The mythical group from the Amazon was born in Pucallpa in 1966. Juaneco started on accordion, along with his dad who played saxophone and led the band at the time. They mostly covered Latin American standards, including a lot of Colombian cumbia, and called themselves a jazz band. In 1968, in the midst of an oil boom, Juaneco bought himself a farfisa organ and hired a new guitarist, Noe Fachin, who, until then, had mostly played romantic waltzes in the criollo style. The group went electric and rapidly became the first psychedelic group of the Amazon. Noe Fachin explored both these new sounds, and Ayahuasca - the indigenous psychotropic substance under whose influence he claimed to have written all his songs; an exploratory journey that bears some resemblance to that of some of his California colleagues'. The result is an unequaled musical jubilation, a sort of Amazonian Funk colored by psychedelia. In 1977, most of the group - including Noe Fachin - died in a plane crash. All the titles on the compilation were originally produced by Alberto Maravi for INFOPESA, the Peruvian label that was primarily responsible for promoting Cumbia Amazonica.
Peruvian party music for poor people and dancers
"Chicha" music, an electrified version of the party tunes that came out of the Peruvian slums, became popular in the 1960s and '70s, when the solid-body electric guitars, keyboards and synthesizers of the North American rock scene became available to regional bands in South America. It's a giddy, propulsive genre that is hard to resist. In strict musical terms, it may seem a bit monotonous, but the addition of these modern instruments, along with their newfound amplification and distortion, added both a new sonic texture and a joyful physicality to the performances, just as they did a decade earlier when American country and blues evolved into electric rock and roll. The guitar tones are both rough and fluid, recalling the surf bands of the early '60s, and the vibrant energy still translates across several decades and a large cultural divide. This disc highlights one of the better-known bands of the admittedly obscure chicha scene, Juaneco Y Su Combo, led by Juan Wong Popolizio, a Peruvian-Chinese accordionist who took the band over from his father. Along with guitarist Noe Fachin -- whose emphatic, decisive guitar work is the core of the band's sound -- Wong forged the combo into one of the most dynamic and compelling of the chicha bands. This is a fun record, packed with perky, hopped-up versions of traditional Peruvian huaynos, joropos and other regional styles (...and great for cruising to, by the way...) Check it out, and you'll be hooked. -DJ Joe Sixpack, Slipcue music reviews
The happiest dance music you've never heard
When you finish reading this, you're likely to be the only person in your circle to know about chicha. And if you bring "Masters of Chica, Vol. 1" into your home, you will almost certainly be putting this wonderful Peruvian sound into your local environment for the first time. Chicha is that obscure. And if you listen, this will make no sense to you, for those who have the good fortune to wander in while your chicha CDs are playing will say, in dazzled wonder, "This is great...uh, what is it?" Good luck explaining how this music came to be invented in dive bars in Peru. Or how that Tex-Mex Farfisa organ got in there. Or why you hear surf music. And what demon slipped some LSD in the formula so there'd be a psychedelic vibe. And, not least, who ripped off the Sergio Leone Western-movie theme music. These musicians are happy people, making music that makes other people happy. A very simple transaction, and unselfconscious, as befits music that sprang from the lower class and, if the taste-makers in South America have their way, will forever remain there. Chicha is actually a kind of liquor, home-brewed from maize and cheaper than Coke. Peruvians drink a lot of it --- which is kind of the point. The Incas may have used it in their rituals; in Lima, it's the nickname for the Saturday night music of the working class. Which is to say: It gets you high. "God respects us when we work, but He loves us when we dance," says the filmmaker Les Blank. If so, chicha is in God's top ten --- like Toots & the Maytals and Amadou & Mariam and Buena Vista Social Club, this music gets you out of your chair and moving in the very way that made Daddy want to lock your bedroom door. Music despised by right-thinking people? In my experience, always a good sign. -Jesse Kornbluth
An Amazonian garage band might seem like an odd concept, but that's exactly what Juaneco y Su Combo were (and maybe still are, as a new version is touring). They replaced the traditional accordion with a Farfisa organ, electrified the guitar and bass, and imported ideas from the Yankees along with rhythms from Brazil and Colombia. The results are actually surprisingly sophisticated, mostly thanks to guitarist Noé Fachin (nicknamed "the Witch Doctor" for his use of local psychedelics). It's very much a synthesis of styles, but the result is new and quite fresh, and very successful on instrumentals like "El Brujo." This compilation pulls together most of the tracks from their 1970 debut, El Gran Cacique, including "Mujer Hilandera," which was a hit for them. They toured extensively and successfully until 1977, when a plane crash killed five members. The others carried on with new personnel, but as "Ya Se a Muerto Mi Abuelo" shows, they couldn't recapture the spirit. Although they never go as over the top as some American garage bands (except for Fachin's brief solo on "Recordando a Fachin"), there's still a gleeful wildness to cuts like "Dale Juaneco." It's definitely the happy side of Latin psychedelia. -AllMusic Review by Chris Nickson
2. Caballito Nocturno 2:33
3. Un Shipibo En España 4:17
4. Linda Nena 3:49
5. El Pelejito Bailarin 3:24
6. Ya Se A Muerto Mi Abuelo 4:10
7. El Llanto De Ayaimama 3:34
8. Me Robaron Mi Runamula 3:11
9. Vacilando Con Ayahuasca 3:33
10. El Agua Del Higueron 2:31
11. El Hijo De La Runamula 3:191
12. El Brujo 4:27
13. La Patadita 2:46
14. Dale Juaneco 3:03
15. A La Fiesta De San Juan 2:56
16. Recordando A Fachin 2:11
Notes
Tracklist and track durations are transcribed from the back of the case. Track 06, "Ya Se A Muerto Mi Abuelo", should, gramatically, be "Ya Se Ha Muerto Mi Abuelo" and is in fact spelled that way in the liner notes.
