One night into his six-date stretch of opening shows for the Dave Matthews Band, Alejandro Escovedo is feeling good.

“People watched the whole set,” he says from Clarkson, Mich., the first stop on a tour that hits Hartford Friday and Saturday. “We were very happy with that. Very few people know us, so we really have to work hard to win them over.”

Escovedo may not be a household name among many Matthews’ fans, but he’s hardly an unknown. Before going solo in 1992, he spent time in a number of acclaimed bands, including the ’70s San Francisco punk outfit the Nuns, which famously opened the original Sex Pistols’ final concert.

These days, Escovedo draws on more than five decades of American music, everything from punk and country to the ’50s rock he heard growing up in Texas.

His is an eclectic bar-band sound, one made all the more expressive by the addition of cello and violin. In preparing to tour with Matthews, Escovedo had to figure out how to bring his sweaty small-stage music to the masses.

“We get 45 minutes, for one thing, so we have to tighten up the set to be something still representative of what we do,” he says. “A regular night in the club, 45 minutes is where you’re starting to hit your stride. You have to really find the focus and really hit it hard from the get-go.”

That shouldn’t be a problem, especially if he plays tracks from his new album, “Real Animal,” which is due out June 24.

It’s the second record Escovedo has released since his 2003 near-fatal bout with hepatitis C, and unlike 2006’s ominous and impressionistic “The Boxing Mirror,” “Real Animal” is a straightforward celebration of life and music.

“‘The Boxing Mirror’ was the immediate response to what had happened,” Escovedo says. “In making this new album, I already had it in my mind that I didn’t want to go into those deep, dark, really intense places. I wanted to make a record that was more upbeat, a much more rock ‘n’ roll record.”

The songs trace Escovedo’s journey from Texas to Los Angeles, San Francisco to New York City. On “Sensitive Boys,” the disc’s thematic centerpiece, he insists that now, more than ever, the world needs idealistic young rockers.

“The whole story is about believing in that ideal of a rock ‘n’ roll band and what rock music can do and how it can alter a person’s life,” he says. “When you believe in it, it’s almost like a religion.”

By KENNETH PARTRIDGE | Special to the Courant