Baris Manco (1943-1999)
Barış Manço was one of the most influential Turkish musicians of all time. He and his bands contributed to the Anatolian Rock movement by combining traditional Turkish folk music with western rock influences, still a prominent trend in Turkish popular music. Most well-known among his works are the single Dağlar Dağlar, which sold over 700,000 copies, and the album Sözüm Meclisten Dışarı, which he released with Kurtalan Ekspres and included many unforgettable songs such as Gülpembe and Dönence which Manço co-wrote with Kurtalan Expres’ Ahmet Güvenç. His other hits during a 40-year musical career include Sarı Çizmeli Mehmet Ağa, Halil İbrahim Sofrası, Kol Düğmeleri, Nane Limon Kabuğu and Domates, Biber, Patlıcan.
Manço was predominantly a musician but he had also made a noteworthy career as a journalist, and as a TV and documentary producer. 7'den 77'ye, a combined music, talk show and documentary program produced and presented by Manço for which he immensely traveled the world, was one of the most popular shows in Turkish TV history. Meanwhile, Adam Olacak Çocuk, the child talent competition segment of the show, made him an unforgettable figure among a generation of Turkish children. He toured Japan, where he released three albums with Kurtalan Ekspres and performed extensively in Europe, America and the Far East performing as a de-facto cultural ambassador of Turkey, for which he was endowed the title of “state artist” in 1991.
Manço composed about 200 songs, some of which were translated into a variety of languages including English, Japanese, Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Persian and Arabic. He died of a heart attack in 1999 as he had just finished his last work Mançoloji for which he was collaborating with Kurtalan Expres’ Eser Taşkıran, a double album containing the new recordings of his hit songs along with an unfinished instrumental song 40. Yıl, which celebrated his 40th year in music.