Raul Malo is a second-generation Cuban born in Miami. Lead vocalist and writer-in-chief with the hugely successful band The Mavericks, he is a man of many genres with an uncanny ability to emulate, in his very own way, his many mentors. The music of the Mavericks is a slick form of country laced with TexMex, rockabilly, downright pop and just about everything else they might have an angle on.
The resultant mix has been dubbed "Ballroom Country" or better again "Martini Country" - a sure sign that there is no accurate name for what The Mavericks do. One minute it sounds like Roy Orbison, the next it's a shuffling, crooning, lounge number that Patsy Cline might have delivered. Much like Miami itself, The Mavericks receive certain strands, translate them, mix them up, recreate them and finally scatter them once again in all directions.
It might only have happened in Malo's home town. Miami, Florida has none of the musical resonances of places like Memphis, Nashville, Philadelphia or Detroit, but it is nevertheless a city full of music. It is one of those very particular population centres with a social history governed by massive immigration and sudden change. It is perhaps the most significant place where North America and Latin America meets, and yet it sits uneasily like a recently prosperous town not quite yet defined.
These days the city is also home to large populations of Columbians, Salvadoreans, Puerto Ricans, Nicaraguans and Dominicans - each, to varying degrees, maintaining their own identities and cultures. The result, musically, is that there are many different music scenes thriving in Miami all at once - and very much in exile.
"Well, ours was a Cuban household in America and so it was already quite a blend," explains Malo. "Cuban music was all around - but because Mom was quite young when she moved to the States, she had all the American hit records too. I think it was all part of a survival instinct for my parents, all part of trying to become Americanised. They were just trying to be in touch with things that were there - including the music. And so obviously, coming from Cuba as immigrants to a new country, their take on American music at the time was quite different. It was very eclectic. Cuban music and Elvis, Bobby Darin, Aretha Franklin and Tammy Wynette. Yeah, my parents had a great record collection even by the the time I was born. It was awesome, in fact."
The cultural effects of emigration are vast and well known. A look at the Irish experience in America reveals both a certain willingness to ditch the old ways and a strange parallel determination to preserve at least some version of the past. The main objective, however, was simple enough - to leave one place for another and find a better life in that new home - and many precious things could be set aside in its pursuit.
"I guess that being the children of immigrants in the Cuban-American society that we grew up in, parents usually wanted you to be doctors and lawyers and live a normal life, whatever that means. So being a musician was not the normal thing and it was not highly encouraged. It was very difficult, but what's interesting is that it made you work harder at it. Yeah, we were a musical family with lots of parties and singing and carrying on, but it was still quite difficult to be a musician. It wasn't encouraged." Even so, there had been Cuban-American musical success stories, most notably the Miami Sound Machine. This was a blend of salsa and rock and produced names such as Emilio Estefan. These days, Gloria Estefan is a major star and although she now performs mainstream pop, sung mainly in English and aimed at the North American market, she retains a huge Latin following. In 1990 she had a very significant hit with Oye Mi Canto - a song credited with marking the "arrival" of Latin-American pop and which became an important symbol of assimilation for Latin-Americans living in the States.
But Estefan's wasn't the only important record of 1990. That year also saw the release of The Mavericks' first record - something which was a million miles from Gloria Estefan or the old Miami sound. Whatever way you looked at it The Mavericks were a country band, a very good country band with many influences, yes, but a country band nevertheless.
"Yeah, it wasn't very likely! There have always been a few pop acts signed out of Miami, and of course Gloria Estefan is the most famous Miamian around - but I don't think any country act had ever come out of there! The reaction to us was often one of amusement, really! But then when people would come out to the shows and find themselves dancing and singing along and tapping their feet and having a good time, all prejudices and preconceived notions would be out the door. We've always had fun and now, looking back, there was a hint of irony in what we did; but we never did it as a joke. It was never a tongue-and-cheek thing for us. But I'd say it was quite extraordinary, yes."
The success of the Mavericks has been equally extraordinary. When the Country Music Association presented them with the group of the year award, Malo famously shouted "You really like us?" And I'm sure Raul Malo's weren't the only eyebrows to be raised. The country music establishment is notoriously slow to accept anything that doesn't quite fit the bill and, although The Mavericks' country credentials are evident, they still have as much to do with rock'n'roll as with anything that should be sung from under a stetson.
But then Malo knows his history - and his music displays an awareness that, long before the creation of The Nashville Sound, country music had mixed very freely with blues, jazz, pop and just about everything else. Little wonder, then, that The Mavericks might remind the listener of everybody from The Everly Brothers to Louis Prima.
Malo's favourite country stars are, given the history, quite predictable - "In terms of country music I'd have to start with Marty Robbins. He was so diverse. And then there was Buck Owens and Johnny Cash. But then I also loved the pop stylings of people like Eddy Arnold and Patsy Cline. But I do think that music should all be in there together. There's only two kinds of music - good and bad - and sometimes even the bad stuff can be good!"
This is not the kind of talk a record company normally likes to hear. The music business demands to have its bands in boxes - easily marketed and with no inherent confusions or mixed signals. The artists Malo values probably wouldn't even get a record deal today, particularly in the country music world, where the airbrush and the hairdresser seem to have replaced the songwriter and the voice as the vital elements of success.
And yet The Mavericks surge onwards and upwards with near-reckless disregard for received wisdom. Their current album Trampoline is yet another eclectic extravaganza full of honky-tonk, Latin, Texan, gospel and torch - the opening track, Dance The Night Away (an irresistible hit if ever I heard one), is a sort of Herb Alpert ska number! "Yes, I think we've always been a record company's nightmare," says Malo. "But if I was a record company president I'd realise that with some artists you've just got to let them go and do their own thing and find their own path. From early on we really had to fight - and we've been fighting ever since. Now we're at a point where we are able to do a record like Trampoline; and I think it's a record that proves to some degree that we can now do whatever we want musically. I think as long as we make music that we enjoy, then our fans will enjoy it too. And that's always the key to entertaining.
"You can have all the demographics and all the statistics you want, but you'll never quite grasp everything with those numbers. There's something that is always missed, and that's where we like to lie - the one spot that they forgot to check!"
The Mavericks play The Olympia tonight at 8 p.m.
