Neşet Ertaş (1938 – 25 September 2012) was a Turkish folk music singer, lyricist, modern ashik and virtuoso of the traditional Turkish instrument the bağlama. His profession in Turkish is known as halk ozanı, which literally means "folk bard". Yaşar Kemal gave Ertaş his nickname, "Bozkırın Tezenesi" (literally: "Plectrum of the Steppe"), writing it in a book he gave him as a gift. Early years and family life Neşet Ertaş was born in 1938, in Kırtıllar, a village in Kırşehir. His father, Muharrem Ertaş, was also a folk poet. His mother, Döne Koç, was Muharrem's second wife, whom he married after his first wife, Hatice, died early. Neşet was the second of four children; he had an older half-brother, Necati, from his father's first marriage and two younger sisters, Ayşe and Nadiye. His mother Döne also died early, and his father married again, to Arzu. From his third marriage four sons, Ekrem, Ali, Muharrem and Cemal, were born. Neşet married Leyla, a singer from Bolu, in 1960 in Ankara, where the two had met while performing at a night club. They had two daughters and a son. The couple divorced after ten years of marriage. Music career At the age of five and six, Neşet Ertaş started to play first the violin and then the bağlama, the Turkish national instrument. His father earned his living by playing at wedding ceremonies in Central Anatolian villages, and for eight years Neşet accompanied him. As a result, he was not able to finish primary school. At the age of fourteen, Neşet Ertaş went to Istanbul, where he played at a night club in Beyoğlu. After two years, he moved to Ankara to continue his stage career there. He applied to the state-owned Turkish Radio (TRT) station in Ankara and began performing türkü, Turkish folk songs, on a daytime programme called Yurttan Sesler (literally: "Sounds from the Homeland") under the name "Neşet Ertaş of Kırşehir". At the same time, he played in night clubs at night. He became very popular and gave concerts in many cities, in some cases six or seven times. His compositions and recordings made him renowned. But then in 1978, his fingers became paralysed. He soon became penniless and had no means of paying for treatment, since he had no other marketable skills. So in 1979 he went to Germany, where his brother was living. There, he recovered from his