Raul Malo, Lucky One (Fantasy)

On Lucky One, former Maverick Raul Malo scales down his commercial ambition and ups his artistic ones. There’s no chart for his map-of-Texas music to top, but he and co-producer Steve Berlin have crafted an album that moves across the state’s geography and through its history, landing with sometimes heavy, sometimes light footsteps on its Latin inheritances. His voice remains a Roy Orbison-like miracle, though the least engaging tracks are the ballads that show it off. Better are the gently swinging “You Always Win” (Malo joins the Rat Pack), “Moonlight Kiss” (Malo in a rollicking club scene from an Elvis movie) and “Something Tells Me,” the most Mavericks-like pop song here. And at a time when much Americana lumbers with its own self-importance, the ease with which Malo carries himself on the album makes it a pleasure.