Maverick Malo puts personal spin on country classics
July 18th, 2007Nashville-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 ’90s, 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 upon your point of view, makes his new release either a natural progression or a complete left turn.
Malo’s interpretation of country classics, “After Hours,” out July 17, and “A Marshmallow World and Other Christmas Favorites,” another album of covers due later this year, will be released on New Door/Universal Music Enterprises.
The label is “primarily dedicated to producing new music from historically significant” Universal Music Group artists, according to the UMG Web site. (The Mavericks recorded for MCA Nashville in the ’90s.) Styx, Smokey Robinson, Joe Cocker and Nanci Griffith are among the acts that have released projects on the label.
“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.