There are few things more magical when you witness an artist make the album of their life. It’s clear that Stephanie Urbina Jones has poured all of herself into Manuel’s Destiny. Any listener would be suffused with Urbina Jones’ pride — not in her work, but in her background, her musical influences, the exacting work required of doing one’s best…but also, Manuel’s Destiny is fun as hell.
Urbina Jones primarily trucks in pop country, after all, and Manuel’s Destiny is a feel-good album about grit, determination, and survival, where our heroes make it out okay in the end. Urbina Jones uses the bombastic shorthand of mainstream pop to great advantage when she weds it with another foundational love: mariachi. Manuel’s Destiny sounds like if the countrypolitan producers of the 1960s (like Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley) had been a little more honest about where the twang for country music really comes from.
The title track stands out here, with Urbina Jones and her Honky Tonk Mariachi band spinning her family’s story into the spaghetti western-epic narrative it deserves. Her love for her grandmother shines on the tender “The Queen of the Angels.” Her cover of the slightly gender-bent “Rhinestone Cowgirl” will stay with you for a long, long time.
Without drawing an overly simplistic comparison to Mireya Ramos‘ Sin Fronteras, another album that explores the commonalities and tensions between mariachi music, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both of these albums are coming out around the same time. Country music, like all art forms, draws influences from anywhere and everywhere, and acting like it’s some kind of static thing — specifically, some form of ancestrally white music — is dangerous and disingenuous. Both artists skillfully demonstrate that country music does not stand alone, and that it is stronger for the contributions from many, many cultures.