"Winning" A popular band of the 1990s reappears soon

The band music fans can now have a change in their taste of music. For once the highly popular band 'Winning' is preparing to come back to the scene soon with a brand new album performed by a new line-up. After their performance at the Nestlé-sponsored 'Nescafé Unplugged' music concert at Hotel Sheraton back in 2000, 'Winning' has stayed off-stage till now. This was because the vocal of the band, Zaman Ali Chandan, had suddenly left Bangladesh immigrating to Canada. 'Winning' had remained since then without a vocal to continue its activities.

Recently, however, after more than two-and-a-half years of silence, three persons, a vocal among them, have joined 'Winning'. Solo performer Abidur Reza Jewel, who has already earned recognition and popularity among the fans of modern Bangla songs, has joined the old band as its vocal. Besides, another promising singer, Pantho Kanai, has joined 'Winning' as a drummer replacing the band's drummer Monirul Alam Tipu, who will be now playing the percussions. The third inclusion in the band's line-up is that of the guitarist Niaz Chowdhury Tito.

The older members of the band, except Tipu, who has been with the band since 1989 and has recently taken charge of the percussions, will be in their respective positions. Biplob Ashraf, who joined the group in 1985, is on the keyboard; Imran Chowdhury Mobin joined in 1992 and is the band's bass guitarist.

Photo: Winning

Winning was established far back in 1982 by five young men -- Ranjan, Shelly, Haider, Mitul and Famid. Later Babu joined them on the guitar. Their debut album of self-title Winning appeared after seven years in 1992. The line-up had by then changed as Chandan and Tipu had joined as the vocal and the drummer. The album was a considerable hit as the music lovers had found some traits of difference from the traditional songs of other popular bands. Biplob, the key-boardist and the unofficial organiser of Winning, says that they wanted to do something different especially in context of the songs. And they sure did it, for a number of scores became very popular. A large section of the audience welcomed the melodious soft rock style of songs like 'Oi dur paharer dhare' etc. The second album of 'Winning' titled Ochena Shohor came out in 1995 with some fine tunes. The line-up of the band had taken, by this time, yet another turn of changes: Mobin had replaced the bass guitarist Shelly, and the other vocal Ranjan had left the band. Since then the four-member band travelled along up to 2000.

Biplob says, 'After Chandan had left, we virtually stopped band-activities, in spite of all our enthusiasm and passion for music, for the want of a vocal.' They just could not bring in a vocal and fill in the vacancy. 'We had a particular section of audience who had become so much accustomed to our style that we could not take the risk of experimenting with any one else', says Biplob. Finally, however, the band has found Jewel, who, according to Biplob, has some similarity in style and voice with Chandan.

'Winning' is hoping to release their third album by the end of this year. Working with the new album, the title of which is yet to be decided, is running fast but smoothly. Biplob hopes that the team has been able to keep up its old style while they have also fused the present day trends of music in the up-coming album. This is now all matter of time to wait for some new numbers that may be winning back the hearts of music lovers.

Courtesy:
Harun ur Rashid
& The Daily Star