You have to love a young band that adorns its debut album with a sticker saying, ”Buy It! We May Need the Bail Money.”
Such is the case with ”From Hell to Paradise” by the Mavericks, a Miami-based aggregation that grew up distinctively outside the mainstream country scene.
Mavericks lead singer Raul Malo is a son of Cuban immigrants-who were fans of seminal American rock `n` roll. When his parents arrived in the United States in 1959, they brought ”a bunch of records by Bill Haley, Elvis, Hank
(Williams) Sr., Johnny Cash.
”So I grew up listening to a lot of great music. I started collecting Elvis records when I was 8. I saw him live when I was about 11 or 12. He was at the end of his career then, but it blew my mind. I thought, `That looks like a great job to have.` ”
Malo meet a couple of non-Latins who shared his interest in the sounds of late 1950s-early `60s vintage country stars. First came bassist Robert Reynolds, then drummer Paul Deakin. The group found a following almost immediately after it began playing around Miami.
”The greatest thing about the band is that it was started for the right reasons: to play, with no idea of what was going to happen,” Malo says.
”We started playing around town with no real expectations. People started coming out and before you knew it every place we played was packed. We`d get these thrash kids-the punks, heavy-metal kids with mohawks-thinking we were the hippest thing in town. And we`d get these older people coming out because we were playing country music.”
On the record: Vince Gill`s ”Pocket Full of Gold” recently became his second album to become a million-seller. The first was ”When I Call Your Name.” . . . Songwriter and lead vocalist Molly Scheer of the northwestern Wisconsin-based band Molly & the Heymakers, which has a new album, ”Molly & the Heymakers,” on the market, says much of the group`s distinctiveness was an inadvertent byproduct of where it came from. ”We never sat down and said, `Let`s play something different,` ” Scheer says. ”To be honest, we didn`t have much to copy from.” . . . Song title of the week: ”Big Doggin` Around” by M. Henderson and W. Wilson.
Billy Ray Cyrus, a hot new star in country music, suggests that Mercury Records` innovative decision to launch his skyrocketing ”Achy Breaky Heart” single with an ”Achy Breaky” dance in country dance clubs around the nation was a logical thing.
”I told the record company that everywhere I played, the people danced-even little kids danced M.C. Hammer-style,” Cyrus says. ”So somebody at the record company came up with the idea of the `Achy Breaky` dance to build a grass-roots foundation for the single.
”I was ready for this thing to go ahead and take off months ago, but they kept telling me, `We`re going to do this so you`ll have a better chance. We`ll build you a better foundation.` And now I`m glad they did.”
On the road: Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers, appearing June 7 at the Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet and Aug. 8 at the Heartland America Air Show Festival at the Du Page County Airport, stress that their current ”Adios Tour” doesn`t have to mean goodbye-especially for Gatlin fans planning a visit to Branson, Mo. Although the Gatlins have announced they will stop touring at the end of this year, they plan to remain a force in country music. They expect to spend time at a Branson entertainment complex expected to open in 1993. . . . The special guest at the Statler Brothers` 1992 Happy Birthday U.S.A. celebration on July 4 in Staunton, Va., will be Crystal Gayle. . . . Shelby Lynne`s recent high-profile spot opening shows in Las Vegas for
”Tonight Show” host Jay Leno came about when Lynne impressed Leno in an appearance on ”The Tonight Show.”
McBride & the Ride has reached a lot of ears with the current hit (and album title song) ”Sacred Ground.” A contributing factor may be the big industry impression it made during a live performance at the annual Country Radio Seminar in Nashville.
”The (electrical) power onstage went out on us right in the middle of the first song,” recalls lead singer Terry McBride.
”The place was packed, so we kept on singing. They saw that we really could sing live and didn`t need all the instruments to enhance what we really do best. To this day, radio people come up to us and say, `Remember when the power went out?` ”
Et cetera: Country Music Magazine publisher Russell Barnard is crowing about the fact that in its 20th anniversary year, his publication boasts a circulation of 675,000 and that a Harris poll ”shows that fully 59 percent of Americans like country music.”
