The manner in which he kicked up squalling fuzztone, stinging sustain, resounding reverb and redoubtable distortion as he wielded his 6-string scimitar into an organised and organic freak-storm like nobody’s business is astonishing. McPhee of Turkey and more all combined: Not only for the early and pioneering foundations he helped lay for Turkish rock’n’roll, how he synthesised multiple music forms together into a brand new thang, or how he delivered it all with such strength and integrity that the exotic Eastern influences he would eventually weave into his rock’n’roll lived and breathed vitality and was not just added for some Hollywooden Casbah décor effect but if there was ever a musician who kicked against the pricks, did it his way - the hard way - and by virtue of his undying efforts lit a rock’n’roll fire in Asia Minor that sustained in the most major way possible, then it was Erkin Koray. While non-Turkish sources continually name check Koray as “the Jimi Hendrix of Turkey” to my mind’s eye and ears he’s also the Chuck Berry, the Link Wray, the John Fahey, the Jimmy Page and the T.S. To paraphrase Koray’s response to the Lippy One in on that French Riviera terrace, although I don’t understand Turkish I think it should suffice to say that I feel the music of Erkin Koray deep in my bones, head and heart and Rocks mah soul big time. Little wonder he is referred to in his homeland as “Baba” or ‘Father’ Erkin, for he truly is the father of Turkish rock’n’roll in every way. He was also one of Turkey’s very first electric guitarists, recording what is generally recognised as being the first significant rock’n’roll record ever released in Turkey - his first single, “Bir Eylül Akgami” (“A September Evening”)/“It’s So Long” in 1962. In 1957, he performed what has come to be accepted as Turkey’s first known rock’n’roll concert when he fronted his first amateur band at an Istanbul high school playing covers of hits by Elvis Presley and Fats Domino. Indeed, his career stretches to the time of rock’n’roll’s very inception. When it comes to rock’n’roll innovators from Turkey, Erkin Koray is second to none. What counts in Turkey is music.’ (As reported by Arda Uskan in Hürriyet, summer of 1971)

I think it should suffice to say that I felt them. Koray answered, ‘Whether I understand them or like them is of no significance. ‘Or, let’s say they didn’t like them.’ He went on to ask, ‘What do you think about them?’

‘Most people didn’t understand these movies,’ Lennon added. Second, some of my own movies are going to be shown in Cannes,’ then he added, ‘By the way, did you see my movie?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Koray. John Lennon and Erkin Koray were conversing on the magnificent terrace of an exquisite hotel 30 kilometers away from Cannes when Lennon explained that there were two reasons for his having come to Cannes: ‘First, my best friend Mike Jagger’s wedding. Lennon was quite surprised to learn that the young man with the long hair sitting across from him was a Turkish musician. To sit across from John Lennon, one of the leading celebrities of the most famous Beatles Group was a dream come true for him.

“That day, Erkin Koray was living one of the happiest moments of his life.

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