STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
With another step in the evolution of The Mavericks, they're a hot-swinging, nine-piece band...
(SOUNDBITE OF THE MAVERICKS SONG, "ALL NIGHT LONG")
INSKEEP: ...At least, they are now. They used to be considered part of the country music scene. Even further back, they were part of the South Florida alternative music scene. One thing the group had not done in its 30-year existence was record an album entirely in Spanish - until now. Jewly Hight reports.
JEWLY HIGHT, BYLINE: Long before Raul Malo became The Mavericks' famously expressive lead singer, he learned how to communicate growing up in a bilingual Miami household.
RAUL MALO: I'm first-generation Cuban American in my family. I was the first child born in the New World. You had to learn English. And you had to speak English. And it was part of the curriculum. And everybody spoke it. And at home, I spoke Spanish to my abuelita. And that was fine by me.
HIGHT: So were the jazz and pop crooners and classic country and Elvis numbers Malo's parents and grandparents shared with him. Sure, he was a teenager living in MTV's early '80s heyday. But he was taken with the openly emotional qualities of all sorts of earlier music.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE MAVERICKS SONG, "THIS BROKEN HEART")
MALO: I didn't hate it. I didn't rebel against it. As a matter of fact, I loved a lot of it (laughter), which, in turn, made me kind of rebellious anyway.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS BROKEN HEART")
THE MAVERICKS: (Singing) This broken heart will never love again.
HIGHT: When The Mavericks reached Nashville at the start of the '90s, their retro finesse set them apart from other major label acts. And as the band's front man, Malo was frequently asked to explain how his Cuban American identity squared with his country affinities. Malo wasn't the first faced with those questions, says historian Amanda Marie Martinez.
AMANDA MARIE MARTINEZ: In the 1970s, both Freddy Fender and Johnny Rodriguez, who were Mexican American, were huge stars. But they also were thought of as an anomaly within country music.
HIGHT: Martinez's research shows that commercial country music, as she puts it...
MARTINEZ: Was thought of and marketed to a primarily - or exclusively white audience demographic with a white artist at the center of that.
HIGHT: The Mavericks didn't follow a narrow format. By the early 2000s, their evolving sound featured a horn section...
(SOUNDBITE OF THE MAVERICKS SONG, "SHINE YOUR LIGHT")
HIGHT: ...And the new lead guitarist Eddie Perez. A Los Angeles native with a Mexican American background, he worked his way through hard rock, jump blues, country and plenty else on his way to The Mavericks.
EDDIE PEREZ: I think, to play in a band like what we have, I think you have to have a pretty wide vocabulary because at any moment, Raul can say, hey, what about this song?
HIGHT: The band soon went on hiatus. But Malo never stopped making music during the years-long break, a little of it in Spanish. The reunited Mavericks were in even more exploratory unit. In the spring of 2017, the whole band flew to Cuba to take part in a music documentary that aired on PBS.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GAUNTANAMERA")
THE MAVERICKS: (Singing in Spanish).
HIGHT: Just six months later, the group began reimagining time-tested popular tunes from Latin America for what would become "En Espanol."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME OLVIDE DE VIVIR")
THE MAVERICKS: (Singing in Spanish).
MALO: The Julio Iglesias song, "Me Olvidé De Vivir," it happens to be my late granddad's favorite song. And so there's a childhood connection to it. I heard it all my life. And I always thought it was such a beautiful song. And it made him cry.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME OLVIDÉ DE VIVIR")
THE MAVERICKS: (Singing in Spanish).
HIGHT: Malo wanted to use equally grand, poetic language in the originals he wrote for the album.
MALO: It's one thing to have - to speak conversational Spanish. But to sit down and write songs, that required a little more in-depth command of the language. And I really wanted to dive deep into that. And so I wrote some songs with my Cuban friends.
HIGHT: Alejandro Menendez Vega is a cinematographer and writer who assisted Malo with the lyrics of a few songs.
ALEJANDRO MENENDEZ VEGA: He knew what he wanted people to feel with the songs. And after he gave me the melody, it was really quite simple, quite easy. Also, I have this book.
HIGHT: The book Vega's referencing is a rhyming dictionary published in Argentina in the 1940s.
VEGA: It has so many beautiful, old Spanish words. And I love to use it. So we put it on the table. And that's usually the center of gravity.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RECUERDOS")
THE MAVERICKS: (Singing in Spanish).
HIGHT: Guitarist Eddie Perez says the songs took him back to family barbecues, while these arrangements drew him away from some of his familiar approaches to playing.
PEREZ: I feel like this music called for a little bit more subtleties and a little bit more, you know, eloquence than it did for, like, you know, finding a spot to shred just to find a spot to shred. So much of this music was I was really wanting to play the part of just being part of the orchestra that is The Mavericks.
HIGHT: Malo suggests the project's significance is both personal and political at a time when immigrants, especially those whose first languages aren't English, face increased scrutiny in the U.S.
MALO: In our own little way, if we could get somebody that, perhaps, is on the fence on issues and hears us singing in Spanish and, perhaps, reminds them of the beautiful cultures that make up what this country is trying to be and what it should be, you know, so be it. Yeah. I'm OK with that.
HIGHT: And if listeners are reminded that the Latin American lineage The Mavericks are exploring is part of American roots music, that's not such a bad outcome either. For NPR News, I'm Jewly Hight in Nashville.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA SITIERA")
THE MAVERICKS: (Singing in Spanish).
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