The Mavericks fought to find their place on the musical map

When The Mavericks came onto the scene of mainstream country music in the ’90s, it was safe to say they weren’t like anything else found on the radio at that time.

Lead singer Raul Malo’s vocals called to mind Roy Orbison, if the rock ’n’ roll pioneer had grown up in and been influenced by the same Cuban-American Miami community as Malo, while the band itself seemed determined to differentiate itself from every act surrounding it at the time.

Adopting aspects of Tex-Mex, Latin and rockabilly stylings when the mood struck, the trio of albums the band released during this period (“What a Crying Shame,” “Music for All Occasions” and “Trampoline”) managed to produce six Top 40 Country hits for the band, an impressive feat during a time period when country fans were already beginning to embrace the more pop sensibilities found on country radio today.

Of course, not everyone loved the band, or its music. In fact, it was in North Carolina where Malo found out just how powerful country radio programmers could be when it came to what was played on their stations and the lengths that record labels would go to keep the stations happy when they called to complain.

“I remember one call in particular, and it was one radio station in North Carolina, they wouldn’t play ‘All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down,’ which at the time was climbing up the charts, because it had too much accordion (performed by the iconic Tejano musician Flaco Jimenez),” recalled Malo, who will be with the rest of the Mavericks when they perform Friday night at Durham’s Carolina Theatre.

“The record label did an edited version, and I remember being really upset about that, where it was clearly just a radio director being a (jerk),” he said. “I always thought that was the wrong approach (to dealing with the station), but radio in those days was a powerful tool in (selling) music, and that was the game. That was the one time where you knew that you were operating within the mainstream.”

The band’s streak of hits on country radio might be behind it, but Malo is fine with that. He has led the Mavericks to their current status as one of the top drawing acts within the Americana genre, a position that suits the band a little better than traveling to radio stations around the country in the hopes of talking a program director into sliding their current single beside the latest from Florida Georgia Line.

Paul Deakin, drummer and founding member of the band, is fond of calling the Mavericks’ music “non-gen,” including their latest self-released album, “Brand New Day.” It’s been nearly 30 years since the group formed, and the bandmates have become comfortable with the fact that their music just doesn’t fit comfortably within the parameters of standard music genres.

Malo pauses when considering whether it’s a relief he no longer deals with the politics of the country music world. He says, “Hopefully someone will want to play it; someone somewhere will want to spin it on their station. I think the point at this moment in our lives and careers is to just make the best record you can make. If it gets played, that’s great.”

The singer continues, “It’s almost like you really can’t control that kind of thing anymore; what you do have control over is what you write and sing. That’s where the focus is. At this point, we have enough of a following that we can go out and work whenever we want.

“I think it’s getting harder and harder for younger artists coming in, who are trying to find their way, and need that little push that will put them on the map. It’s a different strategy than what we have to worry about these days.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 5:00 PM with the headline "The Mavericks fought to find their place on the musical map."