
I first learned about this LP in high school in the early 1980s, and it became an object of longstanding fascination. It would be years before I knew anything about the group, and even longer before I heard any of their music (the 1990s or early 2000s, when I picked up their LPs on CD reissues). This LP, the group's only U.S. release, continued to elude me until a couple of weeks ago when I ordered a mono copy through Discogs. As was common practice at the time, the U.S. release is its own entity. Put out at the start of 1966, it has half of the tracks (7/14) from the group's eponymous 1965 debut LP, five of which were re-recorded for it, and adds a couple of singles tracks (one re-recorded) and three songs that (as far as I can tell) were unique to it, one of which is a cover of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" sung in Spanish. (The group sang almost exclusively in English on their releases.) The Shakers' first three Latin American LPs -- "Los Shakers," "Shakers for You," and "La conferencia secreta del Toto's Bar" -- are all fine records, and "Break It All," if a bit of an oddity in their catalog, is certainly their equal.