Los Shakers In The U.S.A. (Part Seven)


 As a result of the Toto’s Bar fiasco in January 1968, Odeon forced Capitol to drop Los Shakers from the label and although these events affected Los Shakers and Odeon, ultimately the final double-disc album was finished and released later in the year. As the group was working on the album, Odeon signed a deal with Columbia Records for American and Canadian distribution of their material and as a consequence of the fallout, Odeon did not allow another one of their artists to have their records released by Capitol in the United States until the label became rebranded and regrouped into EMI during the 1970s. 


Los Shakers’ releases from this point onwards mirror the intended Argentinian albums/singles perfectly regarding track listings, artwork and titles and edits. The first release under this practice was the two disc edition of ‘La Conferencia Secreta Del Toto’s Bar’ released in August 1968. As Los Shakers focused solely on albums from this point onwards, very few singles were released by the group and Columbia perhaps frightened by previous events, refused to release any additional singles that the record company and artists had not given strict confirmation over. 


Although Columbia had stripped Capitol over any future Los Shakers releases, as part of the deal between EMI and Capitol, the later party was allowed to keep their rights over the material they had already released (bar the unintended ‘Toto’s Bar’ release) and continued to use their music in compilations and various artists releases up until the early 1980s as well as reissuing the albums up until 1975 when they were deleted from the catalogue.


By the time of the CD era, only ‘Songbook’ of the original Capitol albums had been reissued on CD. This was also alongside a release that contained all the material of their first two Argentinian studio albums ‘Los Shakers’ and ‘Shakers For You.’ In 1988, Rhino purchased the rights to distribute the group’s Capitol era material on CD including a brand new greatest hits album. These releases mimicked the US albums but often combined two albums onto a disc to make the new releases have more value and running time. By the 1990s, EMI finally reissued the intended Argentinian releases of their material worldwide putting an end to the band’s American albums. To this day, there has not been an official release or box set of the group’s American Capitol albums.


Los Shakers Greatest Hits (18th November 1989)

1. Break It All
2. Red Rubber Ball
3. Do Not Disturb
4. Everybody Shake
5. Always You
6. I'm Thinking
7. What A Love
8. Picking Up Troubles
9.  Girl
10. Hallelujah
11. Got Any Money?
12. Don't Ask Me Love
13. Waiting
14. Lovely Lola
15. Never, Never

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