With Guitar & A Pen (Tish, 2024)

Tish Hinojosa's "With a Guitar & A Pen" is an album that almost didn't happen as the gifted singer-songwriter contemplated retirement around the time of the pandemic, as she relates in the liner notes. So, we are blessed to hear her first album in six years and 17th overall, a collection of songs that "reflect where I've been, where I am, and where I'm dreaming to go." She's backed by her producer and longtime guitarist Marvin Dykhuis and a cast of Austin's finest including pianist Chip Dolan, drummer Rick Richards, fiddler Warren Hood, pedal steelist Marty Muse and harmonica player Colin "Spider" MacKenzie across nine original songs from both sides of the southern border and a most elegant reading of Blaze Foley's masterpiece, "If I Could Only Fly."

Her opening title track is autobiographical, touching on her first meeting her longtime musical partner, Dykhuis, in 1988. She touches on living in Germany for 10 years, performing at the 1996 Olympic Games and often on Austin City Limits.

Much of the album is filled with nostalgic odes such "His Cowboy Way" for her husband and "Wild One," about a retired horse on his Arizona ranch. Her slow waltzing "Wild Wild West" belongs in this group as well. One of her interesting story songs, "Colton's Perfect Heart" speaks to a true local story about an organ donation.

Arguably though, the strength of the release lies in the three songs sung in Spanish, which appear consecutively in the middle of the album. Hinojosa seems so comfortable in these Tex-Mex tunes, which reveal terrific string work from Dykhuis in "Luna Traviesa (Mischievous Moon) and "Flores En El Jardin" (Flowers in the Garden) and "and both stellar accordion and piano from Dolan in "Canto De La Montalia (Song of the Mountain)." MacKenzie is especially brilliant in the Foley cover and "Wild, Wild, West." As with Hinojosa's body of work, the production values are superb. We should be grateful that her muse continues to burn brightly.