Music is one of the ways we tell each other stories. Through music, we can share ideas across time, make connections across geography, reach across languages, open doors to learning and teaching. A friendship can begin or increase through love of music. And how many times has a song or tune brought you back to a time or place or person you once knew?

Music, with or without words, is a powerful way to share stories.

Part of Tish Hinojosa’s story is that she grew up in the southwest of the United States, a child of parents who had come to Texas from Mexico. She was living in another part of the southwest, northern New Mexico, when she began to write songs—in part, because, she says. “I realized that I had this whole bag of experiences I had drug around with me that I had not heard expressed in song.” Drawing on influences including country and American artists Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt and the music from Mexico that had come across the radio in her parents’ kitchen, she began creating her own songs with guitar and voice.

Hinojosa writes and sings in both English and Spanish, often including both in one song. By the Rio Grande is in English, with poetic insight tracing reflections on life with connections on both sides of the border. You will find it recorded on Hinojosa’s album called Culture Swing. Hinojosa has recorded many albums, and you’ll not go wrong exploring any of them; her most recent one is With a Guitar and a Pen.

At this writing, it is a time when Hispanic heritage is celebrated in the US, so it seems fitting to begin with a song and an artist connected to that part of the North American story.

Rose Morrison comes from further north: she’s from Baddeck, in Cape Breton, which is part of the province of Nova Scotia, in the Canadian Maritimes.

Rose grew up there, and first began performing (her instrument is the fiddle) at a young age with the four piece band The Cottars. Working with them, she toured widely and won awards. After leaving the band, she moved away from Cape Breton for some years, spending part of that time in Ireland. She has returned to her home ground in recent years and released several solo albums, the most recent of which, The River She Knows, adds a dimension to her music—that of singer/songwriter.

Rose, it turns out, has been writing and singing songs for years, but rarely sharing them in public. The River She Knows finds her looking at themes of love, heritage, nature, and landscape, exploring her own sound while staying rooted in her Cape Breton heritage. Let Our Love is a love song filled with hope and reflection. In this video of it, you will also hear a bit of Rose’s fiddle playing, too.

Heather Rankin, too, grew up in Cape Breton in Atlantic Canada, in a large family. Many of those family members, including Heather, became part of the Rankin Family Band. They were well-known across Canada for their takes on Celtic music and their own songs, too.

As band members' lives went in different directions, Heather began a solo career. We Walk as One, which you will find on her album A Fine Line, is a tribute to family, and connection beyond blood ties, as well, with reflection on memory, home, and change.

Songwriter Archie Fisher, now in his eighth decade and still going strong, has long been known as one of Scotland’s finest songwriters. As a young man, he spent some years at sea, experience which he has at times drawn on in his work.

One such song is Windward Away, a haunting tale of the sea with resonance beyond seafaring. Julie Fowlis sings it here.

Julie also comes from Scotland, from the Western Isles, which have strong connections to the sea. Though Julie is especially known for her singing in Gaelic, she is also a fine writer and interpreter of song in English (and other languages, too). You will find her singing Windward Away on her album Alterum.

In a turn to story with a different focus (this one lively dance tune), fiddle player, composer, and step dancer Mary Frances brings her tune Celticumbia.

Growing up in Ontatio, Mary Frances thought she’d be a teacher, even though she grew up in a musical family and often performed as part of a family band. As she began to connect her Cape Breton and Celtic roots with her love of jazz and of Latin music, though, Mary Frances began to find her own sound—and to realize she has a lot to say. This tune is an excellent example of that. You will find it recorded on Mary Frances’s album First Light.

...and about that musical family? You will see her brother Michael doing fine work on accordion in this video. Their parents are internationally-known musicians: Cape Breton fiddle player Natalia MacMaster and Ontario fiddle player Donnell Leahy. Mary Frances is the eldest of their seven children.

The band Capercaillie, from Scotland, have been at their storytelling through music for three decades now. What do you to mark such an anniversary?

One of the things Capercaillie decided to do was get together with the Scottish Symphony Orchestra to set some favorites from across the years in orchestral context. Orchestral arrangements by Greg Lawson (who also conducted the orchestra for the recording) and Capercaillie founding member Donald Shaw allowed collaboration among Capercaillie members and orchestra players to set 16 tracks of vintage and more recent favorites in thoughtful contexts.

This song, At the Heart of It All, was written by Donald Shaw and speaks to connections and stories between people, nature, and history. That’s Karen Matheson on lead vocal. Joining her from Capercaillie are Michael McGoldrick, Charlie McKerron, Manus Lunny, David Robertson, Ewan Verrnal, James Mackintosh, and Sorren Maclean.

You will find At the Heart of It All along with fifteen other collaborations between Capercaillie and the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, on Capercaillie’s album ReLoved.

Both Tish Hinojosa’s song By the Rio Grande and Mary France’s tune Ceticumbia may help you think about stories of Hispanic Heritage month.

Early autumn is a time for marking Hispanic music; it’s also a time when thoughts turn to Cape Breton because the Celtic Colors International Festival, one of the top Celtic music festivals in the world, happens across Cape Breton for nine days early in October.

Rose Morrison, Archie Fisher, Julie Fowlis, and Mary Frances will all be taking part in Celtic Colours this year; Heather Rankin and Capercaillie have been there in past years. Several concerts each season are streamed on line; more about that, and everything else going on at Celtic Colours (there’s a lot, both music and community events) is at the festival’s website.

Though the music here gives a nod to these specific events, the substance of these songs and tunes also continues the stories of connection, hope, and community told across all the years of this series. May the creativity of these artists help you as you continue to make your way through these shifting times.

Thank you for staying with us through this journey. Below, you'll find a link that will take you to an article which has a bit more backstory on the series. It also has links to a number of the stories, including ones called Listening for Community, Music for Winter's Changes, and The Geography of Hope.

Music for Shifting Times

Kerry Dexter is Music Editor at Wandering Educators. 

You may find more of Kerry's work in National Geographic Traveler, Strings, Perceptive Travel, Journey to Scotland, Irish Fireside, and other places, as well as at her own site, Music Road. You can also read her work at Along the Music Road on Substack.