Making Up for a Late Start : Alejandro Escovedo Was Slow Getting Into Music, but New CD Reflects Growth

When it comes to music, Alejandro Escovedo has always been somewhat of a late bloomer. He didn’t learn how to play guitar till he was 24, didn’t write his first song until he was 31 and now, at 45, appears to be hitting his creative stride with his third and latest solo album, “With These Hands.”

What’s particularly unusual about it is that this critically acclaimed singer-songwriter was born into a family with a seemingly dominant musical gene.

His Mexican-born father was once a mariachi singer. Older brothers Pete and Coke found success as percussionists in the Latin-rock band Santana. Another sibling, Javier, teamed up with him 10 years ago in a gifted but luckless band, True Believers. Then there’s niece Sheila E., the onetime Prince protege who had several hit singles in the mid-’80s.

But despite his musically rich heritage, Escovedo, who performs tonight at the Coach House, had little interest in playing music while growing up, first in San Antonio and then various Orange County communities.

“I remember when I was a kid my dad bought me a guitar,” Escovedo said during a recent phone interview from a tour stop in San Francisco. “I didn’t even ask for it. I took it apart, and I never put it back together. I didn’t learn how to play it until after my brother Javier put it back together.”

Things are certainly different now. “With These Hands” is a stirring and eclectic work that includes such gems as the folk-country ballad “Nickel and a Spoon” (featuring Willie Nelson), the Stones-like “Little Bottles” and the Latin-flavored title track, which includes five members of the Escovedo clan on percussion.

“I’m a lot more confident about [my music] than I have been,” he said. “I mean everything from singing to guitar playing to songwriting. . . . You reach a point where you feel what you’re doing is good and right. I tell people that sometimes it feels easy, which is misleading. But everything’s working.”

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Escovedo was just 7 when his father moved the family to Orange County from San Antonio.

“We had an old sedan,” he said. “We piled all the kids in there, and my mom, dad and grandmother all went west. I thought we were on vacation. We left our dog, our cat, our furniture, all our toys. We never looked back. . . . My father wanted us to be raised in a part of the country that supposedly wasn’t as prejudiced.

“He was also a plumber, and Texas was a right-to-work state; there’s no unions. He wanted to be in [a state where unions had stronger support].”

Escovedo formed his first band almost by accident in the mid-’70s while attending the College of Marin in Northern California. He was making a student film about a “strung out” rock singer in the mold of punk precursor Iggy Pop.

He decided to cast himself and several other amateur musicians as the protagonist’s sloppy backup band, in that little instrumental expertise was required. The group endured and became the Nuns, perhaps the first significant punk band in San Francisco.

In 1981, Escovedo briefly joined forces with the trailblazing country-punk band Rank and File. Two years later, he formed True Believers with younger brother Javier. That band released a well-reviewed if obscure roots-rock album in 1986. The group, now based in Austin, seemed primed for a commercial breakthrough when it signed to record its second album for heavyweight EMI Records.

EMI was just a month away from releasing the album in 1987 when it decided to drop the True Believers, along with a dozen other acts. The band could not find another label to pick up the album and reimburse EMI for recording costs to the tune of $100,000.

“My brother and I really put a lot into [the True Believers],” Escovedo said. “We really had a chance to cash in on a lot of critical praise. But there was so much legal baggage that we couldn’t get anybody to pick the album up. Then Javier left the group. I tried to keep it together, but it wasn’t the same. I felt like a failure.”

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Dispirited, Escovedo took a job working at an Austin record store. He gradually reentered that city’s lively local music scene as a solo performer and with a stylistically expansive group dubbed the Alejandro Escovedo Orchestra, which included a large string section. He also formed a gritty garage band called Buick MacKane. (That band will release an album this fall for Rykodisc.)

In 1991, his long-time girlfriend, Bobbi Levie, with whom he had recently broken up, committed suicide.

Escovedo’s mournful 1992 debut solo album, “Gravity,” explored the grief and emotional turmoil he felt after the tragedy. Escovedo had known Levie since the two were high school students in Huntington Beach in the late ‘60s.

“It was hard to write [those songs],” he said. “I knew Bobbi since she was 16, and she died when she was 39. I had been with her practically that whole time. So there’s always that presence there. When something like that happens, it’s like a tidal wave that affects everybody you know, especially the families.”

Escovedo moved on with his life. He married Dana Smith, a guitarist with Pork, an Austin all-female band. They have a son, Paris, and are also raising Maya and Paloma, Escovedo’s two daughters by Levie.

In addition, Escovedo has two grown daughters: Marseilla, 25, and Sha Shai, 24, from a brief marriage that began when he was just 17. Both live in Huntington Beach.

“They have their own lives to lead,” he said. “I try to stay as close as I possibly can.”

It’s hard sometimes, he said, because for the last 14 years he has lived in Austin.

Yet it sounds as though he wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

“It’s such a musical community. There’s a lot of bands and a lot of people who support music there. Plus I can do pretty much whatever I want without people looking over my shoulder. It’s given me a lot of freedom as a musician.”

* Alejandro Escovedo, Smart Brown Handbag and Dynamo Hum play tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $8-$10. 8 p.m. (714) 496-8930.