POP MUSIC REVIEW : Mavericks Are Honky-Tonk-Pop-Latin-Rock-Solid

You don’t often see a country nightclub filled with dancers two-stepping their way across the floor while the band plays its ode to a generation of Cuban refugees.

But the Mavericks, who did just that Tuesday at In Cahoots, isn’t your standard-issue country band.

In fact, the Florida-based quintet is one of the brightest additions to the country scene of the ‘90s. The 90-minute performance made it abundantly clear that none of the charms of its two albums were created with recording-studio mirrors and smoke.

The Mavericks are doubly blessed with the masterful singing of Raul Malo, who also just happens to be a top-notch writer. Malo has a firm grasp of the craft behind a great country song, but unlike so many writers plying their trade in Nashville today, he never lets formula get in the way of honest emotion.

There’s an almost mathematical symmetry to the structure of verses in “Pretend,” a song he wrote with veteran country composer Kostas:

Pretend you’re still in love with me

And things are what they used to be

I know our love’s come to an end

So one more time let’s just pretend

It’s powerfully simple, as the best country songs are.

While such a tune proves the Mavericks know classic country and honky-tonk inside out (“Pretend” and several others off its new “What a Crying Shame” album would be perfect for Buck Owens), the group can deliver stinging social commentary as convincingly.

Such material was more prevalent on its 1992 major-label debut, notably the title song, “From Hell to Paradise.” Malo’s ode to those, including his own parents, who escaped the repressive Castro regime was transformed Tuesday from the country-rock anthem treatment on the album to a more apt Latin arrangement. Malo strummed a Spanish guitar, bassist Robert Reynolds and drummer Paul Deakin emphasized a loping calypso beat while guitarist Nick Kane snaked in spare guitar leads and keyboardist Jerry Dale McFadden supplied colorful accordion fills.

Throughout the performance, the musicians brought a Blasters-Los Lobos-style roots-rock ethic to their playing, shifting deftly from country and Western swing to Tex-Mex, rockabilly and Latin pop to keep the textures varied. And the dancers moving. They also displayed a solid foundation in blues structures that allowed them to let songs breathe more fully than the recorded versions.

It was reassuring to see that in concert they didn’t back off the sociopolitical bent of that first album, even though they’ve gotten their first taste of commercial acceptance with the love song-dominated “Crying Shame” album. “Mr. Jones” is a particularly deft rendering of the you-can’t-go-home-again theme that works as well on small scale as it does in the larger view of those who yearn for a return to the “better days” of yore.

Still, there’s nothing to apologize for about the new album’s focus on matters of the heart. Several numbers have the ring of future classics. And who knows? With modest commercial success of the title single, the Mavericks’ are off to a good start in that direction.

The group is on a brief California tour that began Tuesday in San Diego and brings the band back to Orange County tonight for a show at the Country Rock Cafe in Lake Forest.