Mention Peru and most people will think of either the Andes Mountains or the Amazon river, the two great natural attractions of that South American country. Both regions were once home to great civilizations decimated by the coming of the Spanish conquistadors. The quest for gold and the souls of heathens followed by the encroachment of the mining industry into the mountains and the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest has reduced their numbers even further. Now, like other groups native to the Western hemisphere, the Shipibo and the Aztecs live in poverty.
In one of those strange quirks of fate that happens on occasion when a collision of cultures occur, the music and culture of the Shipibo was given a new lease on life and is now being brought to an international audience. The strange journey started in the 1970s and is tied up in the history of the musical hybrid of Brazilian carimbo, Columbian cumbia, American surf guitar, psychedelic organ, and native cultural influences known as chicha music.
Chicha's origins lie in the poor working class towns dotted throughout the interior of Peru whose populations were a mix of Shipibo and workers brought in to labor in the mines and industries that were final death knell for the native way of life. Ironically instead of the natives being assimilated by the invading culture the reverse happened and a great many of the workers embraced aspects of the native culture as their own. In the small town of Pucallpa a group of those had formed into a band that did the occasional gig playing a mix of jazz and dance standards.
When the original leader, Juan Wong Paredes, of Juaneco y Su Combo gave way to his son, Juan Wong Popolizio, the band's direction took a radical turn. The younger Juan Wong traded in his accordion for the electric organ and hired Noé Fachin, a guitar player with a penchant for native pharmaceuticals. It was Fachin's interest in indigenous folklore and his love for the wah-wah pedal that supplied the first stage in the development of the band's new sound. Thanks to short wave radio the band was introduced to the carimbo and cumbia rhythms that were to become the beat that carried them to popularity.
The story almost came to a tragic end when five of the band members, including Fachin, the group's primary composer, died in a plane crash in 1977, but Juan Wong persevered and kept the band going. Now entering its third generation, Juan Wong has died and the group is led by his son Mao Wong Lopez. Thanks to Brooklyn-based Barbès Records, the music of Juaneco y su Combo is now available to an international audience for the first time on the compilation Masters Of Chicha Volume 1, featuring sixteen of the band's tracks from their 1970s heyday.
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