A Confident Tish Hinojosa Is Seeking a ‘Sign of Truth’

“Always look on the bright side of life” was an hilarious tag line for Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” when sung by a clueless crucifixion victim. But it’s not something you’d expect to hear, completely void of irony, from a singer-songwriter who in four years between albums was dropped by a major label (for the second time) and ended a 20-year marriage.

When Tish Hinojosa and her bandmates sang that merry tune as the coda to her song “Wildflowers” from the new “Sign of Truth” album at McCabe’s on Saturday, though, it was an apt centerpiece for the show. At every turn, the petite Texan was a model of someone comfortable with herself.

She has plenty of reason to be, with a gorgeous voice midway between Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, a gift for melody drawing on influences ranging from Mexican standards to Paul McCartney’s Beatles-era ballads, and unaffectedly personal lyrics building on, but never gratuitously exploiting, her Mexican heritage. That latter front was evident from the opening choice of a ‘30s-era Mexican waltz through the ease with which she shifts, often within a song, between English and Spanish--an antidote to the gimmickry and crass marketing of the so-called Latin explosion.

In another centerpiece song, the title number of the new album, she sang of wanting more love, success and money, but mostly she wants “a sign of truth.” She’s painting her own signs.