USA: Roots rocker Raul Malo from the Mavericks takes on country classics

Nashville-based, Miami-born Raul Malo has never been part of the country mainstream. Even when his seminal band the Mavericks was scaling the country airplay and sales charts in the early Nineties, he was on another plane. Malo's musical palette has included everything from Latin rhythms to rock to bluegrass to children's music, which, depending on your point of view, makes his new CD either a natural progression or a complete left turn. "I always though man it might be nice to do a covers album but of country music covers. because I have always loved country especially the older stuff. The older stuff to me always kind of represented this a little more of a elegant kind of sophisticated side that doesn't really get shown much and talked about much especially in today's country music," Malo says. Malo's interpretation of country classics, "After Hours," is already in stores. "A Marshmallow World and Other Christmas Favorites," another album of covers, is due later this year. "You know even way back when in The Mavericks, you know we started putting horns and percussion and this and that and people were going 'you can't do that in country music'. Well ok you know I am not going to listen to you anymore I am just going to do whatever we are going to do and so you get the point where it's like. I don't know if this is country or whatever this is but I like it and that's the world I want to live in you know where people just you know if it's good it passes the test," Malo told Reuters. "After Hours" includes noteworthy treatments of Eddy Arnold's "Welcome to My World,'' Hank Snow's "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such As I'' and the Ray Price-sung, Kris Kristofferson-penned "For the Good Times.'' Buck Owens' "Crying Time,'' Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart'' and "Take These Chains From My Heart,'' and Roger Miller's "Husbands and Wives'' are also included. Malo said the concept for the album came out of his band's jams on the road. Malo's road band -- bassist Jay Weaver, pianist Robert Chevrier and drummer Tom Lewis -- with the addition of horn player Jim Hoke, recorded the album at Weaver's studio near Nashville. As with his days with the Mavericks those are over where he is concerned. Malo is now playing theaters and other small venues, foregoing the honky-tonks and festivals that are the bread and butter of many Nashville artists. Malo kicked off his U.S. at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, California and will end December 15 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

ITN Source | July 25, 2007

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