Alejandro Escovedo Albums (10)
What The Critics Say
Alejandro Escovedo's 1992 album Gravity was one of the most strikingly accomplished debuts of the decade, though it helped that Escovedo had been playing music since the mid-'70s and making records with various bands (most notably Rank and File and the True Believers) since the early '80s. But the scope, ambition, and striking emotional impact of Gravity would have been impressive coming from someone with twice Escovedo's résumé, and it was merely the first salvo in a solo career that has seen him go from strength to strength as a writer, singer, and arranger with each successive project, spinning tales of lives in the balance with the skill of a gifted novelist. Escovedo's first two solo albums, Gravity and Thirteen Years, were originally released by the Texas-based independent label Watermelon Records, but they went into limbo when Watermelon went out of business. In 2002 they were reissued in expanded form by another independent outfit, Texas Music Group, who that same year released By the Hand of the Father, an album of songs Escovedo wrote for a play about the lives of Mexican immigrants in the United States. An Introduction brings together 14 tracks from the Texas Music Group editions of these three albums -- four selections from Gravity, four from Thirteen Years, two from By the Hand of the Father, and four live recordings that were included on bonus discs with the reissues of the first two albums. As an overview of Escovedo's career, this is pretty skimpy, but as a sampler of his early solo work, it's impressive stuff. The compilation manages to cherrypick the most memorable moments from each album (though curiously, the two songs drawn from By the Hand of the Father are the same two Escovedo re-recorded for his excellent album for Bloodshot, A Man Under the Influence), and if they lose a bit of their impact when taken out of context, the work remains strong enough to stand on its own. The album reveals a telltale sign of careless mastering -- no one bothered to clip off the song introductions that come at the end of the live tracks, so after "Bury Me/Hard Road," Escovedo announces his cover of Ian Hunter's "I Wish I Was Your Mother," which doesn't appear until eight selections later -- and the liner notes are sloppy at best. But there are 71 minutes of superb music from one of America's best and most singular songwriters on this disc, and there are far worse ways to become acquainted with Alejandro Escovedo's work. (An even better way is to simply get all three of the albums featured on this collection, which will be issued in full by Floating World.) ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
It may be simplistic to describe Alejandro Escovedo's 2006 album The Boxing Mirror as a record inspired by the artist's brush with death, but given the record's back story -- it was recorded as Escovedo was recovering from a near-fatal bout with Hepatitis C -- it's hard not to imagine its brave and often dazzling creative ambition was fueled by Escovedo's knowledge that these could be his last words as a musician. Two years later, a healthier and stronger Escovedo returned to the studio to record his ninth studio album, Real Animal, and by comparison this is a leaner, more tightly focused session; in fact, this is the strongest rock album Escovedo has made since his 1997 album with Buick MacKane, The Pawn Shop Years. It's easy to tag Real Animal as a less ambitious and artful collection than The Boxing Mirror, but viewed on its own merits this ranks with the best and most powerful music of Escovedo's career. Like The Boxing Mirror, which was produced by John Cale, Real Animal was recorded with a producer who worked with some of Escovedo's primal influences, Tony Visconti, and his recordings with David Bowie and T. Rex doubtless helped him connect with Escovedo the smart but swaggering rocker in a way Cale did not; this set of songs is every bit as intelligent and emotionally resonant as Escovedo's best work, but it moves with a taut energy and insistent force that informs even the quieter, acoustic oriented numbers, such as the bluesy "People (We're Only Gonna Live So Long)," and the plaintive "Hollywood Hills." While Escovedo wrote the tunes on Real Animal with Chuck Prophet, the songs bear his stylistic hallmarks and melodic sensibilities throughout, and these stories are dotted with places and events from Escovedo's past -- discovering music as a kid ("Golden Bear"), his days as a San Francisco punk rocker ("Nun's Song"), flirting with the New York bohemian scene ("Chelsea Hotel '78"), and barnstorming with a rock & roll band ("Chip 'N' Tony"). Even when the cues to Escovedo's past aren't obvious, there's too much heart, soul, and blood in this music to not to have come directly from his heart, and he's seemingly incapable of singing from any other place, giving this music an emotional power that reaches down to the soul. If The Boxing Mirror was a work influenced by the shadow of mortality, Real Animal is an album about life -- both as survival and as the faces and moments that fill our days on this Earth. How many artists could make two masterpieces in a row that are so different? And how much do you want to bet that Escovedo still has one or two more records this good in him? ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The Boxing Mirror is Alejandro Escovedo's first album in four years. On it he stands at the crossroads of his own life's work. Escovedo has always kept his music balanced on a fine line: on one side is his trademark elegant, poetic brand of sophisticated pop, and on the other is an original, tough, savvy rock & roll that encompasses not only grit but texture and dynamic while keeping its eyes on the street. On The Boxing Mirror, Escovedo and producer John Cale erase the line: rock, pop, country, Tejano, and other folk forms are woven into a rich, colorful fabric without regard for classification. His studio band is the finest he's ever assembled, and it includes guitarist Jon Dee Graham, violinist Susan Voelz, cellist Brian Standefer, primary bassist Mark Andes, drummer Hector Muñoz , Bruce Salmon on keyboards, accordionist Otoño Lujan, and guitarist David Polkingham. If ever there were an album to introduce new listeners to Escovedo's music, it's The Boxing Mirror. This one has to do it. It's rich, lush, and full of small silences and roars. The rocker "Break This Time" is a straight-out guitar scream that could have been performed by Escovedo's former band, the True Believers--if they had strings. They add to the bottom in this poignant track, as the guitars wail and shuffle with garage rock abandon and a smoking, wildly distorted six-string solo played by Graham (an amazingly gifted songwriter in his own right). Graham plays another one, as does Cale, in the album's final rock freakout, "One True Love" (written with Chris Stamey during the Man Under the Influence sessions), which closes the set. Yet this is hardly the whole story -- in fact, it's not even the beginning. Escovedo's sense of drama is in place on every track here, such as the album's moody opener, "Arizona." Keyboards open it with strange, displaced sounds that are quickly picked up by the strings and bassline. He sings "Have another drink on me/I've been empty since Arizona/I turned my back on me/And I faced the face I thought I was...." His lyric articulation in this noir-ish desert expressionist tale digs right into the middle of the instrumentation, which folds him in. The tempo picks up on "Dear Head on the Wall," written with poet and Bulgarian refugee cum Texas resident Kim Christoff -- who also co-wrote the title cut and "Notes on Air" with Standefer and others (the only track Escovedo didn't write or co-write). The cello is the driving instrument on "Dear Head on the Wall," and Voelz's violin fills the space between sung lines as the drums pump the entire thing into a gorgeous if deeply melancholy orchestral pop tune. The aforementioned darkly surreal "Notes on Air" is introduced by electric guitar, and it guides a midtempo country-rock tune whose dynamics are the most shattering on the entire album. The mood picks up in the pop/rocker "Looking for Love," a richly textured poignant observation on love that is offset by hooks and gorgeous harmony singing. On the latter half of the set, the beautiful and tender "Evita's Lullaby" weaves together acoustic guitars, strings, drums, and Escovedo's evocative lyrics sung in a voice that seems to be saying goodbye even as the words come up from his belly. "Sacramento & Polk" is another blazing, distorted caterwauling rocker that could have come from Detroit in the late '60s. The off-kilter, hooky guitar and strings pop in "Take Your Place," sounding like an update of something on the Buddha label from the early '70s -- but it has sharp teeth and a sense of warmth and humor missing from bubblegum records. The Boxing Mirror is the album Escovedo has been striving to make his entire career. It is a conglomeration of styles, arrangements, and surfaces he has used before, but here it not only gels, it compels. This is rock & roll of an entirely different stripe. It's music that combines real-life poetry with a prismatic vision of life under the skin, in the place where the heart pumps real blood; emotions get tangled up in this mix and are expressed in unexpected, often uncomfortabe, ways. The Boxing Mirror reels and struts, waltzes, and falls down, but always gets back up again. Rock & roll music has been extended in the various articulations of these songs. In the 21st century, this is what singer/songwriter albums are supposed to sound like. The Boxing Mirror is brilliant, and it is his masterpiece. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'By the Hand of the Father'
Release Date 5/14/2002
Tracks 15
Label Texas Music Group
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The depth and feeling of By the Hand of the Father is a bit shocking. The project began as a play that premiered in Los Angeles in 2000 and has been stripped down to a handful of songs accompanied by voice-over texts. These songs and voice-overs weave a complex tapestry that explores the Mexican-American experience in the 20th century. Individuals leave their homeland, search for the American Dream, and attempt to hold on to their heritage. Alejandro Escovedo, who has written most of the lyrics and sings most of the vocals, stands at the center of this multi-faceted venture. "Rosalie" tells the tale of two lovers separated by "An ocean of powder and dust," who finally marry after a seven-year courtship punctuated by only seven visits. At the beginning of "Mexico Americano," the narrator recalls how his father always felt more Mexican than American until he joined the U.S. Army to defend a country "that was barely even his." These songs move forward in time, from the early 1900s to World War II to the Vietnam War. Heavy drums and a galloping guitar punctuate "Hard Road," a series of vignettes about the working lives of Mexican-Americans. Like other Americans, they hope their sons and daughters will be able to do better than them. By the Hand of the Father is a contemplative work of rare depth. By attempting to find meaning in the lives and stories of those who have come before them, Escovedo and friends have crafted a penetrating work of art that's also a joy to listen to. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., All Music Guide
'A Man Under the Influence'
Release Date 4/24/2001
Tracks 11
Label Bloodshot
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
"It's all about this love/It's all about this pain/It's all about the loss/We take to live again." Those lines hardly tell you everything there is to know about Alejandro Escovedo's songwriting, but he's rarely expressed his key themes with such strength and concision as he does in the first verse of "About This Love," and while Escovedo's fifth studio album, A Man Under the Influence, doesn't stray far from the musical and lyrical themes that have dominated his previous work, he's rarely (if ever) put the pieces together quite as well as he does here. Escovedo's latest lineup of his orchestra -- anchored by Brian Standefer on cello, Eric Heywood on pedal steel, Mike Daly on keyboards and guitar, Hector Munoz on drums, and Cornbread on bass -- sounds like his strongest and best controlled to date, as comfortable with the subtleties of "Wave" as the full-on rock of "Castanets." Quite simply, Escovedo has never sung better than he does on this set, running the emotional spectrum from plaintive longing to swaggering contempt and never sounding less than convincing at any stop along the way. And while Turner Stephen Bruton's production on Escovedo's first three studio albums was intelligent and intuitive, Chris Stamey's work on A Man Under the Influence suits him just as well while sounding clearer, sharper, and better focused; the sound catches the full range of Escovedo's personality while adding the sonic details that sometimes got lost on his previous records. And if love and loss still remain Escovedo's favorite themes, like Hank Williams or Leonard Cohen he seems to have something new and telling to say about them each time out; each of this album's 11 songs is worth hearing, and the cumulative effect is nothing less than stunning. No one who's heard Escovedo's work doubts his status as one of the finest singer/songwriters of his day, and he's never been heard to better advantage on disc than on A Man Under the Influence. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After Alejandro Escovedo's relationship with Rykodisc came to a sudden halt following the release of an album by his glam punk side project Buick MacKane, he released two stopgap albums while writing the material for 2001's masterful A Man Under the Influence. More Miles Than Money: Live 1994-96 was a superb document of Escovedo's startlingly intimate live shows, but Bourbonitis Blues sounds like an odds-and-ends EP of covers, live tracks, and a few token new cuts that was somehow stretched to a 38-minute LP. The disc only features four original songs (one of which, "Guilty," is a remake of a tune from With These Hands), and while "I Was Drunk" is excellent, "Sacramento and Polk" and "Everybody Loves Me" suggest he was saving most of his A-list material for his next proper album. The rest of Bourbonitis Blues is filled up with covers, most of which are well worth hearing, especially his heart-rendering reading of Ian Hunter's "Irene Wilde," and a slow, ominous take on the Gun Club's "Sex Beat." But since Jon Langford happens to be singing lead on the take of "California Blues" featured here, it's not certain just what it's doing on an Alejandro Escovedo record. There isn't anything bad on Bourbonitis Blues, but there isn't a lot that's truly distinguished, either, and it's something of disappointment coming from one of the best singer/songwriters to emerge in the 1990s. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After recording two superb albums for the tiny independent label Watermelon Records, Alejandro Escovedo moved up, if not to the big leagues, then at least to AAA ball, when he signed with Rykodisc for his third solo set, With These Hands. While Escovedo's arrangements (he calls his band an orchestra without exaggeration) and Turner Stephen Bruton's production on Gravity and Thirteen Years were strikingly ambitious given their tiny budgets, With These Hands found them with a bit more money at their disposal, and if their approach wasn't remarkably different, the results display more polish and audibly greater depth than before, and Escovedo was able to bring along a few celebrity guests -- among them Willie Nelson, Jennifer Warnes, and his cousin Sheila Escovedo (aka Sheila E) -- who add to the music without calling undue attention to themselves. Lyrically, after the deeply (and sometimes painfully) personal material of Gravity and Thirteen Years, With These Hands found Escovedo stepping a bit outside himself to tell stories less obviously based on his own life, though the results are as compelling (and ring as true) as his more autobiographical material, especially the failed rock star's lament of "Pissed Off 2 A.M.," the dead of night heartache of "Sometimes," and "Nickel and a Spoon"'s story of a devastated family. If With These Hands seems less immediately striking than the two albums that preceded it, that's only because it's less surprising -- with his first two solo albums, Alejandro Escovedo announced himself as a world class talent with a singular style, and if With These Hands doesn't break much new ground for him, it shows he's still in full command of his considerable gifts as a musician, and it's an impressive achievement. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The Austin singer-songwriter reaches deep once again, adding triple violins, harp, and cello to his palette of movingly introspective material. Overall, the expanded lineup provides for plenty of tonal space. Before the mood ever gets maudlin, Escovedo cranks up the volume with guest guitarist Charlie Sexton for "Losing Your Touch," and a playful rocker that could have come from The Replacements/Paul Westerberg camp. With the exception of this track, "Mountain of Mud," and the John Cougar-ish "The End," Thirteen Years keeps to fragile, graceful interiors. ~ Roch Parisien, All Music Guide
'The End/Losing Your Touch'
Release Date 1/1/1994
Tracks 6
Label Watermelon
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
While Alejandro Escovedo had shown plenty of versatility over the first 15 years of his career in music -- playing with early punk ravers the Nuns, prescient alt-country upstarts Rank and File, and roots rock firebrands the True Believers, among many others -- it wasn't until the Believers took shape that he began to display his formidable gifts as a songwriter, and with his first solo album, Gravity, Escovedo belatedly made it clear that he possessed one of the strongest and most distinctive lyrical voices of his generation. Opening with "Paradise," a haunting first-person narrative of a man about to be hanged, Gravity is a strikingly accomplished set of songs that deal with love ("Broken Bottle," "Five Hearts Breaking"), death ("She Doesn't Live Here Anymore"), and loss ("The Last to Know," the title song) in deeply personal terms, and Escovedo tells his stories with a talent for finely woven detail that would be the envy of a first-rate novelist. And the diversity of Escovedo's years of musical experience shows in the album's arrangements, which range from quiet, contemplative pieces structured around cello and piano ("Broken Bottle," "She Doesn't Live Here Anymore") to full-on, amped-up barrelhouse rock & roll ("Oxford," "One More Time"); Turner Stephen Bruton's clean, unobtrusive production gets all the details on tape with admirable clarity. Not every songwriter has the luxury of spending a decade and a half on the sidelines honing his craft before making a solo bow, but even with that advantage, there are few people who have the talent and vision to create an album as strong and moving as Gravity; to call it an "auspicious debut" is to risk understatement. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
