Marjan
Marjan was born Shahla Safi Zamir in Tehran in 1948 and came to singing from film, taking a stage name because an actress already carried hers. She recorded through the 1970s for radio and the labels, with Fariborz Lachini and Varoujan among her composers and arrangers, and Kavir-e Del made her name. After the revolution she was arrested in 1980 for a song on an underground cassette and again in 1982, held in Evin, and barred from leaving the country for seventeen years. She left Iran in 2001, settled in Los Angeles, and died there in June 2020.
She was a child reporter for a children's magazine and a radio host before she was an actress, and an actress, from 1969, before she was a singer; her first recorded song, Do Doneh, was arranged by Varoujan. The 1982 arrest was for supporting the People's Mojahedin, and in exile she sang for them openly, in songs with titles like Rahaii, liberation, and Parcham, the flag. When she died in Los Angeles in June 2020 the argument over her in Iran began the same week, between the papers that would not name her and the people who played Kavir-e Del.