After the pandemic, musicians Emmylou Espinoza and Lorianne Hubbard, who are also sisters, started meeting up to learn celtic fiddle tunes together with no plan to ever play them for an audience and for no reason other than pure joy.

Emmylou was learning to play a second-hand cello her husband found for her on Facebook Marketplace. The sisters fell in love with the sound of that cello with Lorianne's mandolin.

The name "Hearth Crickets" grew out of many conversations following the pandemic about history and the power of the folk music tradition; how long ago simple folks comforted and cheered themselves on winter nights with the same traditional fiddle tunes we were learning; how in past times folks pushed the furniture against the walls to dance with their neighbors by the hearth to a little "kitchen music". Coming from a family of country musicians that went back three generations, the sisters recognized the tradition of playing music around the kitchen table. Somewhere they heard that a cricket on your hearth is lucky and that seemed to fit the spirit of the music they played together, music for music's sake.

For their own enjoyment, they worked out various and sundry covers of their favorite songs from The Band, to Neil Young, to Bob Marley. They attempted pieces from their favorite cinematic movie soundtracks. They wrote original music about things they cared about.

You can catch them around East TX coffee shops, farmer's markets, and art festivals having a blast just being together and playing music they love.