A leading star of the Anatolian rock scene which fused Turkish folk music with
funky riffs and psychedelic blues jams in the late 1960s, Cem Karaca was a
bohemian revolutionary who became a political outlaw and influential pop
pioneer.
Born in the Bakirkoy district of Istanbul, his parents were both theatre actors
with his mother Toto Karaca being particularly renowned for her performances in
operettas, while Cem started taking piano lessons from his aunt while in high
school and played in covers bands and an Elvis Presley tribute group. As front
man of folk rock pioneers Ap...