Fake Beatles No. 13: ¡Rompan Todo Con Los Shakers!

In the six months i've been presenting this Fake Beatles series, i've made passing reference to Los Shakers, a group from Montevideo, Uruguay, that deserves so much more. It would help if you would indulge this writer and consider all the various and sundry mop-wigged subjects of the past 12 volumes, as worthy as they are, a mere prelude to this, the main attraction. For Hugo, Osvaldo, Pelin and Caio are the Realest Fake Beatles to ever record — and, like their role models (but unlike practically every other Moptops manqué), they were as uncannily accomplished at bringing forth the psychedelic Pepperisms as the Merseybeat.

My WFMU colleague Jeffrey Cobb once said that if Beatles were a language, Los Shakers would be exceedingly fluent in said tongue. That, however, is in pronounced contrast to the language they actually sang in, which was a charmingly imperfect English. Yet the magical spell Los Shakers cast is so potent that the odd idiomatically suspect phrase or mangled pronunciation or clunky grammar is sloughed off like dandruff from a mangy moptop.

The group, led by brothers Hugo and Osvaldo Fattoruso, like so many of their North and South American counterparts, were playing music in a different style, in their case, jazz, when they contracted Beatlemania after a screening of ¡Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Paul, John, George y Ringo! (or A Hard Day's Night, as it's known to the gringos). Signed to EMI's Odeon label in Argentina, Los Shakers issued three spectacular LPs in their 1965-68 recording lifespan (actually, four, if you count their U.S. only re-recordings of their early songs, issued as Break It All on the Audio Fidelity label, an imprint known mainly for sound-effects discs — and this fan most certainly does count it). What follows is a Shakers sampler (despite all the Spanish-language titles, every word is sung in English) [all songs MP3]:

Los Shakers (1965): There's not a duff cut on this 14-song debut. It's got Fabs-style ravers, rockers, ballads and all sorts of brilliantly bogus Beatle songs, with "Rompan todo (Break It All)" being their standout tune on the LP.

Rompan todo
No fuimos
Dame

For You (1966): They make the leap from the Hard Day's Night sound straight into Rubber Soul/Revolver as if they were simultaneously sharing the Beatles' own boots.

El niño y yo
Buscando dificultades
Déjame decirte

La Conferencia Secreta del Toto's Bar (1968): As you can guess by the title, this is their nod to Sgt. Pepper. This final musical statement also incorporates influences such as their native candombe rhythms.

La conferencia secreta del Toto's Bar/Mi tía Clementina
Una forma de arco iris
Siempre tú

Postscript: For those keeping score, yours truly has met one Beatle (Pete Best) and three Rutles (all but Dirk McQuickly). And, in just as proud a moment for a Fake Beatles aficionado such as myself, i have also shaken hands with a Shaker: A few years ago, at the conclusion of a Milton Nascimento performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, i braved my way up to the stage to greet the Brazilian musical giant's touring keyboardist, one Hugo Fattoruso, and introduced myself as a fan of Los Shakers. He excitedly returned my greeting in Spanish, of which i understood maybe 20 percent. Seems a small payback for his having to entertain me in a strange language for so many years.

Post-Postscript: Listen to Michael Shelley's February 10, 2007 interview with Osvaldo Fattoruso of Los Shakers here (RealAudio), prefaced by a couple of Los Shakers tunes.

Post-Post-Postscript: Just to take things into the meta (i.e., Fake Fake Beatles) realm, here's an artist calling himself Alejandro Bo, who has painstakingly and precisely re-created several Los Shakers tunes, recording and singing everything all by his lonesome. Listen and compare: [All songs MP3]

No fuimos (Forgive Me)
Quieres por favor (Won't You Please)
Siempre tú (Always You)

Comments

[andy]

So is the "Break It All" on the Nuggets set thr rerecorded one? 'Cause I kind of prefer that one. It seems more wild, less like a Beatles approximation than an urgent message being delivered...I've always really loved it. If you tell me this is the version from the Nuggets set I will feel insane.

[diskojoe]

I also dig Los Shakers a lot. There's a great comp that Big Beat put out back in 2000 which seems to be out of print since I've seen it on sale @ Amazon for $300-$600, which is mad. Also, there's a treasure trove of Los Shakers videos on YouTube. Viva Los Shakers!

[just john]

(Listening now)

This is great stuff! Okay, they don't have a John Lennon-sounding vocalist as some of your earlier installments' bands did, but you're right about their having the right spirit. Kudos on this whole series!

Hey, here's something I was thinking about the other day: It's too bad the Beatles dropped harmonica as such a prominent instrument in their songs (in "Rocky Raccoon," it's been demoted to a sound effect!) I don't recall hearing that type of sound against guitars and drums again until Joe Jackson's melodica on his first two albums.

So my question to you is, are there any bands who combine(d) "Love Me Do"-style harmonica with a "Get Back"-style mix?

[Dan E]

I almost picked up that first Shakers album back in the mid-80s at Wax Trax in Chicago, just because they ALL looked like Ringo. $15 was a lot of money in those days, though, so I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger.

I've since been able to find most of their stuff on CD, and they've become one of my all time favorite bands, and not just for. Apparently Hugo and Osvaldo also made a bossa nova-flavored jazz record in the early 70s, but I haven't heard it yet.

[Gaylord Fields]

@andy,

I don't know which version is on Nuggets, but i'm guessing it's the re-recorded Audio Fidelity version, as it would be easier to get the rights to that one.

@diskojoe,

I once asked Alec Palao, who compiled the Big Beat collection, why it was deleted from its catalog so quickly. He said that Ace/Big Beat licensed the songs from a division of EMI that didn't really have the right to license it (and evidently no one is really sure who does have the rights), and that's why it was pulled so quickly.

@just john,

I can't think of any.

@Dan E,

The album you cite, La Bossa Nova de Hugo y Osvaldo, is quite good (and quite rare). It features bossa nova remakes of two Los Shakers tunes, "Nunca nunca" and "El pino y la rosa," as well as a really great ultra-syncopated version of Beatle George's "You Like Me Too Much."

I've also always maintained that they looked like four Ringos (which is a big plus in my book).

[Jim]

No one rules like Los SHAKERS do!!! I'd gotten a cassette of their greatest hits around 1994 and flipped!! Found "Break it All" on eBay a few years back for only $10, so no one else musta been paying attention!!! I think the fact their English is just that little bit off makes them that much more charming, that and the fact they can cram together the Fabs with the Zombies/DC5/Hermits/Freddie and the Dreamers into one swell package!!!!! I have those original lp's on cd by some highly dodgy Euro company that has put out a ton of other insanely obsure 60's beat titles, so they are out there........And Dan E. is right about the four Ringo's, and I remember him saying so on ancient power pop tape tree tape too!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Emilio]

I'm late to this party but enjoying it now. Has anyone mentioned the Soviet Union's answer to the Beatles? It was a band called Sekret and they were pretty good. They looked very Beatles but had a sound that was more pop than the Beatles were, though they did steal some Fab riffs outright. A bit of info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekret

[Darin Robinson]

Thank you for this stuff. In a weird way it's "kind" of like dicovering The Beatles for the first time on a few of these songs, if that makes sense. I was looking on Youtube for Los Shakers stuff and found a band called "Los Mockers" and the song "Don't go Away" also, odd and on point. http://youtube.com/watch?v=MGaTJwDMS6I

Again,
Thanks
Darin

[Vince Macek]

The version of 'Break it All' on 'Nuggets' is indeed the version on the Audio Fidelity lp, which I was overjoyed to find, though I do prefer the original recordings as presented on the Big Beat cd, which I was super-overjoyed to find. Its liner notes refer to their first album's 'reverberating non-production', but I really like the basement-club sound it evokes.

[Mike Macek]

Thanks Vince, for directing me here. I was fortunate to live in South America as a youngster - at the same time that Los Shakers were in their prime. I was in a band and we were nearly as "in awe" of Los Shakers as we were of The Beatles. Los Shakers cover tunes were commonplace. Nice trip back in your little time machine here. Thanks!!

[Ken Macek]

Third Macek-brother-formerly-of-laPaz-Bolivia to comment! Best.party.game.ever: who can come closest to deciphering a complete Shakers' song's lyrics? Game #2: name that Beatles musical nod (usually 4 or more in a single song): "And I Love Her"? yep - oh! there's "Girl!". Now a little "Ticket to Ride"!. Dead-on Beatle tribute bands amaze me when they're good, but the best of all are the musicians who can infuse their original material with the Beatles Spirit. Keep in mind that these guys usually didn't have a lot of time to study the Fabs latest release before they had their own recording out echoing the very new places the Beatles had taken them. This group still gets a lot of iPod play. And I STILL can't nail down a complete song's worth of lyrics!

[alejandro bo]

hello, my name is alejandro bo, thanks for showing my shakers versions, here i put the link for other two shakers songs i recorded:
http://rapidshare.com/files/144556648/for_you_and_me.mp3.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/146204911/The_Longest_Night.mp3.html

you can leave your comments in youtube or find me in facebook

[Shalom Septimus]

"Corran Todos" is so close to "I Saw Her Standing There" that there might have been grounds for a lawsuit (were it not for that both bands recorded for EMI).

And don't forget "Boleto Para Pasear", the one bona fide Beatles cover the Shakers did... and, strangely enough, the only song I know of where they sang in Spanish.

[Shalom Septimus]

Addendum to the previous: Combine the rhythm track of "I Saw Her Standing There" with the melody of the Dave Clark 5's "Can't You See That She's Mine", and you'll get something that sounds very much like "Corran Todos".

Anybody know if there's a cross-reference from the English titles on the currently-available CD to the original Spanish titles?

[Anita]

Yeah!!!!!
I LOVE The Shakers!!!
And I have attended to their re-union show, in 2005-2006. And have autographs too!!!
Their records are wonderful; unfortunately they have a bad management.

Here, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, they are very respected musicians!

[d. burr]

I found out about Los Shakers about a week ago...And i love what i am hearing...Los Shakers music stands up well to the best of what was happening in pop music all over the world in the mid to late 60's.