Ömür Göksel

Ömür Göksel — Biography

Ömür Göksel is a singer known in 1970s Turkish pop as the "velvet-voiced romantic prince", who has kept performing jazz and pop for decades. He won three gold records, in 1969, 1972 and 1975, and after years abroad returned to the charts with English-language albums. In 2019 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Istanbul Jazz Festival.

In his youth he played football for Galatasaray's youth team and was named "Turkey's Voice King" in a singing contest. He went to Germany for university in 1963 and in 1965 became a professional musician, able to sing in four languages with a repertoire of about a thousand songs. He earned his gold records with Mutluluk (1969), Sevemem Artık (1972) and Yanıyorum (1975), and in the second half of the seventies became known for songs such as Ağlıyormuşsun, İçki Sigara, Şeytan Diyor ki and Umurumda mı Dünya?.

In 1979, with arabesk spreading in Turkey and offers coming from Hilton hotels, he turned to performing abroad, singing in Italy, America and Germany before returning in 1997. From 2000 he wrote a newspaper column for three years and presented the program Bir Ömür on Samanyolu Television for 73 weeks. His 2006 English-language album A Touch of Quality took him to number one after 28 years; he then released albums such as Sinatra 101 Yaşında and The Songs of Nat King Cole. He prepared and presented the program Müzikle Bir Ömür on TRT Radyo 1, and released a new digital album in 2026.