Alejandro Escovedo Bourbonitis Blues CD

Personnel: Alejandro Escovedo (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars); Jon Langford (vocals, acoustic guitar); Kelly Hogan (vocals); Chris Stamey (guitar, bass, harmonium); Joe Eddy Hines (acoustic & electric guitars); Bill McCullough (pedal steel); David Perales (violin, background vocals); Brian Standefer (cello); Melissa Swingle (harmonica, background vocals); Glenn Fukunaga, Tom V. Ray (bass); Chris Phillips (drums, percussion); Hector Munoz (drums).
Engineers include: Tim Harper, Chris Stamey, Alan Durham.
Recorded at Modern Recordings, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Bassett Sound, Austin, Texas; and live at FitzGerald's, Berwyn, Illinois.
Personnel: Alejandro Escovedo (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Jon Langford (vocals, acoustic guitar); Kelly Hogan (vocals); Chris Stamey (guitar, harmonium); Joe Eddy Hines (acoustic guitar, electric guitar); David Perales (violin, background vocals); Brian Standefer (cello); Melissa Swingle (harmonica, background vocals); Chris Phillips (drums, percussion); Hector Muñoz (drums).
Audio Mixer: Mycle Konopka.
Recording information: Bassett Sound, Austin, TX; FitzGerald's Berwyn, IL; Modern Recording, Chapel Hill, NC.
Photographers: Maya Escovedo; Todd V. Wolfson.
After Alejandro Escovedo's relationship with Rykodisc came to a sudden halt following the release of an album by his glam punk side project Buick MacKane, he released two stopgap albums while writing the material for 2001's masterful A Man Under the Influence. More Miles Than Money: Live 1994-96 was a superb document of Escovedo's startlingly intimate live shows, but Bourbonitis Blues sounds like an odds-and-ends EP of covers, live tracks, and a few token new cuts that was somehow stretched to a 38-minute LP. The disc only features four original songs (one of which, "Guilty," is a remake of a tune from With These Hands), and while "I Was Drunk" is excellent, "Sacramento and Polk" and "Everybody Loves Me" suggest he was saving most of his A-list material for his next proper album. The rest of Bourbonitis Blues is filled up with covers, most of which are well worth hearing, especially his heart-rendering reading of Ian Hunter's "Irene Wilde," and a slow, ominous take on the Gun Club's "Sex Beat." But since Jon Langford happens to be singing lead on the take of "California Blues" featured here, it's not certain just what it's doing on an Alejandro Escovedo record. There isn't anything bad on Bourbonitis Blues, but there isn't a lot that's truly distinguished, either, and it's something of disappointment coming from one of the best singer/songwriters to emerge in the 1990s. ~ Mark Deming
Alejandro Escovedo has an impressive resume: he was a member of one of the first San Francisco punk bands, the Nuns, and was in one of the early country-punk bands, Rank & File, as well as the under-rated Austin roots-rockers the True Believers. He's related to both Pete Escovedo and Sheila E, and on his WITH THESE HANDS (Rykodisc) album, his backup included Willie Nelson and Jennifer Warnes. On BOURBONITIS BLUES, he mixes evocative originals ("I Was Drunk," "Sacramento & Polk") with well-chosen and unusual covers (John Cale's "Amsterdam," a tantalizingly slow take on the Gun Club's "Sex Beat," Ian Hunter's "Irene Wilde") to show his scope as an artist.
Escovedo shows a rare grasp of rock & roll history, and the blues and country roots it sprang from. Moreover, he doesn't merely rehash/recycle the past, he builds on it. His originals are thoughtful and intensely personal but never self-absorbed, and they rock with a controlled passion that recalls the Rolling Stones in their early 1970s prime. Alejandro Escovedo proves that late-night raunch can be put across with sensitivity (the instrumentation includes cello and pedal steel guitar) and quiet, introspective songs can have a sharp, hidden edge.CMJ (4/19/99, p.5) - "...Escovedo's warm, richly melancholic vocals only increase the emotional punch of these tales of inner turmoil....Escovedo's legend is finally - and deservedly - spreading far beyond his Texas homeland."
Guitar Magazine (7/99, pp.99-100) - "...Escovedo still leans hard and heavy on the rail....[his] originals...ring loudest with bitter truths."