Since her creative partnership with veteran songwriter Chip Taylor, the Austin, Texas singer and fiddler has grown in sophistication over the course of five solo albums. On Lola she foregrounds her Tex-Mex heritage, mixing Mexican classics from her childhood with self-written songs in Spanish and English. Rodriguez gets the blend right with an all-star band led by Bill Frisell’s deft, dreamy guitar. Antique pieces such as Cuco Sánchez’s Que manera de perder are wrung for their stately melodrama, while originals like La última vez and I Dreamed I Was Lola Beltrán take Tex-Mex into classy, modern terrain, steel guitars ringing alongside cantina strumming. Rodriguez’s vocals (less drawling than usual) and classically tinged fiddle are, as usual, sweet.
