BITTERSWEET HEART OF THE RODEO

In the year that “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’N’ Roll),” AC/DC’s bagpiped salute to art being a job, was released, Alejandro Escovedo was 24 years old. Despite belonging to a family that already counted multiple members of Santana amongst its numbers, Alejandro was not a musician. Worse, he was a Stooges fan, years before being an Iggy Pop fan meant you were contractually obligated to start a band. That was the year that Escovedo, as a film student at College of Marin who needed a band for a student film about musicians who couldn’t play their instruments, picked up a guitar. It is indeed a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. What’s left unsaid is that, if you want to rock and roll, even if you don’t care about the top, even if you suspect that the top is mainly for phonies and cornballs, even if you’re intent on carving your own path, well, that’s a bit of a hike as well.

Born one of 13 children in San Antonio on Jan. 10, 1951, Alejandro Escovedo is a rock ’n’ roller, in the traditional sense. In that he knows the long way by heart and can pull off wearing hats that would make a square man crumble. Being amongst the first to play punk music in the Americas, he put the “alt" in “alt-country” long before the marketing division of counterculture came up with the appellation. He started off in a band he describes as “fuckups with guitars” with “no intention or, you know, ambition,” and ended up writing songs so enduring that they’ve been covered by such folk artists as Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, and Sheila E. (who also happens to be Escovedo's niece). The man has been up and down the proverbial mountain so many times that there are entire Escovedo blazed detours that could be named after him (with some, like “cowpunk,” that’d be much improved if they were).