I know there are some fans. I woulda missed this, but I got a Post before my interviews yesterday, and read the entire print edition for the first time in around 4 years.

ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO IS A SURVIVOR

ALEJANDRO Escovedo got a late start -- he didn't begin playing guitar until 24 and didn't start writing until he was in his thirties. After stints in the punk Nuns and pioneering cowpunk quartet Rank and File, Escovedo began to find his voice in the mid-'80s with shambolic rockers the True Believers, but even there he was not the central writer.


Yet at the end of the '90s, No Depression magazine named Escovedo its "Artist of the Decade" for a body of work that began with his first two solo albums, "Gravity" and "Thirteen Years," mournful song cycles that chronicled his sorrow and anguish after the dissolution of his 13-year marriage and suicide of his estranged wife. Escovedo's catalogue now includes eight compelling albums ranging from raucous roots and Tex-Mex rock to elegant chamber pop underpinning eloquent, insightful lyrics that most frequently address the vagaries of love.

"It seems that every time that I've written something that I really feel strongly about, it's as a result of something going quite awry," says Escovedo, now 54, from his Texas home halfway between Austin and San Antonio. "It's always coming from a dark little room somewhere."


In which case Escovedo's next album should be cathartic: Over the past few years, things were going quite awry with Escovedo's health, to the point that, for the first time in decades, he was facing life without music, and, crucially for a father of seven, without a source of income.


"On the level that I'm at, you don't really get any money from royalties," Escovedo says. "We don't have a lot of radio support and you've really got to sell a lot of records to make money as a songwriter, so it's just about going out and playing live and selling records at the venues."


Cause and effect: "When [the Nuns] started out [in 1977], the punk rock ethic was to do it yourself, so the first thing we did was get in a van and go play for people. We would just travel," Escovedo recalls. "In the True Believers, I was booking all the shows, and we were doing at least 250 a year for years and years. With Rank and File, the same thing, and then the solo career, the same thing, just working as hard as possible."


And living hard as well. Escovedo has acknowledged drinking and drugs as temptations of touring, and they eventually took their toll: He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1996, when he was in the midst of a grueling tour to support his "With These Hands" album. Friends had been telling him he was beginning to look worse than Keith Richards.


"I had gotten really sick then," Escovedo says. "We had toured seven months straight, sometimes doing an in-store, a radio show and two shows a night. At that point . . . interferon treatment was a lot stronger than it is now. It was basically what they gave to cancer patients, and the success rate was less than 30 percent for someone in my age group and gender. My doctor at the time told me what she told her AIDS patients: Just go out and live the best life you can for as long as you can."


At that point the wind was completely taken out of his sails, Escovedo admits. "I just sat on my couch for a couple of months."


Like all too many musicians, Escovedo had no health insurance. He adopted what he calls "a moderate lifestyle," including no alcohol.


"And I did the thing that made me happy -- I went back to playing music," he says. "I would have a drink now and then. But you get a little cocky with that whole sense of 'I can survive this,' and what was moderation became the old lifestyle again."


And it came crashing down in April 2003, when Escovedo collapsed after a performance in Phoenix. Rushed to a hospital, he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver caused by hepatitis C.


"It was in really serious, serious disrepair," Escovedo explains. "I had varices in the esophagus, which were bleeding, advanced cirrhosis of the liver and what they thought were tumors and ulcers in my abdomen, which was also bleeding. I was in bad shape. Doctors told me I needed a liver transplant, and that was scary. They were also talking about shunts, where they bypass the plural veins that go to the liver. That also had some very horrible side effects which I didn't want to deal with -- dementia, loss of muscle activity so I couldn't use my arms. . . . It just wasn't a great option."


Neither were the temporary ones suggested when Escovedo got back to Austin, where, he says, "there's a lot of musician/doctors, which is kind of a squirrelly thought. One of them I went to said, 'Oh, I'll patch you up and have you back on the road in three or four months.'

"And I thought: That's not what I want. I want to watch my kids grow up. I want to live to be an old man. I want to watch my grandkids play in the yard. I want to find a way to survive this. It wasn't even about beating it -- I just wanted to learn to live with it so I could live a longer and fuller life."


Escovedo says that was the most difficult time. "Not only was I facing this life and death situation physically, spiritually it was hard for me to rise above all of that, because suddenly I couldn't do something that was such a complete part of me for almost 30 years. I began to question my worth: What do I do now? How do I take care of my family now? I can see where people lose hope sometimes, especially after I began taking interferon, because part of the result of taking that is there's a lot of psychological depression, a lot of self-doubt about what the future was."



The future included a program combining interferon and ribavirin, aimed at getting rid of the virus, but with its own set of severe side effects, apparently rare for most people, but, sadly, not for Escovedo. "It was pretty horrible," he reports. "It's like you send an army into your blood system, and it destroys everything in its path. I was extremely tired, fatigued, and after nine months of taking the medicine, my immune system broke down again and the medicine began to eat my bone marrow. They were talking about blood transfusions, and I had this premature aging disease, wasn't producing any muscle mass. . . . My hair fell out, my skin was on fire."


"I was knocking on death's door again."


Seven months ago, Escovedo stopped taking the drugs, opting for a more holistic approach.


"I just quit, said, 'I can't take it' -- it was killing me. And I began to feel better right away. At that point, we did one last blood test and the disease was undetectable in my system, so it had done what it was supposed to do."


When he'd been on the medicine, Escovedo had stopped playing guitar and pretty much lost interest in music. "When I first got sick, I thought of it as the reason I got sick, and I turned away from the thing that had been the closest to me," he says. Without insurance, he suddenly found himself overwhelmed with medical bills. His only source of income, touring, was not an option.


But Escovedo was so well thought of by his peers that two dozen benefits for him were held throughout the country, and goodwill built up over decades of touring crystallized when 31 artists -- friends, fans, family and former band mates -- signed on for "Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo." Among those contributing to what necessarily became a double CD: Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, John Cale, Calexico, Los Lonely Boys, the Jayhawks, Son Volt, Charlie Sexton and Cowboy Junkies. Part of the proceeds went to the Alejandro Escovedo Medical & Living Expense Fund, with another portion helping an assistance program for other musicians with hepatitis C.


"I was still pretty sick when all of that started to happen, and I'd sit there just crying listening to this stuff, it was so moving for me," says Escovedo about listening as covers came pouring in from across the country. "For years, people have asked me, 'Aren't you bitter that you're not more popular, don't sell more records,' whatever. I've always said I never got into it for that reason. I was 24 when I first picked up a guitar, and I only started playing music because I wanted to make a movie, so for me it wasn't about being a pop star and it never has been.


"For me, it was my friends, my family, my songs. We were all part of the same community, really. When you're out traveling and playing and working, you don't really think about what kind of impression you've made on people, but obviously it did, because when suddenly I was in this situation, I was so lucky to have people around me who helped me. That was the medicine, really. That's what's helped me more than anything, that support, that love, that compassion."


Last March, Escovedo extended a long tradition by closing Austin's annual South by Southwest music conference with a two-hour show at the Continental Club, the first time he'd performed in almost a year; he'll be doing the honors again next month. He also created a soundtrack for an indie film "Robbing Peter" and, most importantly, began writing songs again.


"I was in this situation where I was so saturated with emotion that it was hard to write, it was very difficult to sort it all out," Escovedo says. "I didn't know what to write about, didn't want it to be all about that one thing. All I had to do was settle down and let it come out and just kind of embrace whatever comes out and work with it. I've written some songs that I really enjoy, including one for my father who passed away [last] February, and one about what happened in Arizona. . . . It's all starting to pour out again so I don't think we're going to be at a loss for material."


He's done a few shows in Texas, but a weekend of Chicago concerts earlier this month marked Escovedo's first out-of-state trip in two years. He's taking it slow: His only March shows are Thursday at the Barns of Wolf Trap, March 4 at the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis and Saturday in Philadelphia. Escovedo will be traveling with a quintet that features cellists Matt Fish and Brian Standefer, violinist Susan Voelz and David Polkingham and himself on acoustic guitars.


"It's going to be a cool show," he says. As for being a part-time road warrior, "I love it, man, it's perfect for me at this point in my life. I feel real excited about music and playing and my bandmates, who've been so supportive over these last couple of years. I'm just really enjoying myself.


"It wasn't easy to get here," he adds. "Needless to say, it's been a pretty hard decade, but I feel pretty good. I love where I live, I love being able to spend so much time with my kids and relating to them the way I can now, and just being a different person for them. I never beat myself up about being a bad father because I was trying in the only way I knew how to survive and give them what they needed. Now I seem to be able to give them so much more.


"When my kids were born [they range in age from 2 to 33], I'd get to see them for a little while but not very long at all and then I'd be off on the road again. This is the first time I've gotten to spend consistent time with my children. I wish I wouldn't have felt the way I felt, but at least I was closer to them, and we've had discussions about life and spirituality and music and art, all these conversations we never had before."

Great read - thanks for posting it.

he's one of those artists that i think is very well "known" in austin, but, not really given the credit/respect he deserves.

nice.

Makes me appreciate him that much more.

HEY! I grew up halfway between A-Tex and SA!!! I wonder if he's living in my childhood home...

Saw AE play in front of about 75 people in NJ last year...almost felt sorry for him, as he deserves much bigger crowds.

Mike Watt put out a great CD coming off an illness...we'll see what Alejandro can do. My money's on him.