Shelter Records

Shelter Records was the record label started by Leon Russell, and Denny Cordell. Leon reamined with Shelter until 1976, when he and Denny fell out. Denny then became the owner of the label. Even though Leon Russell was the main artist, the label did have some excellent talent, such as J.J. Cale, Freddie King, Tom Petty, Dwight Tilley, and Pheobe Snow.

Shelter Records was originally distributed by Blue Thumb Records, but then it distibruted by Capitol/EMI from 1970 until 1973. When Shelter was distributed by Capitol/EMI, the label was red with a egg on top with a inverted Superman logo inside the egg. This of course did not play well with DC Comics, and they threatened to sue Shelter if they didn't stop using the logo. Shelter then blacked out Superman logo for later future releases until the distribution deal ran out with Captiol/EMI.

From 1974 until 1975 (sporting a yellowish label), Shelter was then distibuted by MCA. Afterwards, the label from 1975 onwards was distributed by ABC Records (the first label being yellow; the second one was reddish-orange with the Shelter logo inside a Saturn-like planet with a crescent man-in-the-moon at the bottom of the label) until 1979, when ABC was sold off to MCA. MCA released one more album using the Shelter label (A J.J. Cale album), and then all remaining Shelter artists were put on another MCA subsidiary entiled Backstreet Records.

See also