Erkan Oğur

*** Erkan Oğur is a pioneer of the fretless guitar who has has mesmerized music lovers for the past 30 years since he designed and built his very first fretless classical guitar in 1976. His unique sound combines ethnic folk music and traditional Turkish themes with rock, blues and contemporary jazz. Erkan plays traditional lutes and various types of guitar, acoustic and electric, fretted and fretless, all with the same sense of perfectionism. Erkan Oğur built his own fretless guitar to be able to obtain Turkish melodies within the Turkish musical system. He has also invented a Bağlama, a traditional ethnic instrument, with six double or single strings; and a doublesided Bağlama, with two different tunings. He also uses an e-bow, a magnetized bowing device that can produce a variety of sounds reminiscent of the complex makam system. Ogur released his first album Arayışlar("Searches") in Germany in1983 . In 1989, he went to the U.S. to work with numerous local blues artists where he had the chance to introduce the fretless guitar into blues. His third album Bir Ömürlük Misafir ("A Lifetime Guest") was ranked 4th in the European list in 1994. His soundtrack for the 2004 movie Yazı Tura by Uğur Yücel won two awards: the 2004 Golden Orange for Best Music at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, and the 2005 award for Best Music at the Ankara International Film Festival. Ogur has worked with international names like Robert Johnson, Djivan Gasperyan, Peter Murphy, Dick de Graaf, Ruben van Rumpaey, Joost Kron, Bülent Ortaçgil, Fikret Kızılok, Mikail Arslan, Derya Türkan and others on different projects. He has recorded tens of albums and collaborated to thousands of records.