Originally published in The
Aquarian Weekly
June 21, 2006
alejandro
escovedo
R E S U R R E C T E D
www.theaquarian.com
ARTS WEEKLY JUNE 21, 2006 (ECR-21) 33
by Ken Shane
Alejandro
Escovedo co-founded the seminal San
Francisco
punk band, The Nuns, before moving to
joined Rank & File, a band that pioneered the blending
of country and punk music. The band moved to
Escovedo’s home
state of
but he wanted to write songs, and the band already
had two strong songwriters. “I was like the George
Harrison
of Rank & File,” he laughs.
He quit
Rank & File and called his brother Javier
in
he was forming a band called the True Believers. In
the early ’80s the new band toured on and off for
several years with Los Lobos. The True Believers
released a low budget album in 1986, and in 1987
they were supposed to release the album that would
put them in the national spotlight. Instead, a shakeup
at EMI Records resulted in the band being dropped
from the label and the album wasn’t released until
1994. In
the meantime, the band broke up and
Escovedo was left to figure out what to do next.
Countless
drives between
in the ’80s proved to be an important influence on
his songs as he crossed “mi tierra,”
the place where
his people were from.He knew that
he had to somehow
translate the vastness of the land into the
sound of
his music. He did that by blending the dynamics of
acoustic guitars and introducing strings to the mix.
In 1992,
Escovedo released his first solo album,
Gravity,
which is inhabited in large part by the ghost
of his second wife, Bobbie Levie,
who committed
suicide in 1991 not long after they separated.
A series
of albums followed, including Thirteen
Years,
With These Hands and The Pawn Shop Years
by his side project, Buick MacKane.
The albums were
well received by the critics, but failed to sell in any
substantial numbers. Escovedo
was living on the
road, playing small clubs, and drinking all night after
the shows. It was while he was on tour behind With
These
Hands that the doctors told him that he had
Hepatitis
C and would have to stop drinking. He did.
For awhile.
The live
album More Miles Than Money: 1994-96,
was released in 1998, followed by Bourbonitis
Blues,
a collection of scattered tracks, and his masterpiece,
A Man Under The Influence, came out in 2001.The
next year, the soundtrack from his theater piece, By
The Hand
Of The Father, was released.
In 2003,
Escovedo nearly died. He collapsed on
a stage in
Hand Of The Father.” He had been living in denial
about the Hepatitis C that had been dogging him for
seven years. At St. Luke’s Hospital he was diagnosed
with varices of the esophagus,
cirrhosis of the liver
and tumors in his abdomen.When he
was admitted
a nurse told him that he didn’t have long to live.
A long
hospital stay was followed by a month of
recuperation in
to return to his home in
But even
then he was so heavily medicated that he
could barely walk around and certainly couldn’t play
music. All that was left for him was songwriting, and
so he began to craft some new material. The first
song he wrote, reflecting his newfound but hard won
sobriety, was called “
Have
another drink on me
I’ve
been empty since
Like
most musicians, Escovedo had no health
insurance. His managers decided to ask some
musicians to record songs for a fund-raising
album.
The
response was overwhelming. The album, Por
Vida: A
Tribute To The Songs Of Alejandro Escovedo,
ended up as a two disc, 32 track effort. It included
contributions from Steve Earle, The Jayhawks, John
Cale, Son
Volt, Los Lonely Boys and others.
Escovedo told me that the tribute album told him
that people cared. “No one phoned it in,” he said.
“They
were amazing versions of my songs.” He was
moved that artists who had been an early influence
on him, such as Ian Hunter with his version of “One
More
Time” and John Cale and his take on “She
Doesn’t
Live Here Anymore” had contributed strong
tracks to the album. At times he found the attention
embarrassing, but his wife convinced him that
the
album was not only helping him, it was helping the
musicians that cared about him by giving
them the
feeling that they were doing something positive for
him.
Speaking
of Cale, Escovedo first met
the former
Velvet
Underground member when they were both
living in NYC in 1978.When he moved back to
he befriended another VU member, the late
Morrison.
Later, Escovedo and Cale
collaborated on
a tribute concert to Morrison at SXSW.
Cale produced Escovedo’s first
studio album in
four years, The Boxing Mirror, which was recently
released to critical acclaim, and the cellist was surely
an influence on the rather unique sound that Escovedo
has created.There are very rarely
innovations in the
world of electric guitar rock these days, but by blending
the guitars with rock and roll sounding strings, as
opposed to their normal orchestral sound, he has
surely created something new. When I asked him
about the sound, Escovedo mentioned
Cale’s album
1919,
Lou Reed’s Street Hassle, and his older brother’s
orchestra, not just for the sound, but for
the
musicianship that was demonstrated by those
artists.
He also
cited The Stooges,
Horse as influences on his sound.
Despite
the fact that his albums always retain a
rough edge that harkens back to his days as a fixture
on the punk scene, Alejandro will never forget his
roots.There was a large Mexican
community in the
places that he grew up,
He
recalls hearing his parents play rancheros and
trio music at a very young age, and affirms that he
will never turn his back on what got him started in
the first place. So there are gentle Tex-Mex ballads
included among the harder stuff on the new album.
Escovedo is now on his first rock and roll tour since
his brush with death. He reports that he’s feeling
strong, and that he’s very glad to have the new album
to tour behind. He makes it a point not to stress
out, or work too hard. He realizes that the long nights
of hanging out and drinking after the shows can be
no more. His band is supportive and he feels
comfortable being back out on the road.