Sign of Truth

Tish Hinojosa

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 23, 2000)
• Original Release Date: May 23, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rounder / Umgd
• ASIN: B00004T9V5
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #200,649 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
After a four-year hiatus, Texas-born Mexican-American Tish Hinojosa sets her confident, optimistic sights on merging the various, and at times, contradictory impulses of her discrete singer-songwriter vision. If Sign of Truth is her most successful synthesis of traditional Mexican music, troubadour folk, and new adult contemporary, it is also, song for song, her most perplexing. Hinojosa's four-year residency in Nashville has both blessed her songwriting with pop acumen--the anthemic melody of the title track and the modern-dance-groove-meets-eerie-lap-steel of "Taste of Dying Summer"--and burdened it with over-earnest poesy and innocuous sentiments. Lines like "I love the way you make me see / The things that really matter" and "If we don't count our blessings / We're wasting our time" sound like feel-good fodder for mainstream country or pop radio, but one expects more from Hinojosa. She seems more at home on "Wildflowers," a delicate homage to Pablo Neruda, and "Dreams I Have Seen," the album's penultimate and stand-out track. "You'd never believe the dreams I've seen," Hinojosa sings. Had her songwriting kept pace with her musical ambition, we just might have. --Roy Kasten

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Remarkable Voice and Person, June 1, 2000

By	JOHN K. BROWN (Irving, TX) - See all my reviews

Tish Hinojosa brings a hauntingly beautiful voice to all her recordings and "Sign of Truth" is no exception. "Fence Post" and "Song for the Journey" particularly showcase this ladies amazing pitch, clarity and melodious quality.

Tish has invested, as she usually does, much of her personal life in this album. This one seems to have come from a particulary difficult patch of her life as reflected in "Fence Post", "I Have No Answers", "Faded Journey", and perhaps even in "Hey Little Love of Mine".

While this CD does not have the bilingual quality of many of its predecessors, it is an outstanding sampling of this artist's writing, singing and collaboration with Marvin Dykus and Chip Dolan. Anyone for whom this is a first Hinojosa purchase will want to purchase previous recordings like, "Aquella Noche", "Culture Swing" and - my personal favorite - "Homeland".

Once you've started you will want all of her CDs. Tish Hinojosa is a truly remarkable singer with uniquely bilingual and meaningful material. Buy this one! You won't regret it!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tish just gets better and better!, May 28, 2000

By	L. Faire (Akron, OH) - See all my reviews

Tish Hinjosa's beautiful voice and wonderful songs captured my heart for the first time during an appearance on Austin City Limits many years ago. Since then, I've looked forward to each new album to enjoy her explorations into so many musical genres. Whether she's doing a pop song, rocking with Texas swing, or singing a ballad in Spanish, Tish is a joy to hear. This CD is one of her best yet. "Taste of Dying Summer" is a real change-of-pace for her. If you're a Tish fan, you'll want to get this right away. If you've never heard Tish before, buy this one, then go back and grab her earlier work ("Aquella Noche" is one of my favorites.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 'Sign Of Truth' In A League Of Its Own, August 12, 2000

By	J. RIDINGS (Herscher, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

One thing I have been able to count on from Tish Hinojosa is that each CD will be better than the last, and she does not disappoint with "Sign Of Truth." She has gotten progressively better with each release, which must be hard to do because the first CD I bought, "Homeland," 11 years ago, is pretty hard to top. I do have favorites, in an order that is not chronological, but there is an excitement and progression in every new release. However, "Sign Of Truth' is in a class of its own. Rather than be just another great CD, it stands out like few others, such as "Pet Sounds" by the Beach Boys or "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd -- in other words, classics in a special league of their own even if you aren't a devoted fan. There is not a single weak song on "Sign Of Truth," which also is a sign the artist is right on track with a classic. How can I name a favorite with every track so great? How about the haunting extended piano in "Fence Post," the driving "Fire In Winter," the sweet simplicity of "Roses Around My Feet," "I Have No Answers" or "Wildflowers." As far as other reviewers complaining that Tish has gone Nashville, I don't know what they are talking about. There is no Nashville on this CD -- no twangy guitars, no cliche country lyrics, no simplistic melodies. Tish is still true to her roots. She never really did "ethnic Mexican" music because she is not Mexican. She is Mexican-American, with Tex-Mex and Southwest roots. There is no straying from that here. Tish wrote the songs for this CD and her songwriting, singing, playing, producing has never been better. I can't wait for the next release.