Always You (Siempre Tu)

The mid-60's worldwide heyday of the British Invasion spawned countless Beatles, Stones and Yardbirds copycat bands. Long haired lookalikes and attempted soundalikes were popping up as fast as fans in their teens and twenties could buy instruments and make room in the garage.

Arguably, the first successful American cloning of the Liverpool sound came in 1965 with the hit song "Lies" by New Jersey pop pioneers, The Knickerbockers. But unknown to Americans, one of the biggest and most successful Fab Faux bands came from, of all places, Uruguay, in southeastern South America.

Like almost everywhere else, Rock 'n Roll was discovered by Uruguayan audiences with the arrival on the world stage of The Beatles and other British bands. So it wasn't long before a flock of local bands appeared in Montevideo, the capitol city and apparently, the Liverpool of Uruguay. These bands included Los Malditos, Los Mockers, Los Iracundos, Los Moonlights, and Los Shakers, who fast became the most popular act in the so-called Uruguayan Invasion of Argentina(!), which I had never heard of until recently.

Oddly, though their native language was a regional Italianized Spanish, most popular Uruguayan bands sang in English. Los Shakers obviously modeled themselves after The Beatles, having adopted similar haircuts and clothing, as you can see on their 1st album cover above. All you Beatleheads may find it interesting that the first single recorded by Los Shakers was "My Bonnie", in 1965! Over the next 2 years, Los Shakers made regular appearances on Latin American TV to promote their singles and were even featured in a movie; a low-rent musical revue entitled "Escala Musical".

Was this the Uruguayan T.A.M.I. Show?

Despite the appropriation of the Liverpool sound and style, these guys had to have some fairly well developed instrumental and vocal chops to be able to write and perform their songs as well as they did. I've also seen some online speculation that Los Shakers may have been the direct blueprint for the wonderful 1978 Beatles parody, "The Rutles". After hearing several Los Shakers tracks, I don't doubt that for a second. Rutles songwriters Neil Innes and Eric Idle could not have had a better source of inspiration.

Although Los Shakers racked up many 'Grandes Exitos', the first one I heard was the upbeat Pop of "Always You", or "Siempre Tu", from their 1968 attempt at a 'Sgt. Pepper' project entitled "La Conferencia Secreta Del Toto's Bar". Their record label, Odeon/EMI, hated it, wanting more single hits and not a knockoff concept album. The band then dissolved and EMI released the album anyway. So goes the music business.

This video isn't official at all, but makes good use of lots of band photos; more than I could show you otherwise. Here's Los Shakers with "Always You". Listen for the quick Beatlesque "Ooo" at 1:14. It's so fast, it sounds like an afterthought, and that's worth a chuckle.

Now, I could understand if some older music fans, on one side of 50 or the other, would have dug up the music of Los Shakers and anthologized it properly, or even assembled a tribute album, in order to resurrect the band's popularity, or at least, capitalize on their novelty value, so that we American music fans would discover them in a 'historical footnote' sort of way. But no. The first mention I ever heard about Los Shakers was through this astonishing cover version done by youthful Beatlemaniac, Nick Martellaro, who appears to be only about 20!

There's a bunch of Nick's Beatle cover videos on YouTube, where I found this clip, shot in his garage, of Nick covering "Always You" with all the Liverpudlian gusto his impressive guitar collection will allow. He doesn't miss the quick "Ooo" either. Nick's version has a fantastic "That Thing You Do" quality to it, and dare I say that if any band in the 60's had covered this song with this much energy, it would have been a nationwide American hit. British Invasion fans should crank this up and prepare to smile a lot.

I can't seem to find much info about him, but Nick Martellaro has some Mp3's available on Soundclick. I predict that if he stays at it, this young man will turn out some power pop dynamite over the next few years. Keep your ears open for him. And Nick, if you should see this article, nice work and keep going!

The music of Los Shakers can be easily and affordably found at Amazon. But now that you know some of their story, the bottom line on Los Shakers is this. Most of their original work is interesting as a knock-off novelty, but when they tried to equal The Fabs, as their atrocious cover of "Submarino Amarillo" demonstrates, they crossed a line that showed listeners how good the real deal was. Neither the band or their management could have honestly expected the game to go on for too long anyway. So, approach the music of Los Shakers with the knowledge that it's only gonna get so good.

And before I forget, you'll be happy to hear that the long out of print film, The Rutles, will finally have a Blu-Ray/DVD release on December 3! Those who remember it will be very happy to see it again. Those who've never had the pleasure are in for a real treat. All you need is cash!