Esengül

Esengül — Biography

Esen Ağan, better known by her stage name Esengül, was born in Istanbul on 24 September 1954. She received her first music lessons from her mother Piraye Ağan, a conservatory graduate, and later studied with Cavit Deringöl, İrfan Özbakır and Abdullah Nail Bayşu, who gave her the stage name she would become famous under. At fifteen she won a singing contest, and after the success of her first single, Aşkımı Süpürmüşler, she began performing as a headliner in the leading nightclubs of Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir.

Her records broke sales records in Turkey during the 1970s, and she managed to record more than twenty singles and four cassettes in her short career. Many of her songs, written by figures such as Abdullah Bayşu, Orhan Akdeniz and Ülkü Aker, came to be counted among the classics of arabesque music. She also tried acting, appearing in the 1977 film Yansın Bu Dünya. Her turbulent private life and involvement in several public incidents kept her in the headlines. In April 1979 she died in a traffic accident in Bakırköy, Istanbul, at the age of only 24; although official records attributed the crash to excessive speed and alcohol, her death sparked public speculation. After her death her singles were collected on long-playing records and reissued.