Raul Malo - After Hours
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Raul MaloEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2007-07-17
Music Label: New Door Records
Soundtracks:
- Welcome To My World (John Hathcock-Ray Winkler)
- (Now And Then There's) A Fool Such As I (William Trader)
- For The Good Times (Kris Kristofferson)
- Pocket Of A Clown (Dwight Yoakam)
- Crying Time (Buck Owens)
- Cold, Cold Heart (Hank Williams)
- You Can Depend On Me (Charles Carpenter-Louis Dunlap-Earl Hines)
- Husbands And Wives (Roger Miller)
- It Only Hurts Me When I Cry (Dwight Yoakam-Roger Miller)
- Take These Chains From My Heart (Hy Heath-Fred Rose)
Free Music Notes for After Hours
Free Music Review: Who needs beer and a backseat.
Hit: 5 Stars
To sound this good should be a crime. Over the years, Raul Malo has made exceptional music. The kind of music that makes you either stand up and shuffle (good or bad), grab the person next to you for a slow dance around the livingroom or curl up so close to them that you could hear their heart beating over the swelling notes of Malo's operatic vocals. The man can sing. Pure and simple.
This disc, a follow up to his last great album, is a slow burner of classics, some well known -- other's a bit under the radar. Like any great showman, there is a slow build to almost every song that just oozes with style. And unlike the processed popular music of today there is a genuine groove and "feel" to the songs. "Welcome to My World," with it's slow, tinkling piano is magic. The pep of "Pocket of a Clown" hides the down turn of the lyrics. But the standout for me is Owens' "Cryin' Time." Ray Charles does an utterly breathtaking version of it, and another with Streisand as a duet. And Malo doesn't let the song or the masters who sung it before him down.
I could gush about this disc for ages. But also, I should mention that Raul Malo also puts on a kick butt live show as well. Pick up the CD, pick up a few. Give them to friends -- heck, give them to enemies. They'll say: I used to hate [insert your name here] but they have great music tastes. I'm gonna get [insert your name here] a muffin. And who doesn't like muffins?
After Hours Poster
"There's a sophistication in country music, particularly in the songs that were written in the 1950s and'60s, that sometimes gets overlooked," says Malo. "I wanted to make an album that showed these songs can be treated as pop standards, because that's what they are, really. It's just that the artists who had success with them were country artists, although Tony Bennett had a hit with a Hank Williams song, so it isn't that unusual for the genres to cross each other."In approaching this material, Malo and his band--Robert Chevrier (piano), Jay Weaver (bass), Tom Lewis (drums) and Jim Hoke (saxophone, clarinet and pedal steel)--drew their inspiration from the classic Nashville productions of the era. "This record definitely pays homage to the kind of country music Owen Bradley created," Malo acknowledges. "But the Ray Charles album Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music was the specific inspiration for this one. Ray proved that country music can be sophisticated and jazzy as well, and we wanted to do our take on it."
Raul Malo Photos
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More from Raul Malo
 Marshmallow World & Other Holiday Favorites |  You're Only Lonely |  The Nashville Acoustic Sessions |  Today |
Raul Malo's second covers album in two years skews slightly closer to the classic country that influenced his early career with the Mavericks. It is also likely to further alienate followers of his rootsy former band as he shifts into crooning, jazzy supper-club mode on these countrypolitan versions of classic and a few more recent C&W tracks. All twang is removed here, replaced with a horn section, a featured clarinet, and slick pop arrangements of standards associated with Elvis ("(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I"), Hank Williams ("Take These Chains from My Heart," "Cold, Cold Heart"), and Ray Price (Kris Kristofferson's often-interpreted "For the Good Times"). Malo sure has the pipes for these reworkings, but the disc is most convincing when the syrupy support takes a back seat to the relatively swinging horns on Dwight Yoakam's "It Only Hurts Me When I Cry" and "Pocket of a Clown." Regardless of your age, this is very definitely your parents' country, as Malo transforms himself into a younger, slightly hipper Dean Martin. You can practically taste the olive in his martini and touch his crisp tuxedo as he eases into this material with satiny-smooth vocals and classy delivery. But the line between seductive and snoozy is a thin one, and established fans might wonder where the old fire has gone as they navigate through this glossy set of easy-listening, after-hours mood music. --Hal Horowitz
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