The Enigma of Clarence Wheeler

One of the songs we’ll be doing at the Mackie Riverside & The Streetpushers show this New Years Eve at Union Pool is “Right On” by Clarence Wheeler & The Enforcers, most of which I remember from Fly Girl by Queen Latifah. But as I’m listening to the set over my morning coffee before picking up my horn, I’m sitting here realizing I have no idea who my fellow hornblower Clarence Wheeler is or was. What I discovered by spending a quarter of an hour or so googling is that I’m not the only one. Clarence Wheeler, the tenor saxman who led the jazz funk sax outfit The Enforcers in Chicago in the early 70s, remains an enigma without a wikipedia page (I did learn that a composer with the same name was responsible for a lot of the orchestral sounds I enjoyed on the Woody Woodpecker show as a kid, but I’m guessing he wasn’t a relation). All I could find out without spending too much time researching is that there are a couple of critically acclaimed Enforcers albums, Doin’ What We Wanna and The Love I’ve Been Looking For, as well as a solo LP from 1972 entitled The New Chicago Blues. Whether or not Clarence is still around and blowing I could not ascertain. So if anybody out there reads this and knows anything about this funky purveyor of horn chic, please comment. I’d love to know more.

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