Description
Wendy Rene isn’t a name that comes up much when people talk about soul legends. Never famous, and active for only four short years, her legacy is in the archives with hundreds of other obscure soul acts of the early ’60s. Listening to After Laughter Comes Tears, it’s mind-boggling that the amount of talent and raw soul put forth by Rene failed to register with audiences of her day or be rediscovered earlier along the line. Sure, in 1994 Wu-Tang Clan built a track on their classic debut 36 Chambers on samples from the spooky organ-led tune that this collection takes its name from, and several years later Alicia Keys borrowed heavily from the same song with her composition “Where Do We Go from Here.” DJs and collectors have paid top dollar for her increasingly impossible-to-find singles, but on a broader scale, Wendy Rene has gone largely unrecognized. Starting out as a teenager, Rene sang with short-lived Memphis group the Drapels. The Drapels sole four tracks (all included here) are strong, if standard, Southern soul of their era. Where Rene truly found her voice was on the songs recorded under her own name between 1964 and 1965. Included here is her entire recorded output; all the singles she sang on, as well as nine rarities and two completely unreleased tracks. Ranging from infectious upbeat dance-craze stompers to minor-key ballads of lost-love misery, this is ’60s soul at its absolute best, and it’s amazing it took almost 50 years to be reissued.
