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Alejandro Escovedo comes out brawling on his 11th studio album in two decades, Big Station (Fantasy/Concord). The Texas-based singer-songwriter just turned 61, but he’s never had a higher profile, thanks to recent collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, and his music has never sounded bolder.
“I can take a punch, I can take a swing,” Escovedo barks on “Man of the World,” a self-mocking ode to a guy who struts from disaster to disaster – a compressed history of a career marked by wrong turns.
Escovedo’s ability to synthesize music from a wide variety of sources – he’s blended everything from classical music to punk in the same song – has made him tough to pin down. But in producer Tony Visconti, the legendary figure behind the early work of David Bowie and T. Rex, among others, Escovedo has found a true artistic foil. This is their third album in a row together, and it’s their best, in large measure because Escovedo’s growing confidence as a band leader and especially as a vocalist has never been more apparent. — Chicago Tribune