Alejandro Escovedo: Back from the Brink, Back in D.C.
When Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Ian Hunter, Son Volt, and Calexico make a record to save your life, you’ve achieved icon status in the music world. Yet despite his performing in bands since the '70s and solo since the early '90s, Texas-native Alejandro Escovedo is hardly a household name for those who appreciate roots music. And he rarely sells out East Coast shows.
But things are changing. Over the course of the past several months, in the margins of music commentary, fans and critics are acknowledging the praise this underrated artist deserves. Curt Fields of the Washington Post wrote, “Many performers outsell Alejandro Escovedo, but hardly any surpass him in talent.” And in last week’s column, J. Freedom du Lac mentioned that he “loved the new album,” The Boxing Mirror.
Part of this semi-obscurity is due to his forced hiatus from performing as a result of his battle with Hepatitis C, which culminated in his collapsing on a bathroom floor and vomiting blood before a performance in Tempe, Arizona in 2003. As Escovedo endured treatments, Lucinda and others collaborated on Por Vida, a remake of two-CDs’ worth of Escovedo songs from his previous albums, the proceeds of which were donated to pay his medical bills.
Escovedo acknowledges that his illness was exacerbated by years’ worth of hard-livin’, the emotional fallout after his ex-wife’s suicide, and a serious drinking habit, which he documents in many songs, including "Little Bottles": “Line up your little bottles/in a tight little row/Then try to sip some courage/through a rusted straw.”
Perhaps because they’re both former drinkers who had adopted Austin as their hometown, even George W. Bush listens to him, as noted in articles about the President’s iPod playlist last year. But unlike W — who became born-again after returning from his personal dark side — Escovedo found religion in others’ generosity, his second wife, a child, and a move to the more laid-back Texas hill country. In addition, despite his decisions to work less once he regained his health and to abandon his rock 'n’ roll lifestyle, the spirit of a renewed, purposeful Alejandro pervades Austin. This was most notably demonstrated during the 2006 South By Southwest’s “unofficial closing event" — an Escovedo show at The Continental — which was cited as one of this year’s top six performances by the UT Daily Texas online. As a result of his focus, his hometown’s embrace, and his compelling performances, word of his talent is diffusing beyond the Southwest to major metropolitan areas and beyond.
It’s these performances more than Alejandro’s recordings that reel in fans. And, while he enjoys it (“I feel better about playing live now than I ever have"), performing some songs is akin to the strain and reward of a good actor’s Shakespearean soliloquy, except he’s singing about his own life. In an interview on his website, he says of the song "Arizona," the first track of The Boxing Mirror that references the time of his collapse, “. . . there are a lot of things that for me, as a writer, that the band really had to push me on. . . I would wimp out on a song, basically. Like 'Arizona' was a song I would never play live, but they loved it. And, so we finally started playing it. Yeah, OK. I’ll keep playing it.”
At the 9:30 Club both Saturday and earlier this year, it’s clear that Escovedo has done his time and is in the midst of his own rebirth. In addition to performing songs that chronicle the various loves and trials of his past --during which his band buoyed him for those soliloquy moments--the artist focused on The Boxing Mirror, which, despite the name, suggests a moving forward rather than regret and remorse that weigh previous albums such as Gravity, Bourbonitis Blues, and A Man Under the Influence. While there’s still some dark stuff on the album ("Died a Little Today" cuts almost too close), on Saturday he also performed his more effusive songs that speak to optimism.
Despite the respect Escovedo has been culling among fans and critics, his seriousness and his blunt lyrics might not be for everyone. Escovedo’s music is not the postmodern voice-imitating-violin stuff that Sasha Frere Jones writes about Thom Yorke of Radiohead in this week’s New Yorker. Though a hybrid of genres influences his playing, Alejandro is a traditional singer-songwriter and an honest, straightforward one at that. Should you choose to listen, you may find that even when the tale is filled with guilt, resignation, and darkness, that ultimately the telling leads somewhere resonant and good.
Photos by Eric London.