After collapsing onstage four years ago, singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo is back in the recording studio. Showing true dana-paramita, several musicians, including Steve Earle, John Cale, and Lucinda Williams, compiled “Por Vida,” a tribute album, in 2004, to help Escovedo pay his mounting medical bills for treatment of hepatitis C. Deeply touched, but still ailing, Escovado turned to Buddhism as a way to make peace with his suffering. Finally, he visited an acupuncturist who informed him that his prescribed medicine was eating away at his bone marrow. Having abandoned western doctors for the Great Physician, homeopathy, and Tibetan medicine, Escovado told the Associated Press, he’s feeling strong again. His first album since 2001, entitled “The Boxing Mirror,” is due out Tuesday.
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