'Guitar players have little recognition in our country'

Monowar Hossain Tutul

With his band, Let's Be Friends, he started to perform in small programmes and continued to keep in touch with prominent bands of that time. Meanwhile, in the early 1980s, he met famous pop artiste Ferdous Wahid in Dhaka. The latter was very pleased with Tutul's performance and instantly included him in his band. Tutul played the guitar with Wahid for seven years and was closely involved with the Bangladesh Musical Development Institute (BMDI), founded by Ferdous Wahid. Tutul is grateful to Wahid as the latter introduced him to other popular artistes. The list included prominent artistes like Sabina Yasmeen and Abdul Hadi as well as today's popular singer Asif Akbar.

Tutul is now a member of the popular instrumental band Panchapandab. He says, 'The main objective of this band is to produce music of good taste. This aim could only be realised by a good understanding between the band members.' Tutul has travelled to different parts of the world with this band and accompanied world-class artistes like Ustad Ghulam Ali, Bhupen Hazarika, Bappi Lahiri, Jagjit Singh and Pankaj Udhas with his guitar.

Tutul works as a music director simultaneously. Among the songs he has composed Ore amar abujh pakhi moyna and Rakhi o amar shonar Rakhi are the very popular ones rendered by Ferdous Wahid. He has composed music for Asif Akbar, Kumar Shanu and Abhijit, which 'has enabled me to pursue my passion for music direction,' he says.

Somehow feeling rather neglected as a guitarist, he decided to embark on a career as a singer. Backed by his own band Panchapandab, he is about to release his debut album as a singer. His yet-to-be-titled album contains 10 new modern songs. Simultaneously he is working for a duet album with Ferdous Wahid. The successful young composer Habib, son of Ferdous Wahid, plans to compose music for this duet album.

Monowar Hossain Tutul believes that while guitarists have their own style and preferences in playing music, accompanists have very little freedom in guitar works. To quote Tutul, 'If the guitarists want to play solo pieces during a song, artistes rarely appreciate it.' Tutul regrets that the guitar players like himself have very little recognition in our country.

Selim Haidar has remained Tutul's idol for quite a long time. According to Tutul, Selim is the best guitarist of Bangladesh. Among the guitarists, Tutul admires Carlos Santana most and continues to be fascinated by the legendary Jimmy Hendrix.