Alejandro Escovedo recently performed “Always a Friend” with Bruce Springsteen.
By Todd Lavoie
How about some good news for a change? Alejandro Escovedo’s comeback keeps getting stronger.
When the singer-songwriter collapsed post-show back in 2003 after contracting Hepatitis C, the outlook was pretty grim – as it turned out, he had had the disease for several years, and his body was in greatly compromised condition. Consequently, his musical career had to be back-burnered for a few years, to allow time for recovery – surely a painful option for the musician, who had more or less been playing nonstop ever since forming San Francisco punk legends the Nuns back in the mid-’70s.
His return to recording, 2006’s The Boxing Mirror (Back Porch), was a triumphant, frequently touching announcement of recuperation, but the just-released Real Animal (Back Porch/ Manhattan/Blue Note Label Group) resolves any fleeting doubts about the state of Escovedo’s health after his brush with death.