Alejandro Escovedo
 b. Alejandro Escovedo, 1951, San Antonio, Texas, USA. Singer-songwriter Escovedo is the seventh of 12 children born to a former Mexican prizefighter and musician. The family moved to Texas from the Mexican town of Saltillo when Escovedo was 12, before relocating to southern California by the late 50s. Several of his siblings subsequently became involved in the music industry - elder brothers Coke and Pete Escovedo becoming acclaimed Latin percussionists and Pete's daughter Sheila enjoying a successful pop career as Sheila E. Alejandro himself turned to music much later - only learning the guitar in the mid-70s after an abortive attempt at a film career.
The band formed to make a movie about an aspiring rock star were the same ones who would become the Nuns - his first band. An abrasive, challenging San Franciscan punk band, they served as a major influence on later bands from the region such as the Dead Kennedys without ever making significant progress themselves. He joined two further outfits in the 80s, the country rockers Rank And File and the "purist's guitar band", True Believers. In common with the Nuns, both these bands were expected to make mainstream progress, but neither did. When the True Believers finally collapsed in 1987, Escovedo was forced to take a job at a record store. It was not until 1992 that he returned to recording. That year's album, Gravity, documented the break-up of his 13-year marriage. His ex-wife also presented the subtext for the following year's collection, titled after the length of their relationship, when she committed suicide. These circumstances left Escovedo, who subsequently remarried, philosophical about the rock 'n' roll treadmill. "I want to survive playing music", he told Rolling Stone in 1996, "I want that to be the way my family feeds itself and I pay the rent." With These Hands documented a singer more at ease with himself, and a songwriter capable of talking unflinchingly about his own failures as well as his triumphs. "Pissed Off 2A.M.", in particular, managed to be both emotionally convincing and darkly humorous. Escovedo also tours Austin regularly with his side-band Buick MacKane, which allows him to retreat to the intensity of some of his former bands, and the Alejandro Escovedo Orchestra - conversely a brass and string big band.
Albums by Alejandro Escovedo:
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