Juaneco y Su Combo

Jungle cumbia from Pucallpa

Juaneco y su Combo is a Peruvian Amazonian cumbia band from Pucallpa, in the Ucayali region, started by Juan Wong Paredes, an amateur saxophonist of Chinese descent who also made bricks, as Juaneco y su Conjunto. His son Juan Wong Popolizio took over and renamed it; sources date the rename 1969, 1971 or after a 1971 tragedy, and the founding to 1960, the early 1960s or 1966. Popolizio replaced the accordion with a Farfisa organ, which Sounds and Colours says pushed the guitarists toward more psychedelic playing. Influences were Colombian cumbia and Brazilian carimbó heard on shortwave radio, Shipibo imagery and dress, and surf guitar from the Shadows and the Ventures.

Noé Fachín, called El Brujo, joined around 1969 or 1970 as lead guitarist and main composer, and the singer Wilindoro Cacique (José Wilindoro Casique Flores) was invited to join in 1972, according to Hispanopedia. They signed to Infopesa, the Lima label founded by Alberto Maravi, and made their debut LP, El Gran Cacique, dated 1970 by Barbes and MusicBrainz and 1972 by both Wikipedias and El Comercio. They toured Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil during the Amazon oil and timber boom of the 1970s. A plane crash killed five members, among them Fachín according to Barbes, PopMatters and Sounds and Colours; the date is 2 May 1977 per Spanish Wikipedia, Radio Nacional and Barbes, 1976 per PopMatters and Sounds and Colours. Popolizio, Cacique and two others were not aboard. The band re-formed in late 1977 with Fernando Mora on guitar.

"Ya se ha muerto mi abuelo" appeared on Ven a bailar con Juaneco (1979), and "Anaconda" won the Maguare de Oro at the FICA festival in 1984. Barbes's 2007 The Roots of Chicha and 2008 Masters of Chicha Vol. 1 introduced them abroad, PopMatters scoring the latter 7 of 10, and the Peruvian band Bareto's covers restored national fame. Traumfabrik! issued No se ha muerto mi abuelo in 2009, their first CD. The Guardian reviewed The Birth of Jungle Cumbia (2013); Infopesa reissued El Gran Cacique on vinyl in 2018 and released Legado in 2019. Popolizio died in 2004 per Radio Nacional (1994 per Spanish Wikipedia), Cacique died on July 20, 2017, and Juan Pezo Wong, a grandson of the founder, now leads the band. Olivier Conan of Barbes called them one of chicha's great precursors.