After the Laughter (Comes Tears)

Wendy Rene | illustration politely borrowed from OA

Wendy Rene – After the Laughter (Comes Tears)

I’ve had this song on repeat for the past day or so. constantly going back to it. moving on and then coming back. It’s been floating around my mind for years and a brief screening of The Wackness, prompted me to dig in the (pixel) crates for a copy of this beautiful, haunting, insanely wonderful song. Some true true soul.

While gooooogling for an image for this post I ran across an Oxford American Mag article that explains the historical context of the song and its resurgence (after being sampled by Rza). An amazing article and great read.

It would prove to be Rene’s greatest artistic success, but it had little commercial impact upon release. Rene released a few more singles, including the exuberant “Bar B-Q,” and sang and toured with Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding before fading from the public eye, retiring to motherhood and church-singing. “After Laughter” languished, more or less forgotten, for over a quarter-century.

“I love the fact that hip-hop has helped soul music to get back on the shelves or allowed a lot of people to rediscover these songs in their four-minute versions instead of our sampled hip-hop versions. Because those songs are great, man,” he says. “A song like ‘After Laughter’ probably spent two months in the stores when it came out, you know what I mean? To see that song as something people recognize now, that’s a beautiful thing.” – Rza