Brow Beat is following the Beatles in “real time,” 50
years later, from their first chart-topper to their final rooftop
concert. In our latest weekly installment, we check in with the group as
they release their first No. 1 record, “ Please Please Me.”
Slate continues its
Blogging The Beatles series with a post about Vee-Jay records, a black label that
brought them to America:
Vee-Jay didn’t have much early success with the Beatles. Upon the
initial release of “Please Please Me” in early 1963, the label sold only 5,650 copies.
There may have been something to Capitol’s worries after all: Many of
the Beatles’ subsequent singles would have similarly disappointing
debuts on other independent labels. But these U.S. labels weren’t yet
pushing the Beatles records very hard. The Beatles’ debut American
single was such a small concern to Vee-Jay that they neglected to even
notice that their packaging called them “The Beattles.”
When Vee-Jay put out “From Me to You” in May, and DJs didn’t bother to
play it, Capitol exec Dave Dexter declared the Beatles “stone-cold dead in the U.S. marketplace.”
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