Join Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara as he reads excerpts from his memoir Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer, published by University of California Press (2018). Copies of the memoir will be available for purchase.

About the book

A pioneer of Chicano rock, Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara performed with Frank Zappa, Johnny Otis, Bo Diddley, Tina Turner, and Celia Cruz, though he is best known as the frontman of the 1970s experimental Chicano rock band Ruben And The Jets. Here 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—an American artist of Mexican descent—embraces a Chicano identity of his own design, calling himself a Chicano “culture sculptor” 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.

About the author

Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara is a native Angeleno Chicano musician, singer, and songwriter with Ruben And The Jets (co-founded with Frank Zappa); Con Safos and The Eastside Luvers; a record producer of Chicano rock and rock en español compilations; and a performance artist, poet, short story writer, historian, journalist, and activist.