Barış Manço’s mother Rikkat Uyanık was a famous singer in the 1940’s. His older brother was born during the hight of the second world war and was named Savaş (meaning war) but by 1943 and with no end in sight Rikkat Uyanık’s second son was named BARIŞ (meaning peace), who was to know he would more than live up to his name. Barış Manço was a true original of Turkish rock music, forming his first band Kafadarlar (The Buddies) in 1958 aged 15, they would for the next couple of years play many high school concerts around the country.
With his next band Harmoniler (The Harmonies) he went on to make his first recordings for a label in 1962 aged 19, in total 8 songs where recorded with 3 singles being released during the next 2 years, these are the first seeds of Anatolian Rock, and his debut single was the first 45 RPM record to come out in Turkey of western stye Turkish rock.
Always ahead of his time, 3 of the songs were the first ever instances of Turkish folk music being arranged in a western rock style using bass, drums and guitars (Çıt Çıt Twist, Kızılcılar, Urfanın Etrafı Dumanlı Dağlar), while Dream Girl is one of the first songs Barış Manço ever wrote, he would later become one of the best song writers in modern Turkish music. All these recordings can be found on the 1962–1963 album.
After this first flush of success Barış Manço decided to go abroad for his higher education, he left Turkey on 21st September 1963 aged 20 and hitch hiked his way to Paris, after staying a little while in Paris he moved onto to join his brother Savaş who was living in Belgium.
He enrolled and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Liège, Belgium from 1964 till graduation in 1969, his chosen field being architecture. During this time music was of course always on his mind, in 1964 he recorded a 4 track EP for French label Rigola, a delightful French popcorn masterpiece, there is a great story of Turkish radio playing these songs on Istanbul radio unaware that it was a Turkish artist and pronouncing the name as Baris Manso, his mother upon hearing this on the radio marched down to the radio station to tell them that’s my son and he’s Turkish.
There was no releases in 1965, but newly discovered recordings show that he was very active during this period, first with the band Golden Rollers with whom he had recorded James Brown and The Kinks covers as well as recording his own French Language songs as well as an early demo version of Seher Vaktı (all can be heard on the Golden Rollers Album).
At this time, he was also honing his song writing skills with his French language writing partner André Soulac. Barış Manço would write the music while Soulac would write the French words, together they formed a song writing partnership and a company called Manlac whose purpose it was to sell songs to other artists in Belgium as well as tend to Barış Manço’s career, during this period they recorded with many artists in Belgium and had a few minor hits. Also, during this time (1965-1966) Barış Manço recorded many home demos of songs off which quite a few would be reworked into Turkish hits many years later. These demos can be heard on the first album of a proposed 2 volume set, the first being Manlac Blues 9 Volume 1(Demo 1965-1966).
During 1966 he started working with the Belgium band Les Mistigris, they recorded a few singles and gave many concerts together between 1966-1967.
In early 1968 he joined forces with the band Kaygısızlar (The Carefrees), which included Mazhar Alanson and Fuat Güner, who would later form MFÖ. This was an important period in Barış Manço’s career as he was now gaining a wider audience even though he was mostly not in Turkey. During this period, he recorded songs that are still popular today, like Kol Düğmeleri and Seher Vaktı, also his first big hit came towards the end of his time with Kaygısızlar with the cover of the Turkish Classical song Ağlama Değmez Hayat, they worked as band for all of 1968-1969.
After the band members of Kaygısızlar stated they no longer wanted to try for a music career in Europe Barış Manço formed a band called Ve (And) with a multinational line up, with this band he recorded his breakthrough single Dağlar Dağlar in 1970, selling over 700’000 copies, after 8 years of recording singles Barış Manço had well and truly finally arrived, from here on in he would never lose his popularity with the Turkish public. In 1971 he joined forces with Moğollar but this was a short term collaboration resulting in only 3 songs ever being released. In 1972 he formed his own band Kurtalan Ekspres that would work him till his death in 1999. Between 1972-1974 he released a few singles as well as completing his compulsory army service.
In 1975 he released his first proper album (the 1972 Dünden Bugüne LP was a compilation with a few unreleased songs). The concept album “2023” is regarded as one his best works, freed from the constraints of the 45RPM format 2023 contains the 10-minute Kayaların Oğlu/2023, the mini 13-minute rock opera “Baykoca Destanı” as well as the 7-minute guitar work out of “Kol Bastı”. The album also contains the first signs of electronic music in Turkey with Korg synths and drum machine effects.
In 1976 he released the English language Baris Mancho album with CBS records in Belgium. But the years from 1976-1978 was a quiet period for Barış Manço, but his next and biggest hit to date came with the release of the album Yeni Bir Gün (A New Day) in 1979. Later in 1981 he released another masterpiece, Sözüm Meclisten Dışarı. The album included "2025" (the third part of the "2023" story) "Gülpembe," and "Dönence".
During this time Manço started using more proverbs and philosophy in his lyrics, and this would increase as time went on. As the decade progressed his music become more straightforward as he tried to use his music to create peace and unity in the country after the turbulent military coup of 1980. His change in musical direction did not make him less popular during the 80’s and 90’s, in fact quite the opposite as he had a huge impact on modern Turkish society.
From 1988 till the end of his life he hosted a weekly television program called “From 7 to 77” (the age range he appealed to). For the program (a total of 378 episodes) he travelled the world, not only did he bring the world to the Turkish public, but he was also the perfect ambassador for Turkey on his travels, meeting with world leaders and other important people.
During this time, he also had a late-night talk Show called 4 x 21 Doludizgin (4 x 21 Full Gallop), as if that was not enough, he still released albums and toured constantly, releasing albums between 1988 – 1995.
During 1995 he also toured Japan and had 2 compilation albums released in Japan, as well as Barış Manço Live in Japan (1996) recorded during the 1995 tour (he first played in Japan in 1990). Barış Manço died of a sudden heart attack on 31st January 1999, he was just putting the finishing touches to his new album Mançoloji which was to be new versions of his biggest hits, the album of 24 songs was released a month after his death in February 1999.
His funeral was attended by thousands of people, the whole of Istanbul came to a standstill as practically the whole of Turkey was in mourning, if his mission was to unite people, if we need evidence that he had succeeded then the evidence was at his funeral, all sections of the polarised Turkish society came together as one, it’s shame that he did not see this when he was alive.
During his 40 years in music Barış Manço recorded over 300 songs, made over 400 TV shows and gave around 2 thousand concerts, for his funeral millions gathered together singing his songs, now over 20 years after his death a new generation who was not even born when he died love and listen to his songs. THERE WAS ONLY ONE BARIŞ MANÇO.
Hana Tuna
London
December 2020