Turkish singer and actor Özkan Uğur passed away at age 69. Here is the life story of Özkan who will be remember with his beautiful songs and movies…
Özkan Uğur had many projects that more than carter has pills, such as İkinci Bahar, Yeter Anne, Cennet Mahallesi, Komser Şekspır… Of course, his main job is MFÖ in which he was bassist, singer, showman and maybe the most sympathetic members of the band… He was one of the most multi-talented artists of the stage world. There could only be one thing in the media that could bring the news of Fenerbahçe’s great talent Arda Güler’s transfer to Real Madrid from the headlines. Even though we were prepared, we never wanted to hear that news, yet the truth of life appeared and Özkan Uğur passed away on July 8. What a coincidence that a movie starring Cem Yılmaz was being shown on a channel that was open on the TV while the subtitle was passing.
Raif Özkan Uğur… He was born on October 17, 1953, in Istanbul, the son of a father who worked as a chief engineer on the city lines. He was the fifth child in the family. He started music in 1970 with the Şerif Yüzbaşıoğlu Orchestra; a year later, he met Mazhar Alanson and Fuat Güner, with whom he would be together until the end of his life. He became a professional under the name Carefree. He then worked with Kurtalan Ekspres, Ter and Erkin Koray. He played with Murat Ses in Edip Akbayram Dostlar and Dadaşlar for a while, moved to the Hint Five with Fuat and Mazhar in 1976, and worked with Seyyal Taner and Grup Karma.
In the eighties, in the tedious times right after the military coup, they saved money by playing behind Mazhar and Fuat and famous names. Meanwhile, Özkan (along with Fuat) took part as a musician and actor in Ferhan Şensoy’s plays “Şahları da Vururlar” and “Kahraman Bakkal Süpermarkete Karşı”. In 1984, as MFÖ, they achieved fame with their first album “Ele Güne Karşı Yapayalnız. The following year, they represented Turkey in Eurovision with “Diday Diday Day” and in 1988 with “Sufi”.
He was a total talent, and in the crowd, Özkan was like a Swiss army knife. While playing bass in the ensemble, he was doing extremely difficult vocals in a tenor voice at the same time. In addition to his extraordinary compositions, he fascinated the audience with his stage light. From Sezen Aksu to Tarkan, from Aşkın Nur Yengi to Sertab, the name that he did not reach out seemed almost non-existent. He was very hardworking, very productive, but among hundreds of works, he neglected to make a solo album for himself. But the song “Olduramadım”, which he wrote for the movie, made a lot more noise than a few albums.
