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Raúl Malo, one of the most influential Cuban-American artists in country music and the leader of the band The Mavericks, passed away on Monday at the age of 60 after a long battle with cancer, as confirmed by his family and representatives of the group.
The information was initially reported by WLRN, a station affiliated with National Public Radio, and later expanded by FOX News, which noted that the musician was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2024, in addition to a rare brain condition known as leptomeningeal disease.
Although his name was not widely known in Cuba, Malo was a respected legend in the United States, possessing a powerful and soulful voice that defined the multicultural sound of The Mavericks for over three decades.
The son of Cuban immigrants, he was born in Miami under the name Raúl Francisco Martínez-Malo Jr., in a home where Celia Cruz, Sam Cooke, Hank Williams, and Bobby Darin coexisted. This musical blend would forever shape his style: a country infused with Latin soul, large doses of bolero, rock, tex-mex, and swing.
The Mavericks, founded by Malo in 1989 alongside Paul Deakin and Robert Reynolds, burst onto the country scene with a unique proposal that set them apart from Nashville.
In 1995, they achieved their greatest success with All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down, recorded alongside the legendary Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jiménez. Throughout their career, the band won a Grammy, two awards from the Country Music Association, and three from the Academy of Country Music.
His connection to Latin culture has never been broken. In 2020, The Mavericks released En Español, their first entirely Spanish-language album, a venture with cultural and political significance that reimagined Latin classics through the lens of American country aesthetics.
"If we can get someone who has doubts about certain topics to listen to music in Spanish and remember the beauty of our cultures, then that's even better," Malo told NPR.
The illness forced him to cancel all his concerts in 2025, although he continued to communicate with his fans.
In September, in a video posted on Instagram, he humorously explained that leptomeningeal disease was "another thing he wanted to get out of his head."
Despite the decline, last weekend he was honored at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, where more than 30 artists sang for him. Malo was unable to attend, but the concert was streamed live to his hospital room, according to NPR.
His wife, Betty Malo, wrote an emotional message following his death: “They called him to perform another concert, this time in heaven, and he is soaring high like an eagle.”
Raúl Malo leaves behind an immense musical legacy and a cultural bridge between Cuba and the United States that few artists have managed to build with such authenticity. He is survived by his wife, his three children, and his bandmates from The Mavericks.
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