From 2pm to 3:15pm, The Grammy Museum, along with the Museum of Latin American Art, will present vocalist Little Willie G in an intimate discussion and performance.
Little Willie G began his career in the mid ’60s as the lead singer for Thee Midniters, an R&B group from Los Angeles that become one of the first Chicano rock bands to have a hit in the United States.
Little Willie G will discuss his five-decade career and his commitment to spread a message of hope and love through music. After the interview, moderated by Josh Kun, curator of the Grammy Museum’s Pacific Standard Time exhibition Trouble in Paradise: Music and Los Angeles 1945-75 and professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Little Willie G will take audience questions and perform a selection of songs.
East L.A. Chicano vocalist, composer, songwriter, producer, and poet Rubén “Funkahuatl” Guevara (Ruben & the Jets, Frank Zappa, Con Safos ) and his new band The Eastside Luvers will be performing selections from their new CD The Tao of Funkahuatl from 3:15pm to 4:15pm.
Rubén Guevara is perhaps most widely recognized for his collaborations with Frank Zappa, bringing to life and making real what had previously been Zappa’s fictional doo-wop parody “Ruben & the Jets.” But the Boyle Heights native’s roots extend all the way back to 1965, when he appeared with Bo Diddley and Tina Turner on the pop television show Shindig! In the ’80s, he reinvented himself as a Chicano activist, fronting the influential band Con Safos and working as a promoter to champion Latin-punk groups. Guevara’s own music has moved restlessly from his early days as a blues, R&B and doo-wop stylist into stranger, freakier explorations that draw upon jazz, funk and his extensive spoken-word experience. His new album The Tao of Funkahuatl draws upon all of his varied personas.
Doors open at 1:30pm. Admission is free; reservations are recommended. To reserve seats, email rsvp@molaa.org and include “PST Celebration RSVPs” in the subject line. Seating is limited to 250 on a “first come, first served” basis. Standing room will be available.
Pacific Standard Time is a collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together for six months beginning in October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the Los Angeles art scene and how it became a major new force in the art world. Each institution is making its own contribution to this grand-scale story of artistic innovation and social change, told through a multitude of simultaneous exhibitions and programs. Exploring and celebrating the significance of the crucial post-World War II years through the tumultuous period of the 1960s and ’70s, Pacific Standard Time encompasses developments from L.A. pop to post-minimalism; from modernist architecture and design to multi-media installations; from the films of the African-American L.A. Rebellion to the feminist activities of the Woman’s Building; from ceramics to Chicano performance art; and from Japanese-American design to the pioneering work of artists’ collectives.
