A Song A Day: Tish Hinojosa, "Everything You Wish"

MAY 13, 2017

 

“EVERYTHING YOU WISH” (WRITER: TISH HINOJOSA)

ARTIST: TISH HINOJOSA

RELEASED 1990 ON MEMORABILIA NAVIDEÑA EP

Leticia “Tish” Hinojosa, youngest of 13 children, was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1955. While in her earlier years she sang backup for others and wrote music, she did not release her first recordings until past her 30^th birthday. She has written, recorded, and toured ever since, blending pop, country, folk, Tex-Mex, and rock sensibilities.

Following a well-received album (Homeland) for A&M in 1989, her next three releases came on Watermelon, a highly regarded but now defunct independent label from Austin, Texas.

The second of these three was the eight-song holiday EP Memorabilia Navideña, actually first released in 1990 as a 'homemade' cassette and reissued on CD a year later. It was also part of a later album entitled From Texas for a Christmas Night.

The lovely Memorabilia Navideña featured a beautiful version of the lullaby “A La Nanita Nana” and six originals (one recorded both in English and Spanish) that alternately waxed funny, nostalgic, and poignant. One song recalls her longtime wish to hang icicles on the family's tree; another features a sweetly atonal children's chorus.

My favorite track is “Everything You Wish,” a song for all seasons. It touches tangentially on the holidays but says much more about the shared belief in love and how much you can grow through being vulnerable with another person.

Hinojosa shows off her delicate, expressive voice to great effect on "Everything You Wish" and her small backing group, featuring guitarist Marvin Dykhuis, gives fabulous vocal and instrumental support. That three-part harmony!

Listen here.