Tish Hinojosa

People will perceive a different Tish Hinojosa on Sign of Truth, the Texas singer-songwriter's first CD since 1996.

Her rich, warm soprano has never sounded so direct and universal, as Hinojosa ponders the major changes in her life the past few years, and reflects her heritage in subtle new ways.

After a decade of working with a few different record companies (which had different ideas about her mix of ethnic folk and pop), Hinojosa offers, "If it means adding a little more pop edge to something, while still keeping the folkism to a certain degree, that would be the perfect balance." And she has tapped such a natural pop-folk balance on Sign of Truth, her return to Rounder after a mid-90s diversion to Warner Brothers, which released two albums about the same time of Hinojosa's previous Rounder projects Frontejas (a 1995 tribute to popular Texas/Mexico border music) and Cada Nino/Every Child, a 1996 award winning, bilingual recording for children.

But Hinojosa, who also recorded for A&M Records in the late '80s before launching her Rounder career with 1992's Culture Swing, is an artist whose creative sensitivity and social/political interests have endured the rollercoaster effects of maintaining a career and family.

"For a few years, I was beginning to be considered as a political activist as well as a musician, and that always made me a little uncomfortable," says Hinojosa, who has worked on behalf of such organizations as the United Farmworkers of America (to whom she partly dedicated 1992's pesticide-conscious "Something In the Rain"), the National Women's Political Caucus, and the National Association of Bilingual Education. "I lend support to causes concerning especially minority children and self-empowerment of those who have no voice, although it is flattering to be asked to help, it¹s easy to fall into the Œcause circuit¹, and I frequently have to re- prioritize my career profile, which will ultimately better help the causes I believe in."

In recent years without a record deal, those contacts also led to speaking and performing engagements. "What kept me on the map, and came from having a nationally known career in the early '90s," she says, "were those people who embraced the fact that I wore my Mexican-Americanism as part of my identity, or the fact that I'm a mother, or a woman." One of those performing engagements was at the White House in 1996, in a concert performance for President and Mrs. Clinton.

Born Dec. 6, 1955 to immigrant parents, Hinojosa was the youngest of 13 children, growing up in San Antonio. "When I was four years old, I begged my mother for piano lessons," she recalls. "I think it was probably due to an older sister who was classically trained at piano and voice, and I loved listening to her." Not that the lessons worked out. "The piano teacher said I wasn't focused, and my hands weren't big enough anyway," Hinojosa says." After that, it was listening to the Mexican radio that was always on in the kitchen. My parents always had it tuned to the Mexican station. All day long, I'd either hear the wonderful old ballads from Mexico or the conjunto music from San Antonio, or the Spanish pop music, whatever was current."

As she neared her teens, Hinojosa tuned into '60s AM radio, and the sounds of Simon & Garfunkel and the Beatles. "I was becoming aware of not only music, but social messages, and by the time I was 14, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a guitar," she says. "The first time I held one, it just came so naturally." Hinojosa also landed her first music job at age 15, singing radio jingles for a local Mexican station. But she didn't begin writing until her mid-twenties, after she moved to New Mexico.

"When I got to New Mexico, I could feel it -- it was the next chapter," says Hinojosa, who was attracted to the new country sounds of Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, and landed a gig as a backup singer with Michael Martin Murphey, who brought her to Nashville.

"I tried to get a deal as a singer, 'cause that's what I always considered myself to be, but all my friends were writing songs too, and I was getting turn-down letters from the record labels," says Hinojosa, who tried her hand at writing. "People responded just like it was just another song, so that gave me a little more confidence," she says. But Hinojosa still ran into a discriminatory vibe from record companies. "One of the main things I'd hear when they'd say why they weren't signing me was 'We signed a lot of female artists, and we've already signed our quota this year,'" she says. "So it was disheartening, because I knew I was just as good."

Disheartened as well with the silly rhyming that was prevalent in country music, she began writing in Spanish (partly a culture-minded reaction to the 1984 birth of her son) and returned to Texas -- specifically, the songwriters' haven of Austin. "If you're doing something new and different in writing, you're going to attract an audience in Austin," she says. "It worked. Within a couple of months, I was approached by A&M."

The 1989 release of Homeland introduced a larger audience to Hinojosa's charms, which continued to be sown through three recordings on the Watermelon label in the early '90s. Her three Rounder discs and Warners releases Destiny's Gate (1994) and Dreaming from the Labyrinth/Sonar del Laberinto (1996) solidified her standing -- until Warners "wouldn't drop me, but wouldn't put anything else out." Finally, Hinojosa secured her release from Warners. But she was encountering the same unhappiness in her personal life as she was in her career. This period also saw the end of a 20-year relationship with her husband, who also managed her.

"A lot of what happened in the past few years has been a total turning over of my world," Hinojosa says, and it's reflected in her writing for Sign of Truth, which was co-produced with her longtime guitar partner Marvin Dykhuis. The CD includes its share of upbeat tunes, including a few horn-spiced tracks that reflect either '70s horn rock or San Antonio's Latin R&B of the '60s, and the mid-tempo Spanish feel of "Fire In Winter." But the album's true identity surfaces in the opening title track (about seeking love and hope beyond the success and money we require), "Song For the Journey" (which closes the CD with the couplet "If we don't count our blessings, we're wasting our time") and the mid-disc "Fence Post," a song about being in a barren and broken place, featuring Hinojosa on piano.

"Maybe it is a reflective record," Hinojosa says. "Picking the songs for this record was a real interesting process because my head and my heart were making a pretty clear decision about where I wanted to go and not go." And love songs weren't in that mix, beyond the hopeful "Wildflowers" and "Hey Little Love," a light tune inspired by her children, and injecting a splash of Spanish lyrics. "It's more of a record of passage and forgiveness and moving on, and then of course, in a bigger world, how we see."

TISH HINOJOSA bio / by Paul Robicheau