Gene Guerrero
Son of a Mexican father and mother who grew up on a cotton plantation in the delta country of southeast Arkansas, Gene Guerrero was part of the last "all white" class in his Atlanta, Georgia high school.
Active in the civil rights, anti-war, and labor movements of the 1960s and '70s, Guerrero was the first chairman of the predominately white Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC) organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to reach out to southern whites.
Created by SSOC's Anne Romaine and SNCC Freedom Singer Bernice Johnson Reagan, SSOC's Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project brought traditional southern music, black and white, to communities across the American South from 1965-89 featuring performers such as Johnny Shines, Nimrod Workman, Sparky Rucker, Alice Gerrard and Hazel Dickens.
Guerrero also was a founder of Atlanta's "underground" newspaper, The Great Speckled Bird — one of the leading New Left counter-culture voices in the United States from 1968-76. At the Bird Guerrero wrote about country and bluegrass music. He was present when country music legend Ernest Tubb introduced African-American country music great Charley Pride as Pride made his first ground-breaking Nashville appearance on the Ernest Tubb show broadcast from his record shop following the Grand Ole Opry.
Guerrero conducted in-depth interviews with Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner and others. Although not mentioning the Bird by name, in one of her autobiographies, Loretta Lynn said her interview with the paper was the best ever done with her.
After the Bird Guerrero worked on human rights and criminal justice reform. He can be reached at geneguerrero@hotmail.com.
27 articles
List of articles in the library
Live Review by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 10 March 1969
THE LAST two weeks have been good ones for country music in Atlanta. George Jones and Tammy Wynette were at the Playroom; Merle Haggard's latest ...
Comment by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 17 March 1969
IT WAS COUNTRY Music Week in Nashville, Tennessee, during the fall of 1966. Several of us from the Southern Student Organizing Committee were in town ...
Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash! The Man, His World, His Music (PBL; dir. Robert Elfstrom)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Miller Francis Jr., Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 24 March 1969
TO SAY THAT the 90-minute Johnny Cash PBL special was the best television show I've ever seen is to detract from the compliment; perhaps it ...
Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Doug Kershaw, Joni Mitchell: The Johnny Cash Show (ABC TV/Screen Gems)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 12 June 1969
TV CASHES IN ...
The Everly Brothers: Roots (Warner Brothers-Reprise 1752)
Review by Miller Francis Jr., Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 7 July 1969
"Roll along, along Jordan,Roll me on my way. Roll along, along Jordan,Roll me home today. " ...
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 20 October 1969
The brother runs the camera, and the sister gives the cues/The uncle is the producer, and the old man writes the news/This family named JonesThat ...
Comment by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 16 March 1970
IF MERLE Haggard wasn't one of the two or three most creative persons in country music, it would be easy to dismiss him as just ...
Merle Haggard: Municipal Auditorium, Atlanta
Live Review by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 23 March 1970
Walk a Mile... ...
Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner: Porter & Dolly
Profile by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 30 November 1970
PORTER WAGONER and Dolly Parton were scheduled to appear in Atlanta this Saturday night to headline WPLO's Shower of Stars at the Municipal Auditorium. Last ...
Live Review by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 15 March 1971
FROM TOP TO bottom, the Shower of Stars last Saturday night was really fine. The sound system was much improved and the sound it carried ...
The Scruggs Brothers: The Scruggs Bros.
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 29 March 1971
GARY AND Randy Scruggs, Earl's boys, have fine album out on Vanguard — All The Way Home. ...
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 5 April 1971
"It's a funny thing. I'd probably sold two or three millions for RCA before I realized that you got paid for it. Fact is, I ...
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 3 May 1971
TOM T. HALL is one of Nashville's outstanding songwriters. He's turned out hit after hit like 'I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew', and ...
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 17 May 1971
PORTER WAGONER and Dolly Parton are country music superstars. Porter's been on the Grand Ole Opry for years and as much as anyone else has ...
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 24 May 1971
THE EXCITING thing about Porter and Dolly's music is that it continues to grow — as their new albums indicate. Porter's latest is Simple As ...
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 21 June 1971
IT WAS ONE of those memorable evenings like accidentally catching Charley Pride's first Nashville appearance at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, or watching Mel Tillis ...
Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty: Loretta & Conway
Profile by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 28 June 1971
LORETTA LYNN and Conway Twitty headline the WPLO Shower of Stars this Saturday night at the Municipal Auditorium. Both are established country stars. Loretta was ...
Loretta Lynn: Everybody's Got a Soul and a Heart
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 12 July 1971
(RBP editor's note: the intro to this article was written by Paul Connah, the interview undertaken primarily by Gene Guerrero) ...
The Monkees, Michael Nesmith: Michael Nesmith
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 20 September 1971
MIKE NESMITH was a member of the Monkees, now he's doing his own thing, come see him at the press party at the Bistro. That's ...
Report by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 1 November 1971
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE — It was a combination pop festival and Lion's Club Convention — the 46th Anniversary Celebration of the Grand Ole Opry held October ...
Elvis Presley, The Sweet Inspirations: Elvis Presley: Memorial Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Live Review by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 4 November 1971
I WAS IN the eighth or ninth grade when I first heard Elvis Presley. A neighbor buddy and I had gone to the Saturday morning ...
Live Review by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 14 February 1972
Oil Commercials & Falling Idols ...
Live Review by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 31 February 1972
GOOD COUNTRY ...
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 12 June 1972
LIKE MOST under 40/over 20 Americans, the Everly Brothers are very much a part of my life. 'Cathy's Clown' and 'Bye, Bye Love' are not ...
Interview by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 1 February 1973
CHARLEY PRIDE has come a long way from Sledge, Mississippi, where he and ten brothers and sisters picked cotton alongside their parents. In 1971 the Country ...
George Jones, Tammy Wynette: Shower of Stars: George Jones & Tammy Wynette
Profile by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 5 March 1973
ONCE AGAIN it's Shower of Stars time. A good chance to see some of country music's finest in person at pretty reasonable prices. ...
Profile by Gene Guerrero, The Great Speckled Bird, 21 May 1973
JERRY LEE Lewis is a self-made phenomenon. Remember a couple of years ago when he made it back on television after years of virtual obscurity? ...
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