V-J Day

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.”