Trampoline
MCA Nashville, 1998
http://www.themavericksband.com
REVIEW BY: Jason Warburg
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 09/01/2026
The Mavericks were unicorns.
They began as a “country” band more because of where they came from (Nashville) than the kind of music they played, which defied categorization from the start. There was a strong thread of Americana / alt-country at the beginning, but their catalog quickly blossomed outward to embrace Latin, early rock, gospel, blues, big band jazz and traditional vocal sounds. This was a band that could cover Hank Williams, Vicente Fernández, Burt Bacharach and The Hollies with equal ease and flair.
They were also a band with a strong and distinctive leader. Frontman Raul Malo was blessed with a gigantic tenor voice and a magnetic stage presence, full of playfulness and joy. Malo also wrote or co-wrote pretty much every original song the band ever recorded, produced or co-produced most of their albums, and had a prolific solo career as well.
Malo’s too-young death from cancer last December sent me digging back into the band’s catalog and remembering many enjoyable hours spent in the company of the group’s 1998 record Trampoline, their fifth studio album and the follow-up to 1995’s Music For All Occasions (#9 Billboard Country, #58 Billboard). The lineup here features forever-Mavericks Malo and Paul Deakin (drums), along with founding bassist Robert Reynolds, guitarist Nick Kane, and guest musicians including future Maverick Jerry Dale McFadden (keys).
Album opener and lead single “Dance The Night Away” sets the tone, a bouncy, buoyant Latin-soul-pop-rock confection that carries an undercurrent of melancholy as Malo’s narrator works to distract himself from a breakup. Giddy blasts from the horn section lend a celebratory, anthemic air as the rhythm section delivers a steady push and McFadden provides essential texture.
From there the boys delve into blues-tinged soul-pop (“Tell Me Why”), a swaying Latin shuffle (“I Should Know”), romantic barroom country-rock (“Someone Should Tell Her”), and a string-drenched ballad (“To Be With You”), rendering each with panache and tremendous attention to detail. Malo’s booming-yet-silky-smooth voice anchored their sound, but the band’s ability to adapt to almost any musical scenario is key to bringing these tunes to life—that and the frequent addition of punchy horns.
As if to prove they recognize no musical boundaries, the boys next embrace the taut spaghetti-Western overtones and over-the-top choruses of “I’ve Got This Feeling,” following it with the sultry, playful, jazzy lounge-blues ballad “Fool #1” and the jangle-licious, Byrds-y “I Don’t Even Know Your Name.”
The final third of the album is, if anything, even more adventurous. “I Hope You Want Me Too” is a terrific Latin-inflected number with one of Malo’s most effortlessly charismatic lead vocals and spicy trumpet and organ accents. The instrumental “Melbourne Mambo” lives up to its billing; if this one doesn’t make your hips move, you should get that checked out. Then “Dolores” goes full dance hall with clarinet, tinkly piano, and filtered old-time vocals.
Just when you’re wondering where all this is headed, Malo and company offer another neck-snapping stylistic twist with the gospel tent revival number “Save A Prayer”; it’s a full-tilt hoot from start to way-over-the-top finish. The album closes out with the Orbison-esque and suitably dreamy ballad “Dream River,” which is lovely even if it’s basically a Malo solo track.
Interesting anomalies show up in the chart results for Trampoline. Despite continuing the musical diversity of Music For All Occasions, it charted the same on the country chart (#9) as its predecessor, but considerably lower on the overall Billboard chart (#96). Meanwhile, lead single “Dance The Night Away” reached only #63 in the US—but hit #4 in the UK, where it spent 13 weeks in the top 100.
Produced by Malo and Don Cook, Trampoline showcased the band’s musical versatility and kaleidoscopic vision of what their music could be. It’s a terrific piece of work and the third act of a trio of albums, beginning with 1994’s What A Crying Shame, that represents the heart of the band’s superb catalog.