Vocal
artist, author. She was born in Istanbul in 1935. She started singing at the
age of four. She sang songs of Schubert
named “Serenade” and “Ihlamur Ağacı (T.N. The Lime-Tree)” on the music program
for kids by Ayşe Abla on Saturday nights for the Ankara Radio. She also took
piano lessons from Ferdi Statser. In 1956, she graduated from Üsküdar Amerikan Kız
High School and took the stage at Ankara Süreyya Night Club without the permission
of her family. Between the years of 1960-62, she sang jazz songs. She was the
first Turkish guest of “Melodi Kervanı”
(T.N. The Caravan of Melody) by Hulki Saner for the Istanbul Radio. She also sang
jazz songs in the radio programs of Salim Ağırbaş Beşlisi.
During
the first years of her music career, she took courses from opera singer Ruhi
Su. She sang traditional folk songs she learnt from folk poets Aşık Nesimi
Çimen and Aşık Ali İzzet with contemporary jazz sounds. During the 1960s, she
sang on quartets and recorded an album together with Timur Selçuk. In 1962, she
made trials on “polyphonic Turkish popular music” with her husband Erdem Buri
in 1962 and succeeded in it. In 1964, she was selected as the favorite singer
by the music critics in “The Festival of Balkans’ Melodies” in where famous
singers like Yurdaer Doğulu, Erol Büyükburç, Tanju Okan were involved and she
was selected for the cover of one of the popular magazine of those days, “Arena”.
Then, she released her first album named “Burçak Tarlası” which is accepted as
the first “hit” of Turkish popular music. Till this album, the Turkish songs
were just the arrangements of Western songs in Turkish language; but it is
claimed that Turkish popular music was born after the release of “Burçak
Tarlası”.
When
Charles Mingus, who was one of the legendary names of jazz music, listened to the
“Tract” album of German; he asked German to sang the song which he wrote and
composed after the death of Duke Ellington. However, the song named Duke
Ellington’s Sound of Love couldn’t be performed because of the accident German
had and the death of Mingus, respectively. German worked with one of the
best European virtuoso François Rabbath and she sang two songs for the album of
Zülfü Livaneli; called Günlerimiz, and Yiğidim Aslanım and
another song with the same name as the album title were the songs she sang. Besides
German, Rabbath, Cahit Berkay, Erol Erdinç and Engin Yörükoğlu were the guest
artists in these two albums.
At
the beginning of 1966, German went to Paris and recorded ten albums in French.
She gave countless concerts and participated to many festivals, radio and TV
shows in France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Tunisia, Morocco, Netherlands and
Brazil. She also took the stage with the famous musicians like Charles
Aznavour, Lèo Ferre and Moody Blues at important concert halls of France. She
recorded “Tract” which included the tracks especially composed for her
by İlhan Mimaroğlu in USA. Finally, Tülay German recorded an album named Tribute
to Nâzım Hikmet. After giving a
concert in Netherlands on 1987, she quit the stage. A compilation named The
Song of Poets in 1998 was released worldwide and another compilation named Yunus’tan
Nâzım’a was released in Turkey in 1999.
Besides
her music career, she was also engaged in writing. Starting from 1999, she
wrote for the Adam Sanat magazine. She was selected as “The Favorite
Singer” by the music critics in “The Festival of Balkans’ Melodies” on 1964. In
1981, she was awarded with “Académie Charles Cros Grand Prix du Disque” which
is considered as the biggest music award of France and previously given to
Moğollar music band in 1971 and opera singer Ruhi Su in 1998. The awards had
been given to Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix previously.
WORKS:
Erdemli Yıllar (1996), Düşmemiş
Bir Uçağın Kara Kutusu (2001).