Çetin Alp

Çetin Alp — Biography

Çetin Alp is remembered as the singer who represented Turkey at the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest and finished last with zero points, yet before that he was one of the popular, deep-voiced 45 rpm singers of the 1970s. His birth name was Çetin Küçükarslan. The Eurovision result followed him for years, and his name resurfaced when Turkey won the contest in 2003 and hosted it in Istanbul the next year.

His career began with a win at the Altın Ses competition. He released a Greek-language song with lyrics by Sezen Cumhur Önal as a single; it sold half a million copies and earned him a gold record. Son Defa Görsem and the late-1970s hit Çek Çek are among the songs of this period. He worked with the orchestras of Yurdaer Doğulu and Zekai Apaydın and placed third in a singers' contest in Los Angeles. In 1983 he took the Eurovision stage in Munich with the vocal group Kısa Dalga, performing Opera. Later, in 1990, he won first place at the Golden Orpheus competition in Bulgaria. Despite releasing many singles, he never put out a studio album.

He married three times; his marriage to actress Suna Yıldızoğlu lasted nine years, and they recorded songs together in that period. His son Ahmet Küçükarslan is also a musician. Long troubled by heart disease, Alp died of a heart attack at his home in Kadıköy on May 18, 2004.