AFTER HOURS - RAUL MALO
Miami-born, Nashville-based Malo’s musical palette has long included everything from Latin rhythms to rock, bluegrass and country, so it’s not surprising that this treatment of country classics — recorded with his three-piece road band and horn player Jim Hoke — is authentic and innovative. One of modern music’s purest voices, Malo nails Eddy Arnold’s “Welcome to My World,” does a bouncy take on Hank Snow’s “(Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such As I” and offers a fresh, passionate version of the Ray Price-sung, Kris Kristofferson-penned “For the Good Times.” Roger Miller’s “Husbands and Wives” and the Dwight Yoakam and Miller-penned “It Only Hurts Me When I Cry” are among the other standouts. Top honors, though, go to Malo’s absolutely outstanding big band romp through Hank Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart.”
