Guerra started his professional career in his native Camagüey and Havana in the early 1940s, and made his name singing in highly successful big bands.

The same year he recorded with Pepito Torres' Orquesta Siboney in Puerto Rico,[1] and in 1943 he and several other members of the Palau, spearheaded by Julio Cueva, founded a new big band with the arrangements of pianist René Hernández.

[2] After the departure of Miguelito Valdés, the lead singer of Orquesta Casino de la Playa, to New York in 1940, Cascarita became the main big band vocalist in Cuba.

[2] The owner of a highly personal style of vocalizing, he had an interesting sense of ease and graceful fluency to improvise, particularly interpreting guarachas, which gained him an important place in Cuban popular music history.

[3][6] In August 2008, Mexican writer Arturo Yáñez stated that he died in 1971 and that his remains can be found at the Panteón San Lorenzo in Tlaxcolco, Mexico.