A pioneer of Chicano rock, Rub\u00e9n Funkahuatl Guevara performed with Frank Zappa, Johnny Otis, Bo Diddley, Tina Turner, and Celia Cruz, though he is best known as the front man of the 1970s experimental rock band Ruben And The Jets. In his recent memoir Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer (copies at Book Beat)he recounts how his youthful experiences in the barrio La Veinte of Santa Monica in the 1940s prepared him for early success in music and how his triumphs and seductive brushes with stardom were met with tragedy and crushing disappointments. Brutally honest and open, Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer is an often hilarious and self-critical look inside the struggle of becoming an artist and a man. Recognizing racial identity as composite, contested, and complex, Guevara\u2014an American artist of Mexican descent\u2014embraces a Chicano identity of his own design, calling himself a Chicano \u201cculture sculptor\u201d who has worked to transform the aspirations, alienations, and indignities of the Mexican American people into an aesthetic experience that could point the way to liberation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWriting this book was the hardest composition I ever made. The process of writing was like an exorcism.\u201d\u00a0 –Rub\u00e9n Guevara.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Rub\u00e9n Funkahuatl Guevara is a native Angelino Chicano musician, singer and songwriter, a record producer of Chicano rock and roll and rock en espa\u00f1ol compilations, and a performance artist, poet, short story writer, historian, journalist, and activist. His newly published book Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer<\/em> (University of California Press, 2018) is a moving memoir of his life and a compelling counter-history of the city of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is as if Rub\u00e9n Funkahuatl Guevara, polymath Azteca warrior and Chicano superhero, rose with the first East Los Angeles Aztl\u0227n sun that gave creative light to the barrio.\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 Louie P\u00e9rez, musician, songwriter with Los Lobos<\/p>\n