Christmas Eve: Music to explore

Christmas music: it comes in forms and styles and ways to lsiten that are as many and varied as the ornaments on your tree. Christmas music, like those ornaments, can be old or recent, familer or waiting for new memories to be made, sparkling or quiet, funny or serious.

This Christmas, here are several suggestions that bring in aspects of all this:

Andrew Finn Magill chose pre-twentieth century music for his instrumental album Christmas Carols for Violin & Guitar. He plays both the violin and the guitar on the ten tracks, which come from well know pieces including Deck the Halls and Silent Night as well as less widely known ones such as Pois que dos Reys Nostro Sennor. Magill has backgrounds in Celtic and Appalachian music, as well as in jazz and in the musics of his adopted home of Brazil. This music well suited for both reflection and inspiration.

Reflection and inspiration make part of each of the recordings here. Humor often comes along too, gentle humor of the sort that opens connections, that is.

Some years back, Tish Hinojosa released a Christmas album that’s long gone out of print. A song she wrote for it, two songs really, as there are versions in both English and Spanish, have remained most requested parts of her holiday season shows, as they have to do with her annual conversations with her Christmas Tree. When Hinjosa decided to make a new holiday album, she knew those had to be included, along with new material and several other favorites from the past. She chose the title from one of the newly included songs, From Texas for a Christmas Night. Through the music on it, Hinojosa readily evokes not often heard aspects of Lone Star State Christmas time.

Emily Smith’s home ground is the southwest too -- the southwest of Scotland in her case. Her album Songs for Christmas s comprises well known carols, less widely known songs from Scotland, several contemporary songs and fine originals. There’s her quiet Winter Song and thoighful Find Hope, along with Little Road to Bethlehem, Silent Night, and other songs. Smith and her musical partner and husband Jamie McClennan have devised creative and fresh arrangements that serve the spirit and stories of the songs.

That is also true of Matt and Shannon Heaton’s recording Fine Winter’s Night . On it they offer song and tune in service of the season, original and traditional music based in Irish tradition, respecting its past while making music that speaks to present day listeners. Matt’s original story fo a Victorian Christmas, First Snowfall of December, stnads well beside O Little Town of Bethlehem. Shannon’s title track, Fine Winter’s Night, gracefully speaks of contrasts of the season; there’s also a piece about an unsung (until Shannon wrote the song, anyway) hero of Christmas; I’ll let you listen to the album to learn more about that. Then there’s this, in which the duo re imagined an African American song with an Irish touch. The chorus seems especially appropriate for this Christmas. Take a listen.

There are many more fine Christmas albums, of course -- I’d point you to Joy for Christmas Day by Kathy Mattea, Cara Dillon, Cherish the Ladies, and Tim Edey just for starters.

May this music be good companion to you as the festive season unfolds.

You may also wish to see
Winter’s Gifts: Music here at Music Road
Music for Starry Winter Nights at Wandering Educators
Christmas Eve, Reflections, and Travel at Perceptive Travel

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Songs of Hope: Let the Light In

As the lines of history unfold, there are days when it seems -- and is-- very dark. Music however can be a way to uplift, to connect, to let the light in, to help each other along the way. Two such songs are

Love Is on Our Side, seen here in a vintage clip from the television show Texas Connection. Tish Hinojosa continues to write and sing eloquently of many things. This song, which you may find on her album Homeland, speaks to timeless ideas of connection, hope, and struggle.

https://youtu.be/15cfLzYo4LM

Carrie Newcomer is always looking, she says, “to find the sacred in the ordinary, the everyday.” That comes through in this song, which is is called A Shovel Is A Prayer. In it she uses familiar images and ideas to speak of reflection, gratitude, and hope. It is recorded on her album The Beautiful Not Yet.

In both of these songs, there’s full recognition that following the ways of hope, trust, and connection is often neither easy nor obvious. It takes courage; it requires reflection. Music such as Tish Hinojosa and Carrie Newcomer have created here, and continue to create, makes a thoughful companion for the journey.

You may also wish to see
Songs of Hope, Gracias a la Vida part of a series here at Music Road
Music of Resilience, part of series I am writing at Wandering Educators
Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet
Music and Mystery: Conversation with Carrie Newcomer continues

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Songs of Hope, Gracias a La Vida

At times silence and reflection are ways to consider deep change -- although I agree that things have been a bit too silent here at Music Road of late. I hope you have been enjoying perusing the ten years of archives, though -- I have been pointing some of those stories out to you over on Twitter. I am there as @kerrydexter if you care to follow.

Music is a good companion for such times. Not so much in the sense of protest songs -- though they have their place, anger only gets you so far, and it's not sustaining for good choices in the long run, either. Compassion, friendship, reflection, good questions, faith, community -- thos things help with hard times and sustaining hope and focus.

There will be much more music to come here along the music road. I invite you to stay tuned, and in the meantime take a listen to Tish Hinojosa and Joan Baez singing Gracias a la Vida -- Thanks to Life.

Baez has recorded the song on her album Gracias a La Vida

An album from Hinojosa to explore is Aqella Noche

You may also wish to see a few other things I have been writing on related subjects
at Wandering Educators the Music for Shifitng Times series
at Wandering Educators Music of Resilience
at Wandering Educators Songs of Friendship
here at Music Road Songs of Hope part one

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Another way to support: you could

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Songs of Hope continued

In times of change and seasons of uncertainty, musicians who write their own songs and interpret music from the tradition often have some of the best wisdom to offer and most thought provoking questions to ask. Continuing this series of articles pointing to songs and artists you may want to know in light of these ideas, here are Tish Hinojosa with an original song and Emily Smith with words of a poet from the past set to a new melody.

In Spanish and English, Tish Hinojosa offers what could be an anthem for hope and unity. She has recorded this song, Bandera del Sol, on her album Culture Swing.

On a quieter note, Emily Smith and Jamie McLennan have put the words of poet Thomas Carlyle to melody. The Sower's Song is recorded on Emily's album Echoes.

You may also wish to see
Songs of Hope
Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet
From Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy

A way to support Music Road: you could

If you enjoy what you are reading here, I've recently begun publishing an occasional newsletter at Substack with more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it. Come visit and check it out

Road trip music

Music for a Hispanic heritage road trip to the southwest: while there is a great deal of fine Mexican and Mexican American music to be heard. my one choice for you is Tish Hinojosa. Take a listen:

The border lands between the southwestern United States and northern Mexico are places where cultures of several sorts intersect, and where’s there long history of political, social, and cultural change on both side of the border. Those things find their expression in music as well.

History and culture play into the celebration of Hispnaic Heritage, be that at Hispanic Heritage Month or at other times of year, for a specific time or for any time that strikes you. C Culture Swing is perhaps Hinojosa’s most well known album, but there are more than a dozen others to enjoy, music which illuminates her experiences as is as a first generation Mexican American in the southwest and in other parts of the world.

Aquella Noche, which is an all Spanish album, is a fine choice, as Homeland, with songs which speak of cowboys, border crossings, and growing up on the west side of town in San Antonio. Dreaming from the Labyrith offers a mystical take on the voyages of explorers, on thoughts during a rainstorm, and on journey on God’s own open road. Our Little Planet finds her continuing to draw these threads of life and culture together with an artist's gift for idea, word, and melody, as does at this writing her most recent recording: With a Guitar and a Pen.

You may also wish to see
Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet
Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone
road trip music: New Mexico
rTish Hinojosa's web site

A quick way to offer support for Music Road: you could

If you enjoy what you are reading here, I've recently begun publishing an occasional newsletter at Substack with more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it. Come visit and check it out!

Music and summer's harvest

From the pages of the Wall Street Journal to the gardens of the White House, from food blogs to supermarket aisles, there is a buzz going around that we need to pay more attention to vegetables, and that 2011 is in fact the year of the vegetable.

If you’ve been thinking about vegetables, there’s a song for that. A really funny one, good for kids and adults both, it will have you singing along in two languages in no time. The song is called Barnyard Dance in English, El Baile Vegetal in Spanish, and it is by Tish Hinojosa. Follow the link there at the title to hear a snippet of it, and look for it on Hinojosa’s album Cada Nino / Every Child.

There are other songs which include vegetables. James Taylor has Sweet Potato Pie, Marcia Ball has Red Beans and Rice, Tim O’Brien offers Cornbread Nation This year of the vegetable and time of late summer harvest might be just the right moment to be pulling up these to listen to.

Once you check out Baile Vegetal, you may never think about those vegetables sitting quietly (it seems) in your kitchen the same way again.



you may also wish to see
songwriter Tish Hinojosa, at Perceptive Travel



a book about a year of eating food sourced locally at
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

and to help out those who are hungry while having fun learning about languages, geography, and other things visit to learn abouta way to do that...

Another way to support: you could

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Road Trip Music: New Mexico

The was a time when the town of Taos, in northern New Mexico, called itself the soul of the southwest. Granted, that was a marketing slogan, but one with elements of truth in those four words. As the Great American Road Trip travels through New Mexico, as the cottonwoods turn to gold in Taos, and snow makes its way from the top of the Sangre de Cristos into the roads leading into town. I’ll let the words and melodies of two musicians who have deep connections with the soul of the southwest be our soundtrack.

Taos Pueblo, a short distance north of the town plaza is both centuries away from the modern town and very connected at the same time. Once you pass the old cemetary and cross the cattle guard, you are in a different place, if you choose to be open to that. What you find depends on what you bring, in part, anyway.

Robert Mirabal grew up on the pueblo, taking part wooden flutes to learn how they worked, and seeing the connections and differences in the world on and off the pueblo. His work as a musician has taken him down many roads in many countries. For this trip through New Mexico, take a listen to a bit of his music that was inspired by sources close to home, on his album Taos Tales.

Tish Hinojosa grew up in Texas. It was in New Mexico, though, in Taos and in Red River, that she began to write songs, and to discover the heart of the vision that would inform her musical imagination of the west and southwest. Any of Hinojosa’s recordings would work as a fine soundtrack. Her first album, Taos to Tennessee and the lyrical re thinking of the sounds of the west on Dreaming From The Labyrinth are two good places to start, as is Culture Swing, an album which crosses borders among country, folk, Texas, Mexico, English, and Spanish.




photograph of Tish Hinojosa copyright Kerry Dexter


you may also wish to see


Southwestern Imagination: Tish Hinojosa
Music Road: looking toward christmas: kidstuff
more music from the road trip

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.

For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

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here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Road Trip Music : Texas

Texas. From the Gulf Coast at Galveston to border at El Paso, from windswept landscapes of the Permian Basin to the Riverwalk in San Antonio, from the hill country of Austin to the cattle country of Amarillo, Texas is a state filled with music and with the names and lives of towns, cities, musicians, and places that resonate through music’s past and present. Willie Nelson, Flaco Jimenez, The Flatlanders, Bob Wills, Lee An Womack, Johnny Gimble, Carolyn Hester, Alejandro Escovedo, Albert & Gage, The Dixie Chicks, George Straight, Clint Black, Robert Earl Keen, and Buddy Holly are but a few of the musicians who have called Texas home. Here is a soundtrack as the Great American Road Trip Music travels through Texas.





Guy Clark is a songwriter's songwriter, and even a Texas songwriter's songwriter. Even if you’ve never heard his name, you’ve heard his music through the many pop, country, and folk artists who have covered his songs. For this trip, take a listen to one of his recent albums, Some Days The Song Writes You

Terri Hendrix well knows how to build a song, and how to cover one too. She was once awarded a scholarship to study opera, but decided to pass that by in order to go deeper into creating her own music. She draws on folk, blues, jazz, and country, seasoned with social justice at times and flavored with humor too. You can hear her latest adventures with this on Cry Till You Laugh.



Kelly Willis is a storyteller, both in what she chooses to sing and in how she sings it. Love and its challenges is her most frequent subject matter. Love seen from both dark and light sides, and more than anything, love seen as part of life’s journey and never ending quest for understanding. She has a voice which can handle the bluest country rock and also turn quietly gentle when it’s right to do so. Take a listen to her voice and song choices on What I Deserve

Bruce Robison is another one of those musicians whose music you may know better than you know his name. The Dixie Chicks, Tim McGraw, and Faith Hill are among those who’ve taken Robison’s music to the top of the charts. For this trip, reach into his back catalogue for an album which among other things includes his version of the song Travelin’ Soldier. The album is called Long Way Home From Anywhere.

Tish Hinojosa brings her experiences as a first generation Mexican American to her work. She was born in San Antonio. You’ll hear more of her work as the road trip travels to New Mexico, but while we are in Texas, listen to Frontejas.

photographs of Kelly Willis and Tish Hinojosa copyright Kerry Dexter

you may also wish to see
Music Road: ten songs
Austin City Limits: 35 Years in Photographs
Texas honky tonks and Donegal fiddles
more music from the road trip

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins


do you work in the arts or education and need to present your ideas professionally? I can help.

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Cinco de Mayo: music

Cinco de Mayo is the anniversary of a historic battle in the Mexican state of Puebla which has transformed, over the years, to a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage that’s marked especially in the United States.

Tish Hinojosa is first generation Mexican American. Her album Aquella Noche
It makes a fine soundtrack for marking the holiday, although if you’re expecting raucous Tejano style songs, you’ll not find them here.

Hinojosa does not follow that pop culture and rock infused style, but rather is a Texan who sings in both English and Spanish, writing her own songs and sometimes, as on the this recording, mixing in her favorite border and Mexican classics as well. There’ll be more on Hinojosa and her music when the Great American Road Trip: Music travels the southwest, and there’s more to explore at the links below as well.

Meanwhile, take a listen to the dance song Cumbia, Polka, y Mas, the classic Reloj, and the intriguing title song as you prepare your Cinco de Mayo celebrations.


you may also wish to see

Music Road: Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet
Music Road: music for parents and children
Music Road: ten songs

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Another way to support: you could

If you enjoy what you are reading here, come visit -- and perhaps, subscribe -- to my newsletter at Substack for more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it.

Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet

Our Little Planet



Tish Hinojosa has always been an adventurous musician, combining her interests in country and folk music with her heritage as as a first generation Mexican American. Texas, New Mexico, the borderlands, northern Mexico and life on the road are all part of her musical imagination here, as are country music, swing, polka, and folk ballad, along with love songs and songs of social justice and social commentary. That sounds like a lot of ground to cover in one record, and it is. Hinojosa has long been adept at getting all these ideas and flavors to work together for her unique vision of life, though. Twenty one years ago the title cut of her first recording, Taos to Tennessee, framed love, journeys, and choices in southwestern mountain landscapes and the scent of pinon fires; the title track of this latest one sees her looking for and finding hope and connection amidst life’s changes and challenges while swirling across the dance floor to a polka beat, and in two languages.

Hinojosa offers clear eyed comment on the way of the world today in We Mostly Feel That Way, a song which includes fine accordion work from Chip Dolan and outstanding duet singing from Rosie Flores. What Our Hearts Can’t Say is an understated and quietly reflective love song set in vivid descriptions of the natural world. Roadsongs and Bygones finds the artist riding down the road looking at the changes in the countryside the and thinking about the deeper lessons to be taken from looking at the passing scenes; Mi Pueblo, with very fine duet singing and violin work from Carrie Rodriguez, finds the singer considering the pull and the power of love through life’s journeys.

It’s a fine next step for Hinojosa, who two decades into her career has never sounded better. She co produced the project with long time musical collaborator Marvin Dykhuis, who shows up on backing vocals and about a dozen different instruments -- really. Hinojosa will be touring behind the US release of the record this summer: catch her live if you get the chance.

Hinojosa’s tour schedule is availble at her website

An extended interview with Hinojosa including comments on the making of Our Little Planet is available in print in the current issue of the folk and world music magazine Dirty Linen. More about where to find that here.


you may also want to see.

Cathie Ryan: Irish and American

ten songs

Christine Albert: Paris, Texafrance

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Music for a spring road trip: six albums

One from Scotland, three from Texas, a duo from Massachusetts, and a vintage collection from top Irish American musicians. Love songs, songs about children, travels, journeys, questions, mountains, rivers, markets, birds, trains, fish, grits and fancy pears, and many other things....all fine companions for where your late spring roads are taking you now.

Tish Hinojosa’s own roads have taken her from the west side of San Antonio to the mountains of northern New Mexico, to Nashville’s Music Row, through a time in Austin’s lively music scene, and a current base in Germany. All these experiences play into the music she’s made for Our Little Planet. Sparked in part by her rediscovery of some old work tapes from her time in Nashville, it is in many ways a more country sort of record than Hinojosa has made in a long time. It’s not mainstream country, but it is country of the country, and of Texas and the southwest. There’s a knockout duet with Carrie Rodriguez called Mi Pueblo, and Mountain Lullabye, a song which sounds like a western sunset, and ten more.

Jeff Talmadge comes from Texas too, though he’s been living in Georgia for a while. One of the ways he looks back on At Least That Much Was True is through the evocative Austin When it Rains. Talmadge does not shy from life’s harder questions, as with the songs White Cross and Let Her Go. There’s always a perspective, though, however indirect, of hope and change for the better. The anthem for that, on this record, might be the understated, quietly sung story in Wrong Train.


Jim Malcolm does a good bit of quiet reflection on his album The First Cold Day,
including a tribute to Robert Burns and the gentle pleasures of fishing, in a song called An Hour in the Gloaming. There’s a taste of highland legend in Schiehallion, and a hilarious road trip of his own through the American south in Down in Alabama. That's where the grits and fancy pears come in.

If Hinojosa didn’t get you dancing with her title track for Our Little Planet, then her fellow Texan Terri Hendrix will with Posey Road Stomp, or Wallet, or Bottom of the Hill, or one of the ten other songs on Left Over Alls. One of the great things about Hendrix is that she knows how to be serious through being funny, and also when it’s the right moment o focus on one or the other side of that equation.

Massachusetts based husband and wife duo Matt and Shannon Heaton know how to look at a subject from many aspects, too. They base their work in Irish tradition, and for Lovers' Well they’ve sought out your not so usual love songs. A chance encounter is the hinge for the story in Where Moorcocks Crow, waiting and wondering about a lover for Bay of Biscay, love turned to jealousy tells the tale in Lily of the West, love found in taking chances begins the story of Golden Glove. These they interweave gracefully and naturally with traditional and newly composed tunes meant for dancing together, Shannon playing flute and Matt guitar and bouzouki.

Cherish the Ladies is now a a well known Irish American band, but they started before Riverdance, before Celtic Women, and before the work of women in Irish music had received much recognition or respect. They'd been at constant touring for several years before they made their first record as a group, and through changing line ups, they’ve made many since. That first one, The Back Door, catches the group of seventeen years ago in fine form, tunes and songs alike reflecting Irish and American style and connections. It’s worth a look and a listen, once again.

If you’d like to dance -- alone or together -- to sing along, to laugh, to reflect, or just to listen, all of these will serve you well on your late spring travels. What would you add?


you may also want to see

Terri Allard: Live from Charlottesville

season of change: music for autumn 2008

hanneke cassel

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Favorite Love Songs: Tuning Up for Valentine's Day

As it’s coming up on Valentine’s Day, that has me thinking about love songs. My favorite ones include






from Kathy Mattea
Goin' Gone

Untold Stories
Asking Us to Dance


from Cathie Ryan
The Farthest Wave

What's Closest to the Heart

from Carrie Newcomer
Tornado Alley

Only One Shoe

Hold On

From Tish Hinojosa
Amanacer
Everything You Wish

from Eddi Reader
Wild Mountainside


from Danu
Follow On

from Emmylou Harris
Someone Like You

from Maura O’Connell
Blessing



What they have in common, I think, is recognition that deep true love includes the hard stuff as well as the joy, and that part of the gift of love is helping us live with and through the humanness of all that. I’m not sure the artists who wrote or who sing all of these necessarily thought of them as love songs, either, but for me they work that way. See what you think, and please share some of your favorites by leaving a comment if you’d like.