Acclaimed Mexican-American singer-writer Alejandro Escovedo is headed to Newcastle. As part of his Australian tour, Alejandro will play an intimate show at Lizotte’s Newcastle on 5 March with a band that includes You Am I frontman, Tim Rogers on guitar.
Alejandro’s rise as a solo artist was adjacent to that of the alt-country-slash-Americana movement, and as the scene’s pioneer he was named “Artist of the Decade” in 1998 (they named him early because he was the only front-runner) by the movement’s influential journal No Depression. His annual performances at Austin’s SXSW festival, the patronage of key international media including Rolling Stone and Uncut, and the support of influential Chicago label Bloodshot Records all conspired to push Alejandro to the forefront of the Americana scene by the turn of the century.
Alejandro’s latest album, The Crossing, released in September 2018 on Yep Roc and one of the most acclaimed of his career, looks at matters of immigration and the broken Promised Land that is America through the focused and unflinching poetry Alejandro is known for. Recorded with Italian musician Antonio Gramentieri, the album tells a story of a pair of young Mexican and Italian musicians trying to find a home in today’s America. It includes cameos from underground rock royalty in the personages of MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, Stooges guitarist James Williamson and Peter Perrett and John Perry of The Only Ones (recording together for the first time in over 40 years), as well as Texan country great Joe Ely and acclaimed novelist and Richmond Fontaine/Delines songwriter Willy Vlautin.
