Born in San Antonio in 1951 to a Mexican father and a Texan mother, Alejandro Escovedo moved with his family to Orange County when he was seven years old. The family eventually ended up in Chula Vista, giving Escovedo lifelong San Diego ties. In the 1980s he moved back to Texas and has been there ever since, mostly in the Austin area.
Formative years in the 1970s and ’80s with punk band the Nuns, cowpunk pioneers Rank and File, and fiery roots-rockers the True Believers prepared him for a solo career that began with 1992’s acclaimed “Gravity.” More than a dozen albums have followed, documenting Escovedo’s eclectic musical range from singer-songwriter to glam-rocker to Americana trailblazer to chamber-folk innovator and beyond.
On April 25, he returns to San Diego to play the headlining slot at the Adams Avenue Unplugged festival. Escovedo is a huge fan of last year’s headliner, legendary British musician Terry Reid, so he said it was an honor when the festival approached him to be this year’s featured act.
For the latest installment of our “Five Questions” series, we spoke with Escovedo about his San Diego connections and memories, his plans for an eventful 2026, and the recent passing of his True Believers bandmate Jon Dee Graham.
I understand you’re playing solo acoustic for the Adams Avenue Unplugged headlining show at Normal Heights United Church. How often do you play solo shows, and do you stick to more acoustic material or do you adapt noisier band songs to the solo format?
I do a solo tour of a couple weeks every year. I’ve been doing 90 minutes. A lot of it is storytelling. Some of it has to do with whatever songs might be on my mind that day. I do everything. I’ve done “Castanets,” I’ve done “Chelsea Hotel,” I do “Everybody Loves Me.” I have even done “Sacramento & Polk” (one of Escovedo’s edgiest rockers) in my solo show. I do this kind of noir version of it.
I’ve been wondering if playing Adams Avenue Unplugged has rekindled memories of your appearances at San Diego’s (now-defunct) Street Scene Festival in the 1990s. What do you remember about those gigs, or perhaps shows at other venues in the area?
I used to do Street Scene a lot with the band. In fact, “More Miles Than Money,” (1997) the live record, has a version of (the Rolling Stones’) “Sway” from Street Scene. One of the cool things about the festival was that I got to see Jeremy Spencer from Fleetwood Mac. He was just doing all these covers, like “Johnny B. Goode” and stuff. But I loved his guitar playing, so it was cool to see him.
That was a great festival. I just loved it. I saw a lot of great bands, and a lot of my friends played it – Los Lobos, the Paladins, the Blasters – so it was always cool to see everybody. But I got to see a lot of things I’d never seen before, which was great too. They took good care of us, and they put us up in a hotel.
I did some shows with Los Lobos at Humphrey’s. There was another club that we used to play — I think it was called the Spirit Club. Rank and File played there, and the True Believers too. But most of my memories are of the Casbah and the Belly Up. Those two places were very instrumental in my gigging career, early on. (Those bonds continue; Escovedo played the Belly Up in July 2024 and the Casbah in October 2025.)
Can you tell me about your years growing up in Orange County and San Diego, and do you still have family members here?
Most of them have moved away. Javier (Alejandro’s True Believers bandmate) still lives down there. My sister Dolly moved to Menifee, and my sister Cookie moved up closer to Costa Mesa. So I think Javier is the only one left. Mario (frontman for rock band the Dragons) moved to Connecticut; he’s working for ESPN over there.
When our family moved from San Antonio to Southern California (in the late 1950s), we lived in Huntington Beach. I used to surf down in San Diego all the time. We surfed Trestles, and Ocean Beach, and Swamis, and Torrey Pines, and La Jolla, and Black’s — all these great surf spots down there. So I was always down there, and going down to Mexico. My family loved Rosarito Beach in Baja, so we were always traveling through San Diego.
When my youngest brother Mario had some sort of lung issues, my parents wanted to get to an even more mild environment. So they moved down to Chula Vista. I did not move with them, because I was out of the house at 15, but they moved — all my brothers and sisters and my mom and dad. So I was down there all the time. Actually, before all that happened, my dad and I got kicked out of the house at the same time. I was 15, so my dad and I lived in National City for a year. I went to school at Sweetwater High for a while. It was a lonely year; I couldn’t wait to get back to Huntington Beach and my friends.
When the Nuns happened (in the mid-1970s), I made friends with Tony and Chip Kinman, who became Rank and File. They lived in Carlsbad, so I was down there all the time. Their father was the commandant at the Army and Navy Academy.
Your last album, Echo Dancing, came out in 2024. Are you working on a new one yet, and do you have other plans for the rest of 2026?
Well, we just released a live record. We did three nights at the Continental Club (in Austin). It’s called “South Congress Serenade,” and it’s with the Electric Saints (keyboardist Scott Danbom and drummer Mark Henne), plus James Mastro played with us on that gig. I think I’m going to bring some of the live record to sell (in San Diego).
I just finished a record called “My Ego Broke My Fall,” which will be out October 2 on Yep Roc. It was produced by Britt Daniel (of Spoon) and Charlie Sexton, with the Electric Saints. And I’m going to Majorca in May to make a record with Sami Yaffa, who was in Hanoi Rocks and the New York Dolls. He also had a wonderful travel music program from Finland called Sound Tracker. It’s kind of like Anthony Bourdain, but music. It’s really great.
In August, I’m going to Hawaii for the first time. I’m doing a show on Maui with Los Lobos. They asked me to come and do six songs with them. And then I fly over to Honolulu for two nights with the Electric Saints.
You lost a longtime friend and a very important former bandmate in late March when True Believers guitarist Jon Dee Graham died at age 67 after a series of illnesses. Do you have any thoughts to share about him?
I was really surprised by how hard it hit me. It shook me up in a way I wasn’t expecting. When we played the Continental (in early April), I spoke a lot about John Dee and our relationship, and about the True Believers. The encore was “Rebel Kind” and “One Moment to Another” (the latter a song Graham wrote). It was really beautiful. We had everyone singing “One Moment to Another” in the audience.
It was really a special night. I think everyone came not just to see our show, but to remember John too. I was signing records afterward, because we had our new live record, and everybody said such nice things about John and the True Believers. People who had seen shows back then were showing me photographs that they had from the old days.
I might do “One Moment to Another” in San Diego. It’s a beautiful song. Jon Dee told me that words are from a peyote prayer, or some sort of indigenous prayer. The True Believers did a great version of it. The other song of his that I loved playing was “Sleep Enough To Dream.” I heard those True Believers records again recently, and they still sound pretty good. We had a good thing.
