Frontejas
Hancock's Austin neighbor, Tish Hinojosa, coined a new word for her seventh album. A combination of the Spanish words for border (frontera) and Texas (Tejas),Frontejasdescribes that part of South Texas where Mexican and American influences are so intermingled that the local culture is neither one nor the other. That intermingling is crucial to Hinojosa's music, and she pays tribute to her Mexican mother on this delightful album. Combining old songs sung by her mother with new songs in the same style, Hinojosa casts much needed light on the Mexican and Tejano traditions of female singing, which tilt the emphasis from dance rhythms to confessions of the heart. More relaxed and assured than Linda Ronstadt's similar albums of Mexican music,Frontejassurrounds Hinojosa's lovely soprano with contributions from such conjunto legends as Flaco Jiminez, Santiago Jiminez, Jr., Mingo Saldivar and Eva Ybarra as well as from such fellow Austin bohemians as Brave Combo, Ray Benson, Peter Rowan and Beto and the Fairlanes.--Geoffrey Himes