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Shelter Records was the record label started by Leon Russell and Denny Cordell. Leon remained with Shelter until 1976, when he and Denny fell out. Denny then became the owner of the label, when Leon left to start his own label, Paradise Records. Even though Leon Russell was the main artist, the label did have some excellent talent, such as J.J. Cale, Freddie King, Tom Petty, The Gap Band, Dwight Twilley, and Phoebe Snow.

Shelter Records was originally distributed by Blue Thumb Records, but then it was distibruted by Capitol/EMI from 1970 until 1973. When Shelter was distributed by Capitol/EMI, the label was red with an egg on top with an inverted Superman logo inside the egg. This of course did not play well with DC Comics, and they sued Shelter for trademark infringement. Shelter then blacked out the Superman logo for later future releases until the distribution deal ran out with Captiol/EMI. Afterwards, the Shelter logo was replaced by an egg with a hand-scrawled "S" on it.

From 1974 until 1975 (sporting a yellowish label and their new logo), Shelter was then distributed by MCA Records. 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), then all remaining Shelter artists were put on another MCA subsidiary entitled Backstreet Records.

During 1993, the Shelter catalogue was bought out by Capitol/EMI, and their imprint The Right Stuff reissued many titles (except for Tom Petty and J.J. Cale albums).

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