Muharrem Ertaş

Muharrem Ertaş
Born	1913 Kırşehir, Ankara Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Died	December 3, 1984
Genres	Turkish folk music
Occupation(s)	Singer, player
Instruments	Bağlama

Muharrem Ertaş (1913 in Kırşehir, Ankara Vilayet – December 3, 1984) was a Turkish folk music singer and a virtuoso of the traditional Turkish instrument bağlama. He was one of the most important members of the Bozlak genre.

He was born in 1913 in the village of Yağmurlubüyükoba in Ankara Vilayet (present-day Kırşehir Province) as one of five children to Kara Ahmet the Zurna player and his wife Ayşe. It is told that his ancestors, members of a cameleer tribe, immigrated from Horasan to settle in Kırşehir's countryside.

He learned bağlama playing at the age of seven and eight from his uncle Bulduk Usta. However, his real master was his another uncle Yusuf Usta, one of the saz virtuosi in the region. He taught Muharrem mostly the poems of the folk poet Aşık Sait (1835–1910) in addition to the anonym melodies of the region. Muharrem accompanied his uncle by his tours in neighboring villages to make music at wedding parties, circumcision ceremonies and bayrams. After seven years of togetherness with his uncle Yusuf Usta, he started to play and sing alone.

He married to Hatice, who died early. Muharrem married again. His wife Döne bore him two sons Necati, Neşet and two daughters Ayşe and Nadiye. Also his second wife died soon. He then married Arzu, whom he met during a wedding ceremony in a village of Yozgat Province. From his last marriage, four sons Ekrem, Ali, Muharrem and Cemal, were born. From then on, he had a very hard life to earn money for a family with eight children.

Muharrem Ertaş had a wide repertoire of the traditional folk music specific to Central Anatolia. In addition to Bozlak, he played and sang examples of the halay genre and vocalized the phrases of folk poets and ashiks Karacaoğlan, Sheikh Galip, Pir Sultan Abdal and Dadaloğlu. He sang sometimes also türküs of religious themes.

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