Breaking It All With the Shakers
The following first appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:
You’re filing through 50-cent albums at a yard sale, when you come across it — a 1966 record with four young men wearing matching suits and ties (and shaggy hairdos) grinning at you from its age-worn cover. At first glance, it looks like a Beatles album. But no — upon closer inspection, this quartet appears goofier… slightly cockeyed… less perfect. It’s what the Beatles might look like if they had all been Ringo.
This band is called the Shakers, and you may dismiss these young men as just one of the many imitation Beatles that crawled into record bins in the wake of the Fab Four’s explosive entrance onto the world stage in the early 1960s. But in popular music, treasure is sometimes hidden in unlikely places. Start digging in your pockets, because four bits is a small price to pay for the special record you hold in your hands. It’s the only U.S. release from a uniquely talented band that was one of South America’s favorite acts during the Merseybeat era, and a fascinating artifact from the days when the influence of John, Paul, George and Ringo spread like a rock n’ roll tsunami across the face of the globe.
Germany rocked to the Boots and the Rattles. Spain spawned Los Bravos. The Netherlands was home to great Beat bands like the Zipps and the Golden Earrings (the latter of which would drop the plural form in later decades, and score big with “Radar Love” and “The Twilight Zone”). Even Malaysia had the Quest, whose lead singer, Kiulu, was surely the only Beatles imitator to file his teeth into sharp points, in the tradition of his Papuan ancestors.
But of all the Mersey-inspired bands, the Shakers were among the very best. Brothers Hugo and Osvaldo Fattoruso first met fellow rockers Roberto Capobianco and Carlos Vila while playing jazz in their native Uruguay’s fashionable Hot Club. However, after viewing A HARD DAY’S NIGHT (dubbed in their native Portuguese), the young players grew their hair long and became the Shakers. At first they played local clubs, but as their singles (like “Everybody Shake” and “Break It All”) began to get radio play in Brazil and Venezuela, their shows grew, until — at the height of their popularity — they were performing before crowds of ten thousand.
The band called it quits in 1971. But nearly 30 years later, the Shakers’ music became easier for American listeners to find and enjoy when Big Beat Records released the compilation POR FAVOR!