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 front man of the 1970s experimental 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.