{"id":77493,"date":"2025-12-09T21:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T21:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/77493\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T21:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T21:16:07","slug":"miami-country-music-legend-raul-malo-dies-at-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/77493\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Country Music Legend Raul Malo Dies at 60"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1240\" height=\"930\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/the_mavericks_credit_alejandro_menendez.webp.jpeg\" class=\"article-thumbnail-image wp-post-image\" alt=\"The four members of the Mavericks standing in a hallway\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Mavericks first ever show was at Churchill&#8217;s 36 years to the day of Malo&#8217;s death. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Photo by Alejandro Menendez<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.miaminewtimes.com\/music\/the-mavericks-to-perform-at-adrienne-arsht-center-in-miami-19254337\/\">Raul Malo<\/a>, Miami\u2019s hometown country music hero, died yesterday at sixty years of age. His band <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.miaminewtimes.com\/music\/concert-review-the-mavericks-at-the-miami-arsht-center-may-15-2024-19298309\/\">the Mavericks<\/a> had three top-ten albums on the country music charts and a 1995 Grammy for \u201cBest Country Performance\u201d.\u00a0 Just last weekend, the Mavericks hosted a two-night tribute concert for Malo, who had been suffering from cancer, at Nashville\u2019s famed Ryman Auditorium, featuring a who\u2019s who of Americana music, including Steve Earle and Jim Lauderdale. All this fame, respect, and international success came after Malo and the rest of the Mavericks moved to Nashville in 1992, but he got his start right here in <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.miaminewtimes.com\/music\/\">Miami<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Last March, Malo spoke to New Times about growing up in Miami, including first learning to play music with others at Rockway Middle School in Westchester. \u201cThey had a full orchestra at a public school. Can you imagine that?\u201d he said. \u201cIn seventh grade, I was playing double bass with a symphony. That first year, we sounded like a herd of cats. By eighth grade, we sounded pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 1989, he started the Mavericks, whose first ever show was at <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.miaminewtimes.com\/music\/beloved-local-venue-churchills-reopened-last-night-23956009\/\">Churchill\u2019s<\/a>, 36 years to the day of his death on December 8, 1989. They had all kinds of influences from country and Latin music, but Malo insisted, \u201cThe Mavericks at its core is a rock \u2018n\u2019 roll band. That\u2019s always been our attitude, even if we throw jazz, big band, and Cuban music into our gumbo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThis year, make your gift count \u2013<br \/>Invest in local news that matters.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"fundraising-thermometer-body\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOur work is funded by readers like you who make voluntary gifts because they value our work and want to see it continue. Make a contribution today to help us reach our $30,000 goal!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>A few months after that Churchill\u2019s debut, the Mavericks played an in store show at the local Yesterday &amp; Today Records in the summer of 1990. The store\u2019s owner, Rich Ulloa, said his life was forever changed from that performance, \u201cRaul was a force. I heard him sing Roy Orbison\u2019s \u2018Crying\u2019 and I knew I was listening to a voice of the ages.\u201d\u00a0 Ulloa formed a label Y&amp;T Records, specifically to record and release a CD of the Mavericks music.<\/p>\n<p>That self-titled debut led to their signing with a major label. The Mavericks moved to Nashville, and there was no looking back. They released thirteen records, including most recently 2024\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0Moon &amp; Stars,\u00a0which Malo said was inspired by, \u201call the turmoil, the protests, COVID, the divisiveness, the angst. Instead of building a wall, I\u2019d like to build a mirror so we can see what we\u2019ve become. If you say the sky is blue, someone will fight you on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before the Mavericks played what ended up being their last ever Miami concert at the Arsht Center on March 15, 2024, Malo expressed his gratitude toward his hometown. \u201cWe had a lot of love and a lot of people rooting for us. We weren\u2019t the normal thing down here. This was Gloria Estefan\u2019s town back then, and we were doing something completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He went on in that last Miami gig to show his hometown fans he still possessed a voice for the ages. Accompanied by a horn section and an accordion, his voice fluctuated between a yodel and a croon. The band played all their hits like \u201cThere Goes My Heart\u201d and \u201cDance the Night Away.\u201d But it was during a cover of Elvis Presley\u2019s rendition of \u201cBlue Moon\u201d where Raul\u2019s voice brought the massive room to stunned silence, except for the sound of an occasional teardrop falling from eyes to the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to the\u00a0New York Times,\u00a0\u201chis survivors include his mother, Norma; his wife, Betty Fernandez Malo; their three sons, Max, Vincent, and Dino; and his sister, Carol.\u201d He also had a legion of fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Mavericks had fans everywhere,\u201d Ulloa said in tribute. \u201cRaul was an incredible musician, a great songwriter, and always had an eye to the future. That\u2019s why the band kept growing into such an incredible ensemble. He was revered. This is the end of an era.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mavericks first ever show was at Churchill&#8217;s 36 years to the day of Malo&#8217;s death. Photo by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226,17878,2311],"class_list":{"0":"post-77493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news","11":"tag-history-nostalgia","12":"tag-local-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}