Posts Tagged ‘ Alejandro Escovedo ’

[photos by PSquared Photography]

It is not hyperbole to say that Alejandro Escovedo is an American treasure. The authenticity and intensity of his songwriting abilities have produced a forty-year body of work that places him among the very upper echelon of his era’s artists. It is perhaps the greatest acknowledgement of the quality of an artist when other artists cover the material, and for Escovedo’s work this happens so often that a two-CD tribute called Por Vida was released in 2004 featuring a veritable who’s-who of the best alt-country and americana artists. My own personal experience was seeing Joe Ely cover Escovedo at the Bowery Ballroom in the late 90’s, playing (what else) “Down in the Bowery”. It was a stunning rendition that gave great tribute to his friend — Ely and Alejandro have toured together several times.

You can tell a lot about the quality of artist through their friends. And with Escovedo, this time around he’s on tour with Los Lobos — artists who have also toured together many times over the years. When this tour came through the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester a couple of weeks back, it was truly a show to catch. We arrived early to make sure not to miss any of Alejandro’s set, which began at a very prompt 8:10pm. Playing acoustic guitar accompanied only by superb violinst Warren Hood (the son of another Escovedo friend Champ Hood), this was the stripped-down and intimate Alejandro set, even given the size of the venue. As he has done in recent tours, Escovedo’s set was a career retrospective, accompanied by song introductions where he talked about his time in The Nuns, with Rank and File, and finally his personal history. It was a thoroughly enjoyable hour-long set and convinced me that we need more Alejandro Escovedo on NYCTaper in the future. Alejandro will be hosting his annual SXSW shows in Austin this coming weekend, dates and information here.

I recorded this set in the same fashion as the Los Lobos set posted earlier and the sound quality is equally superb. Enjoy!

This Recording is now available to Download in FLAC or MP3 Format or to Stream at Archive.org [HERE]

Stream “Swallows of San Juan”:

Stream “Down in the Bowery”:

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

Alejandro Escovedo
2015-03-06
Capitol Theatre
Port Chester NY

Digital Master Recording
FOB Audience

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:04:34]
01 Sally Was a Cop
02 [banter – Billy Smith]
03 Five Hearts Breaking
04 [banter – California]
05 San Antonio Rain
06 Dear Head on The Wall
07 Rosalie
08 Swallows of San Juan
09 [banter – Nuns]
10 Chelsea Hotel ’78
11 [banter – too much fun]
12 Arizona
13 [banter – Austin]
14 Bottom of the World
15 [Bowery off-mic aborted]
16 Down in the Bowery

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Alejandro Escovedo, visit his website, and purchase his official releases from the Store at his website [HERE].