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.”