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Mark
Guerrero Bio
Mark
Guerrero grew up in East Los Angeles graduating from James
A. Garfield High School, East L.A. College and Cal State L.A.,
where he earned a B.A. in Chicano Studies. The son of
the late legendary singer/songwriter Lalo Guerrero began performing
at age 13 with his rock band Mark & the Escorts, who often
shared the bill with storied eastside groups such as Cannibal
& the Headhunters, The Premiers, The Blendells, and Thee
Midniters. His band was included on the album "West Coast
Eastside Revue" along with the aforementioned groups
and others. Mark & the Escorts also recorded two
45 rpm singles in 1965 on GNP Crescendo Records, "Dance
with Me" and "Get Your Baby." Mark then
led the popular East L.A. group The Men From S.O.U.N.D. and
at the age of 21 wrote and" recorded his first single
for producer Lou Adler of the Mamas and the Papas and Carole
King fame. His recording career continued with two singles
on Capitol Records as a solo artist in 1972, "Rock &
Roll Queen" and "I'm Brown" and an album for
A&M Records in 1973 with his group TANGO, which was re-released
on CD in Japan in 1990.
Mark's "Pre-Columbian
Dream" was recorded by Herb Alpert on the 1983 album
"Noche de Amor" and his "Fernando, El Toro,"
a tribute to Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, was recorded
by his father. The latter song was used twenty years
later on an ESPN documentary on Fernando called "Fernandomania."
The two Guerrero's collaborated on numerous songs recorded
by the elder songwriter and Mark has written and performed
songs featured in the television productions, "Murals
of Aztlán," about L.A.'s Chicano muralists, and "L.A.:
An Artist's View," which profiled L.A.'s artists for
the city's bicentennial. Both programs included segments
on legendary Chicano artist, Carlos Almaraz. In 1989,
Mark recorded and co-produced an E.P. entitled "On The
Boulevard," which was released on the Eastside Landmark
label and contained four Mark Guerrero original songs.
In 1992, Mark wrote and performed tribute songs for the aforementioned
Carlos Almaraz at the Bing Theater at the L.A. County Museum
and for his father, Lalo Guerrero, at his tribute concert
at the McCallum Theater in Palm Desert, California.
Other guests at the Guerrero event included Edward James Olmos,
Cheech Marin, Paul Rodriguez and Cesar Chavez.
In 1994, Mark
co-produced an album entitled "Fifties Flashback"
with pioneer Chicano rocker Chan Romero, whose song "The
Hippy Hippy Shake" can be heard on the Beatles' "Live
at the BBC" album. Mark has recorded with Harry
Nilsson, backed rock & roll hall of famer Eric Burdon
in a live concert, and participated on Los Lobos' 1994 Grammy
nominated "Papa's Dream" L.P. In 1998, he
performed with his father and Tex Mex legend Flaco Jimenez
at the Cite de la Musique in Paris, France, which was followed
by a series of about a dozen concerts with Lalo between 1998
and 2000. Highlights in this series of concerts included
performances at the Getty Center in Los Angeles and in Lalo's
hometown of Tucson, Arizona. Two of Mark's recordings
were included on the "Chicano Alliance" CD in 1998,
which also includes tracks by Tierra, El Chicano, Malo, Little
Joe, and others. In 2002, Mark started a new band as
a vehicle for his original material called Mark Guerrero &
Radio Aztlán. They performed at the Galaxy Theater in
Santa Ana, CA and The Hop in Puente Hills, CA on the bill
with Malo and Tierra, as well as a concert at La Placita
Village in Tucson, AZ. In 2003, they performed again
in Tucson and at the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles with
Thee Midniters. The latter concert was to publicize
the then upcoming documentary "Chicano Rock: The Sounds
of East Los Angeles"
in which Mark appears. Since then Mark Guerrero &
Radio Aztlán have performed at venues such as the John Anson
Ford Amphitheater, the Latin Oldies Festival at Arrowhead
Stadium in San Bernardino, the Grand Ballroom of the Kodak
Theater in Hollywood, the Dodge Theater in Phoenix, AZ, the
Fox Theater in Tucson, AZ, and the L.A. County Museum of Art.
In 2003
and again in 2009,
Mark Guerrero performed as a member of the legendary Native
American/Chicano band, Redbone. In 2004, two of Mark's
songs were recorded by legendary Chicano singers; "Oh
Maria" by Trini Lopez and "Rockin' Like There's
No Tomorrow" by Chan Romero. Mark played lead guitar
on the recordings of both songs. In 2004 and 2006, Mark
visited Liverpool, England and performed at several venues,
including the legendary Cavern Club, with Liverpool musicians
from the Beatle era, including Kingsize Taylor & the Dominoes
and members of Faron's Flamingos and the Undertakers.
In 2007, Mark performed with El Chicano at the Gibson Amphitheater
in Studio City, CA on the bill with War, Tierra, Little Joe
y La Familia, and Los Lobos for a benefit to help rebuild
the auditorium for his alma mater Garfield High School in
East Los Angeles.
Mark Guerrero
is mentioned in "The Folk Music Sourcebook," published
by Alfred A. Knopf (1976); "Barrio Rhythm" by Steven Loza, University of Illinois Press (1993);
"Riot On the Sunset Strip" by Dominic Priore, Jawbone Press
(2007), and featured in "Land of a Thousand Dances," by
Tom Waldman and David Reyes, University of New Mexico Press
(1998). He's also featured in and wrote and compiled
the discography for "Lalo, My Life and Music," by
Lalo Guerrero and Sherilyn Meece Mentes, University of Arizona
Press (2002). Mark also hosts a popular website, www.markguerrero.com,
which gives information on his music, as well as Chicano music
in general. The articles he's written on Chicano music
artists have also appeared in various websites, newspapers,
and magazines, including "Traditional Music Maker"
in England. Mark has spoken at colleges on Chicano music
and wrote an entry on the same subject for the two volume
"Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture," published
by Greenwood Publishing Group (2004). In 2006, Mark
Guerrero hosted his own internet radio show called "Chicano
Music Chronicles" on www.crnlive.com.
He did shows, with the artists in studio, on Trini Lopez,
Chan Romero, El Chicano, Tierra, and many others. Mark
was music supervisor and provided his song "The Ballad
of Lalo Guerrero" for a documentary on his father called
"Lalo Guerrero, the Original Chicano." The
documentary, produced by his brother Dan, aired on PBS in
the fall of 2006.
In 2007,
Mark Guerrero was a consultant and served on the advisory
board for the Experience Music Project, a major museum in
Seattle, Washington. Mark provided artifacts and interviewed
a dozen Chicano musical artists for an exhibit at the museum
called "American Sabor : Latinos is U.S. Popular
Music," which opened in October of 2007. The interviews
will also be a part of a permanent oral history archive at
the museum. Mark was also interviewed for the archive.
Mark was also a consultant on an exhibit called "Songs
of Conscience, Songs of Freedom" at the Grammy Museum
which opened in the fall of 2008 and ran for a year. Mark appeared in the
documentary "Chicano Rock: The Sounds of East Los Angeles,"
which premiered on PBS nationally in December of 2008.
He also performed and was a talent coordinator on a PBS special
"Trini Lopez Presents Latin Music Legends," which
aired in June of 2009. In February of 2009, Mark
reunited his teenage band Mark & the Escorts to perform
at "Blowout 2009" on a bill with 13 bands.
In April of 2009, Mark reunited his 70s band Tango to perform
at East Los Angeles College for an event celebrating the new
edition of the book "Land of a Thousand Dances"
by David Reyes and Tom Waldman.
Click
here to go to Mark Guerrero
Resumé

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