Ayub Bachchu: A tale of a legend

Ayub Bachchu was a Bangladeshi rock guitarist, composer and singer-songwriter, who was the founder of the Bangladeshi rock band LRB and earned success as the lead singer and the lead guitarist of the band.

Born in Patiya, Bachchu came to Chittagong with his family in the early 1970s. He formed his first band "Ugly Boys" in 1977, while studying in high school and joined in rock band Feelings as the guitarist the same year.

He played in the band from 1977 to 1980. In 1980, he joined Souls where he played for ten years and appeared in four studio albums including Super Souls (1982), College Er Corridore (1985), Manush Matir Kachakachi (1987) and East and West (1988).

In 1991, he left the band to form his own band LRB, where he was the vocalist and guitarist for 27 years, until his death in 2018. He released the first ever double album: LRB I and LRB II in 1992, with the band.

LRB's third studio album Shukh, which featured "Cholo Bodle Jai", one of the greatest rock songs in Bangladesh. He also received well success as a solo artist. His first solo album Rokto Golap was released in September 1986.

He got his breakthrough by releasing albums like Moyna (1988) and Koshto (1995) which received well success. He released only one instrumental rock album in his career: Sound of Silence (2007), which is the first ever instrumental album in Bangladesh.

Bachchu released several best selling-albums with LRB, and as a solo performer.[2] Bachchu is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential guitarist of Bangladesh.[3] He has won six Meril Prothom Alo Awards, one Citycell-Channel I Music Award with LRB and won the Bachsas Awards in the Best Male Vocal category in 2004.

In 2017, he won the Tele Cine Lifetime Achievement Award.Bachchu married his girlfriend Ferdous Ayub Chandana on January 31, 1991, with whom he had a daughter, Fairuz Saffra Ayub and a son, Ahnaf Tazwar Ayub.

In October 2018, Bachchu died of cardiac failure in his own residence in Dhaka, six years after he was suffering of lung ailment. He gave his last performance in Rangpur City two days before his death. He was buried in Chaitanya Goli in Chittagong, beside his mother's grave.

While working with his own band Ugly Boys, Bachchu joined the rock band Feelings in 1977. Feelings' frontman James stated that he saw Bachchu playing guitar at a tea stall. He was amazed by the playing style of Bachchu and he asked him to join the band.

In the mid-1977, he joined the band as the lead guitarist and only stayed with the band for next two years until in 1980, he got a contract from Souls, as their lead guitarist Sajed ul Alam had left the band for the United States. Bachchu was playing with Feelings in a club in Chittagong, where Souls' keyboards player Naqib Khan was present.

 He was amazed by the playing of Bachchu and he talked to lead singer Tapan Chowdhury about it. Both of them saw Bachchu playing in the club next day and they asked him to join Souls. He joined Souls in early-1980 and played with the band for next 10 years as the lead guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer.

He had appeared on four studio albums of the band, including Super Souls (1982), College Er Corridore (1985) and Manush Matir Kachakachi (1987), which features the first song sung by him, "Harano Bikeler Golpo". His last album with Souls was East and West (1988). In the late-1990, Bachchu left Souls and went on to form his own band Little River Band, which later became famous as Love Runs Blind.

 He reunited with Souls in several reunion shows and has performed with members of the band like Tapan Chowdhury, Kumar Bishwajit and Naqib Khan in several shows. In 2012.

Bachchu performing at the City of Winter Garden in 2008 After Bachchu got out of Souls in the late-1990, he came to Dhaka in 1991 and in January he married Ferdous Chandana, with whom he had a relationship since 1986. He formed a band named Yellow River Band in April 5, 1991 with S.I. Tutul on keyboards, Saidul Hasan Swapan on bass guitars and Habib Anwar Joy on drums.

When they were performing in a club in the mid-1991, they were mistakenly called the Little River Band, which Bachchu liked and officially named his band.

But, after they heard about the Australian rock band of the same name they changed their name to Love Runs Blind in 1997. In April 1991, LRB did their first ever concert in the University of Dhaka, a concert that was arranged by BAMBA, celebrating the downfall of autocratic leader Hussein Muhammad Ershad.

In January 1992, they released the first ever double album: LRB I and LRB II. The band's third studio album Shukh, was released in June 1993 and is considered one of the greatest rock albums of Bangladesh. It included "Cholo Bodle Jai", which regarded by some as Bachchu's greatest work.

They released several albums in the 1990s and soon became one of the most popular rock acts of Bangladesh. In 1996, they performed in Bengaluru, which was their first concert outside Bangladesh. LRB is the only Bangladeshi artist to perform in the Madison Square Garden in New York City.

After Bachchu's death, the other members of LRB announced Balam Jahangir as their new lead singer. Bachchu's wife and daughter was not satisfied with the members of the band performing with a new singer under the name LRB. They asked the members to change the name. The band was disbanded for few days and the other members of the band along with Balam formed a new band named, "Balam and the Legacy".

Bangladesh Copyright Office said that: "Bachchu is the sole owner of LRB, only his heirs can run the band with the same name." On April 15, 2019, Bachchu's son Ahnaf Tazwar Ayub posted in his Facebook account that he was "okay" with the other members of the band keeping the name, and later Bachchu's wife and daughter also agreed on it.