• Alejandro Escovedo & the Sensitive Boys Album Release
• 7:00pm

Please Note: Bobby Bare Jr. will not be playing as the opener this evening.  Alejandro Escovedo will go on promptly at 8 p.m. as this is a live WFUV broadcast.

ABOUT ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO

Escovedo's music can range from full force rock'n'roll to the subtle delicacy heard from a string quartet, sometimes in the same song. Fricke describes him well as "a folk-blues classicist with a gritty, plaintive voice and an equal fondness for dirty boogie and spectral balladry." That approach has distinguished Escovedo as one of contemporary music's truly original and unique artists, earning him consistent critical hosannas. The breadth and depth of his creativity prompted No Depression magazine to name him its Artist of the Decade even before the close of the 1990s.

Alejandro Escovedo's family tree includes former Santana percussionist Pete Escovedo and Pete's daughter Sheila E (also Prince's former drummer and later a pop star). He began his music career with the Nuns, a mid-'70s punk band based in San Francisco. He co-founded the pioneering cowpunk band Rank and File in 1979, which moved to Austin, TX, in 1981 after a stint in New York City. The band released Sundown on Slash Records in 1982, but shortly after, Escovedo left to form the True Believers with brother Javier. The band recorded two albums for EMI and toured the country, often as an opening act for Los Lobos. However, EMI opted not to release the second album, which eventually led to the group's breakup. (It eventually surfaced as a bonus item when Rykodisc reissued the first set on CD in 1994.)

Escovedo released a solo album in 1992 on Watermelon Records, Gravity, uniting his wide variety of styles; the album was produced by Stephen Bruton of Bonnie Raitt's band. Escovedo also began gigging periodically with the band Buick MacKane, which fused old-school punk with '70s glam rock; after Rykodisc released Escovedo's With These Hands in 1996, they followed it up with Buick MacKane's long-awaited album. After Escovedo parted ways with Rykodisc, he signed in 1998 with the Chicago-based alt-country label Bloodshot, which released the live album More Miles Than Money: Live 1994-1996 and the acclaimed studio set A Man Under the Influence.

In April 2003, Escovedo collapsed following a show in Phoenix, AZ, after which it was subsequently revealed that he had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C in late '90s but had not sought treatment. An outpouring of support from musicians led to a series of successful benefit concerts to help pay Escovedo's medical expenses and keep his music before the public, followed by a tribute album, Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo, which was released in 2004. In 2006, Escovedo released Boxing Mirror and toured with the Alejandro Escovedo String Quintet to promote the album. His next album, Real Animal, was produced by Tony Visconti and released in June 2008.

Escovedo returns in 2010 with a new album scheduled for release in June, Street Songs of Love. Join us for two exceptional nights of poetry.

ABOUT BOBBY BARE JR.

With a room-filling persona, an ability to rock the doors off any club big or small, the chops to keep a crowd spellbound with just his guitar, and a genius for arrangement, Bobby Bare, Jr. is a truly unique performers. Adept at abandoning common sense in favor of laying himself at the feet of a rambunctious, freewheeling, and unfettered and unhinged muse, Bare Jr. throws himself full tilt into every performance.

As the front man for Bare Jr., Bare was part of a small and appealing Knoxville TN, scene that included the talented Superdrag. Skirting the power-pop tinged country strain of electric Southern rock, Bobby Bare Jr., is one highly talented songwriter. Raised in Nashville, he was nominated for a Grammy at age 5, albeit for a duet with his father, singer Bobby Bare. His music upbringing was shaped by his proximity to luminaries like Waylon Jennings and Jerry Reed, both close friends of his father, and their country influence resides just under the surface.