his fellow Turkish musician. But Erkin Koray, in his latest statement, said that he never told it to anyone and that it’s a secret that he will keep with him, like forever, in respect to John Lennon’s memory. I guess we’ll never find out unless we find a chance to ask Yoko Ono and that she knows it and remembers about it.

To this day I’m still very saddened by his decease but I know there’s not much we can do about it except to commemorate him and his work in the best way possible. The last time I saw him live was in 2016 at his last concert in Istanbul. It was a relatively small venue so we had the chance to see him up close. To my knowledge, there are no videos of this event on the internet, because he had such an aversion to the sight of lifted cell phones recording him while he was playing that he explicitly requested us to take down our phones and just enjoy the concert. And he was right indeed, we the younger generations are sometimes so keen to record the concerts we attend that we can barely concentrate on the show like if there weren’t already thousands of others who are recording the same event. But feeling that this would be the last time I would see him, I briefly and partly recorded 1 or 2 songs, but I will not publish them as I know he would never want that.

I finish this post with another song Yağmur (Rain) one of his most soulful songs in a sound very characteristic of Anatolian rock. I know a blog post would never be enough to describe his art in every detail and give an exquisite picture of his music. So I have no better option to recommend you to check out his albums and enjoy a ride to Anatolian rock.