Zia Atabay

Zia Atabay (born March 30, 1942) is an Iranian-American singer, TV host and human rights activist. Atabay is the founder of the Los Angeles-based National Iranian Televesion.

Early life
The last name "Atabay" is his wife's last name and not his birth last name. He started his singing career in 1965 with a self-penned hit song called "Ghayeghran" (Boat man) and he appears in the movie "Aroos-eh Faranghi" (Foreign Wife) singing the song. He recorded songs by other authors, such as, Babak Bayat "Bogzar Aram Begiram" (Let me relax) In the 1970's he started recording novelty songs over funky grooves with heavy percussion. These recordings, including "Helelyos" became later a favorite of western record collectors and they appeared on Western vinyl compilations, such as Pomegranates. In the late 70's CBS records entered the Iranian music market and Zia became the general manager of CBS Iran. He discovered Faramarz Aslani. Aslani's release on CBS "Agar Yek Rooz" (If one day) was one of the biggest selling cassettes of 1977. In 1978 Zia's CBS records released Gelayehaa cassette by singer Dariush being one of the biggest selling cassettes of 1978 in Iran.