After Laughter Comes Tears WENDY RENE Video Steven Bogarat

Wendy Rene, Memphis soul songstress who recorded ‘After Laughter (Comes Tears)’ and ‘Bar-B-Q’ for Stax, died on December 16, 2014, following a stroke. She was 67. Wendy Rene was born Mary Lou Frierson in Memphis, TN, USA in 1947. Her father was of mixed race and her mother a Memphis musician who encouraged her and her brother, John - one of three brothers - towards a life in music, teaching Mary the art of harmony singing and John how to play guitar. The siblings sang together at the Church of God in Christ and, while in her teens, they, together with friends, Marion Brittenum and Wilbur Mondie, formed a group they dubbed the Drapels and branched out into secular music. In 1963, they auditioned for Stax boss, Jim Stewart, who immediately signed them to a record deal. At the same time, he offered Mary a solo contract on the strength of examples of her songwriting which she presented to him. The Drapels quickly broke up leaving Mary to concentrate on her solo career. (Both John Frierson and Marion Brittenum would move across to Hi Records, Frierson recording solo as James Fry and Brittenum with Don Bryant as the duo, 1 + 1.) Searching for an alternative stage name, Stax p.r. staffer, Deanie Parker, suggested Wendy Storm but it was Otis Redding who gave her the Rene surname. Wendy’s first solo credits went to the release of ‘After Laughter (Comes Tears)’ - actually recorded with the rest of the Drapels - a song she had written with her brother, c/w ‘What Will Tomorrow Bring’, which made local noise but failed to crack the national listings, It featured Booker T. Jones on organ, while her follow-up, ‘Bar-B-Q’, co-penned by Steve Cropper, featured Cropper on guitar. The flip was ‘Young And Foolish’, another of her own compositions. Wendy continued to record, tour with and provide background vocals for other Stax artists and, in 1967, she married her second husband, Stax employee, James Cross. She quickly gave birth to a son and had decided, as a new mother, to bow out of her musical career for a while. Thus, her ‘farewell date’ was scheduled to be with Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays at the fateful concert at Madison, Wisconsin on the occasion when Redding’s plane crashed into Lake Monona but she pulled out at the last minute in order to stay home with her baby. From that time Wendy Rene, as Mary Cross, devoted her life to being a wife and mother, raising six children - five sons and one daughter - and singing at the Bountiful Blessing Church of God in Christ in Memphis. She did, however, make a one-off comeback at 2010’s Ponderosa Stomp, while her songs have been used in films, sampled - the most famous being Wu-Tang Klan’s ‘Tearz’, which heavily ‘borrowed’ ‘After Laughter’ - and featured in commercials. (In 2013, Chili’s Restaurant revived ‘Bar-B-Q’.) Wendy/Mary had a previous stroke in 2012, the same year US label, Light In The Attic’ issued a comprehensive cd collection of her recordings.