Raul Malo
Probably still best known over here as being the front man of The Mavericks, Raul Mala is establishing himself more and more as a solo artist. His post-Mavericks career seem to have given him more freedom, not only musically, but also to use music as it always has been, to express his thoughts on a number of social and political issues.
It means that he’s moved from being an artist that’s easy to predict to one that’s capable of going off in a multitude of direction, anything from flamenco, through country rock and back to more latin inspired songs.
He can be singing his heart out about lost love one minute and bemoaning the lack of control people have on their lives the next. As a solo artist, he seems to have found that music doesn’t need to be perfect to have meaning. He’s less polished than he was when he was in a band, but you can feel him in the songs now, they seem to count more.