Zeki Müren (1931-1996)
"Zeki Müren was born in Bursa in 1931. He started his secondary education in Bursa and completed in Istanbul. He graduated from Istanbul School of Fine Arts, Department of Decorative Arts.
Müren began musical training, when he was a secondary school student in Bursa, with (I)zzet Gerçeker, who played the tanbur. He continued training in Istanbul with Agopos Efendi, and Armenian musician who knew the Hampursum script, and also with Kirkor Efendi, who played the ud. Later, Müren learnt numerous composition from (S)erif (I)çli, a renowned ud player and a musician who knew the fas(i)l repositoire very well.
Müren joined Radio Istanbul in 1951 and performed regularly for Turkish radios for fifteen years. In 1955 he appeared at the Küçük (C)iftlik Gazinosu, one of the three best-known night clubs of Istanbul in those years, where he was accompanied by such famous instrumentalists of Turkey as Selahattin P(i)nar, Yorgo Bacanos, Sadi (Isi)lay, Hakk(i) Derman, (S)ükrü Tunar, Feyzi Aslangil, Kadri (S)ençalar, (I)smail (S)ençalar and Necdet Gezen. This series of night club concerts created great popular interest. Müren continued his concerts for many years. He was Turkey's most regular and frequent concert giver. He gave thousands of concerts, and actually the number of his concerts has remained an unreachable record. There have been times during which he gave one hundred concerts a year.
Müren had to give up musical activity after 1980. He died in (I)zmir in 1996.
Zeki Müren is undoubtedly Turkey's most famous popular singer in the twentieth century.
He made over 600 records, cassettes and CDs - these are his commercial recordings. The present disks include his early radio recordings removed from commercial concern, which represent Müren's admirable performance when he was in the prime of his musical career." - Bülent Aksoy