Los Shakers In The U.S.A. (Part Three)
By the middle of 1966, the pop music scene was changing. The album era had well and truly begun with artists such as The Beatles with ‘Rubber Soul’ and The Beach Boys with ‘Pet Sounds’ revolutionising the musical landscape, proving that not only was this new music not a fad, but it had depth and meaning far beyond what many dismissed it as. Los Shakers however were not unfamiliar with the strength and power of an album, as the jazz world had fully adopted it the moment music jumped from 10 inch 78 rpm discs to 12 inch 33 ⅓ rpm discs. Still, the scene was as competitive as possible with a never-ending stream of new artists entering. Back in South America, much of this new music however would take much more time to appear not only because of the amount of time it took to ship over and release an album or even a single from England or the US, but also because most artists wouldn’t or couldn’t travel over to the continent. Over in Argentina and Uruguay, the band was living the high life, nothing could stop them. But slight concerns over the band’s commercial future internationally were starting to mount.
The band had entered the studio in March of 1966 to commence work on a new album, their second studio album which would eventually become the South American version of ‘Shakers For You.’ Whereas their debut studio album had only taken approximately two and a half months to fully record and mix, by May of 1966 only about four songs that ultimately appeared on that album were recorded. By this point in America, Capitol’s own pop department was beginning to show cracks. The Beach Boys’ latest album ‘Pet Sounds’ went far beyond budget and its originally planned release date of late 1965 and sold far below Capitol’s expectations especially for an album of its long and expensive production. In stark contrast, The Beatles had taken the first few months of 1966 off with few recordings for their upcoming album in a state to be released forcing Capitol to take matters into their own hands producing the ‘Yesterday And Today’ album which backfired immensely as the album’s original album cover (also known as ‘The Butcher Cover’) produced such backlash and controversy that the album was withdrawn and quickly replaced with a new front cover, something which proved quite costly for Capitol wasting (in today’s inflation) $2.1 million on the entire fiasco. Fair to say, this was a bleak time for the pop department at Capitol.
Although producing albums quickly and cheap was the backbone of the American record industry during the 1960s, it was even more of a necessity when it came to Los Shakers’ third US album. Unfortunately, Capitol hadn’t received any new Los Shakers material since the delivery of the tapes that compiled their second album back in February. Capitol, clearly aware of this, sent a memo out to Odeon insisting on new material to compile a new album for a ‘June to July release.’ Only five songs were sent to Capitol: the two tracks of their upcoming single (‘Always You’ and ‘Oh My Friend’), two covers from The Beatles’ latest album ‘Rubber Soul’ (‘Michelle’ and ‘Girl’), and only one song that was destined for their upcoming second South American album (‘Too Late’). Although the group was very productive in the studio, very rarely leaving a song unfinished past a session date both the band and the record company were hesitant about leaking their new material out to Capitol, which would force South Americans to wait months to receive the material. A few angry memos and phone calls later, six other tracks were compiled to create a very odds and ends styled third album.
Three of the tracks on the album were in a language other than English, with Spanish remakes of ‘Baby Do The Shake’ and ‘Forgive Me,’ as well as (bizarrely) a French cover of Dusty Springfield’s hit ‘I Only Want To Be With You.’ One track left over from the band’s debut South American album (‘The Longest Night’) but perhaps strangest of all was two songs the band played instrumental for of Argentine boxer Ringo Bonavena who ironically had just come back to New York. The album was very clearly rushed together, the back cover stated ‘refer to label for correct track listing’ as the slicks were being produced before the tracklisting was finalised, original labels of side two credit the two songs sung by Ringo Bonavena as just ‘Los Shakers’ instead of ‘Los Shakers featuring Ringo Bonavena’ which was corrected by 1968. And perhaps most blunderous of all, just like the false starts mistakenly left in ‘I’m Looking Through You’ on The Beatles’ US version of ‘Rubber Soul,’ ‘Michelle’ features not only the count-in of the song, but the sound of the tape starting up. This mistake featured on the stereo album was never fixed. The title ‘Invasion Of The Uruguayans’ was a play on the Uruguayan Invasion of Uruguayan based rock music “invading” Argentina, much like how British rock music invaded the USA only a few years earlier.
The first single off the album ‘Michelle’ backed with ‘The Longest Night’ was released on the 17th of May 1966 and reached number 67, but luckily the second single ‘Always You’ backed with ‘Oh My Friend’ released on the 3rd of August 1966 had much better promotion with the South American film ‘Escala Musical’ being globalised not only being dubbed but replacing many of the music scenes with more well known artists to North American audiences such as The Zombies and The Yardbirds. Whilst the film was a moderate success, much like its South American counterpart it was heavily promoted with Los Shakers gaining top billing and the combination of that, the A-side’s unique sound incorporating elements of bossa nova as well as the band doing a brief tour in the country allowing for further promotion of the single on American Bandstand and their one and only appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (where they performed ‘Always You,’ ‘Too Late’ and ‘Break It All’) made the single rocket up to number five, becoming the group’s highest charting single up to that point. However, not even the large success of that single could save the fate of the album. Whilst luckily this album did not waste large amounts of Capitol’s money or time, it’s clear there was a lack of quality even for hodge-podge compilation standards. ‘Invasion Of The Uruguayans’ was released on the 21st of June 1966 reaching an insulting number 98 on the Billboard Top 100. Capitol gave very little promotion to the album due to both rushed production as well as slight financial straining. By the time someone at Capitol decided to release ‘Always You’ as a single, the album had already sunk like a stone, with not even the single’s success allowing the album to rechart. When it came time for the album to be reissued in 1968, it was retitled to ‘Los Shakers Third…Featuring Always You.’
Invasion Of The Uruguayans (21st June 1966)
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