Natalia Lafourcade - "Soledad y el Mar"

Well, it’s been 3 weeks, have you missed me? I’ve been on a rainbow tour filled with travel, food, rain, sun, heat, hotels, musicals, and love. So much love. Love in so many forms. Family forging a life together, friends facing adversity, and lovers falling ever more deeply into love. So it only felt right to have this international indie darling singing songs of love as my first song back.

Natalia Lafourcade is a successful singer-songwriter whose voice and music live on the edge of pop, but maintain a distinct independence.

A few years ago, while Lafourcade was traveling Brazil, she felt a great nostalgia for her native Mexico and its folk music. When she finally returned home, she immediately called some friends for the kind of party that is ubiquitous in Latin America: lots of social drinking, lots of food and lots of guitars and singing.

Classic folk songs were on the playlist and a good time was had by all. Someone recorded the informal jam session and Lafourcade's management team heard the tapes. "This is your next record!" they told her. That record, Musas: Un Homenaje al Folclore Latinoamericano en Manos de los Macorinos, Vol. 1, was a commercial and critical hit, and received a Latin Grammy nomination for Album of the Year.

The performances are an ode to a magical time in Mexican popular music, one that is revived with every note this singer and her band perform.

One important historical note: The two older gentlemen on the video are Juan Carlos Allende and Miguel Peña, two revered musicians who played with the iconic ranchera singer Chavela Vargas.

So today, with tradition both honored and endured, I choose Natalia Lafourcade’s "Soledad y el Mar" as my, find your shining moment, follow your heart, let the heat bring the rain, song for a, follow my lead, lead on, sing to me the songs of those loves left behind, Tuesday.