I’ve known Ruben Cubillo’s work for a long time. I’ve been a Tejano music fanatic since the single digits, and even as a kid in the 80s, I was always interested in the behind the scenes stuff about albums. It helped that one of our neighbors, Bobby (Gallo) Gallegos was a musician himself and had a lot of war stories to tell which included some names from bands like The Latin Breed, Tortilla Factory, Little Joe, Johnny y La Familia, and countless others.
I may not have known anything about music production, but I always paid attention to the names of producers, sound engineers, studio musicians, and especially the graphic artists for future contemplation and comparison. It was kind of like a hobby which continues today because I really love this music.
One name that seemed to pop up on albums often was Ruben Cubillos and his company A Big Chihuahua. If you love the first EMI Latin Selena album cover, well, it’s Cubillos who was the genius behind it.
Austin writer Juan Castillo offers up an excellent interview with Cubillos on NBCNews.com about his history in the industry. One bit of great news is that Cubillos is the guy that designed Juan Gabriel’s Los Duo album cover, as well as a new project coming from the legendary Ruben Ramos.
In this world of music downloads and Spotify accounts, let’s not forget about the importance of album covers. For most albums, the art is the selling point. The layouts, the liner notes, etc., tell more of the story of a band and the project they are selling you. Pay attention!
doscentavos.net 