How Black-Owned Vee-Jay Introduced the Beatles to America

A preferred nighttime DJ in Chicago first performed the Beatles in February 1963, spinning a single model of “Please Please Me” that wasn’t launched via EMI, Parlophone or Capitol Records.

Instead, it was tiny Vee-Jay Records, a Black-owned label from Chicago’s South Side based by Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken. The Beatles had been already surging in recognition again of their native England. Without Vee-Jay, nevertheless, they could by no means have damaged in America. Capitol Records, EMI’s American subsidiary, had initially turned them down.

Carter was additionally a radio character and hosted a well-regarded gospel program in her Indiana hometown. She married Bracken, an entrepreneurial dreamer, 4 years earlier than John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met in 1957. They began Vee-Jay, named after the first letters of their first names, with a $500 mortgage from a neighborhood pawnbroker. The first signed act was a doo-wop group, the Spaniels. Their debut single, “Baby It’s You,” shot to No. 10 on the Billboard R&B chart, then the follow-up “Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite” rose to No. 5. Vee-Jay was on its approach.

They employed Ewart Abner as basic supervisor. He’d later function label president at Vee-Jay earlier than rising to the similar place at Motown, Vee-Jay’s successor as the most profitable Black-operated report firm. Previous expertise at Chicago’s Chance label had given Abner a wealth of perception into getting information made – and performed.

He personally delivered “Please Please Me” to that Chicago DJ. “[Abner] came up, and he was bringing his latest releases,” Dick Biondi later advised NPR. “And he handed me one, and he said, ‘Dick, listen to this. This is a group from England. You might like it.’ I listened and I played it that night, and it was on.”

Vivian Carter’s youthful sibling Calvin grew to become Vee-Jay’s fourth core staff member, serving as producer. Together, they signed, produced and marketed soul pioneer Jerry Butler, gospel crossover legends the Staple Singers, and blues stars John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed. Gene Chandler’s Vee-Jay single “Duke of Earl” soared to No. 1.

They get much less credit score for taking an opportunity on the Beatles.

Listen to the Version of ‘Love Me Do’ Released by Vee-Jay

Vee-Jay had slowly been signing white artists, and so they already comprised some 30% of its roster in 1961. The Four Seasons scored a pair of chart-toppers for the label a yr later. “If we want to stay in business,” Abner advised Ebony journal again then, “we’ve got to stop thinking of ourselves as just a Negro company.”

Then Abner received a name from Vee-Jay lawyer Paul Marshall, whose different purchasers included Transglobal, EMI’s licensing consultant in the U.S. Abner recalled that Marshall “said, ‘Ab, this group, they’re going to be bigger than bubblegum.’ Says, ‘They’re already happening in Liverpool and in England. Capitol’s got a right to them because Capitol is owned by EMI. Capitol doesn’t want to exercise their right. We can get ’em.’ I said, ‘Let’s get ’em!'”

The authentic contract granted Vee-Jay Records the proper of first refusal on the distribution of Beatles information in the U.S. for the subsequent 5 years – that means Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band might have been issued with Vee-Jay’s acquainted rainbow-ringed label.

They had been already large in England, however “Please Please Me” failed to break the Beatles in the U.S. – regardless of Biondi’s finest efforts. (He was additionally an early fan of Vee-Jay’s subsequent Beatles single, “From Me to You.”) But Capitol Records started to have second ideas anyway, particularly when Vee-Jay dragged its heels on releasing the Beatles’ debut album.

The masters had been dutifully handed over since Vee-Jay had unique rights to launch this materials beneath the licensing settlement with Transglobal. But weeks become months, and the album by no means arrived. Vee-Jay ended up releasing the very first Beatles album in America, a multimillion-seller known as Introducing … the Beatles – however not till Jan. 10, 1964, simply 10 days earlier than Capitol Records issued Meet the Beatles.

Introducing … the Beatles boasted a monitor itemizing that mirrored their U.Ok. debut, minus “Please Please Me” and “Ask Me Why.” It’s simple to see why Vee-Jay believed of their crossover attraction since half of the remaining songs had been covers of songs made fashionable by Black acts – together with “Twist and Shout,” which had not too long ago hit for the Isley Brothers. Vee-Jay launched the Beatles model, pairing it with Lennon’s Motown-influenced “There’s a Place” and scored a No. 2 hit.

Both albums offered effectively, although Capitol’s saved Vee-Jay out of the prime spot. Meet the Beatles was No. 1 for 11 weeks whereas Introducing … the Beatles cooled its heels at No. 2 for 9. Unfortunately, Vee-Jay was having bother maintaining. Cash stream issues had prompted delays in urgent the album, whereas worries about being undercapitalized and rumors of cash mismanagement led to Abner’s departure.

Watch a News Report on Vee-Jay’s Rise and Fall

Transglobal ended up terminating Vee-Jay’s contract over failure to pay royalties. Capitol then sued Vee-Jay, asserting prior distribution rights. Injunctions got here and went, as Vee-Jay sporadically produced Beatles information. At one level, staff had been reportedly staying residence from the workplace so as to keep away from being served authorized papers from Capitol.

The two sides in the end reached a settlement settlement in early 1964, and Vee-Jay was given the proper to promote its beforehand launched information till that October, when all the songs would revert to Capitol. Carter and Bracken had been additionally given clearance to difficulty “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You,” and the single promptly soared to the prime of the charts.

Vee-Jay then received busy repackaging the materials that they had earlier than time ran out. Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles arrived in July 1964, adopted by The Beatles vs. the Four Seasons in August. By May 1966, nevertheless, Vee-Jay was out of enterprise. Just three years had elapsed since the Beatles’ passed-over masters arrived at their doorstep.

Despite all the pieces, they had been groundbreaking till the finish: One of Vee-Jay’s final singles discovered Little Richard singing “I Don’t Know What You’ve Got, but It’s Got Me” with a then-unknown guitarist named Jimi Hendrix. Millions of counterfeit variations of Introducing … the Beatles had been later offered in drug and department shops, reportedly produced partly by an unscrupulous former Vee-Jay worker. As a outcome, the Beatles’ authentic Vee-Jay recordings grew to become a holy grail of kinds for followers.

“Those are collector’s items now – they are,” Vee-Jay’s former worldwide director Barbara Proctor advised Chicago’s WLS-TV in 1995. “And we’re just as proud as punch, because it really made all the difference in the world, to have that impetus and a start right here in America on our own little Chicago label.”

Some intriguing anomalies additionally make these information collectible. Their first single identifies the band as the “Beattles.” U.S. patrons received the early model of “Love Me Do” with classes participant Andy White on drums, since Vee-Jay used masters from Please Please Me. (Ringo Starr changed him on the stand-alone U.Ok. single.)

The cowl picture from Introducing … the Beatles, taken on the similar day as the picture for Please Please Me, was reversed – that means everybody’s hair is parted in the flawed route. (Anniversary reissues of “Love Me Do” subsequently flipped the picture again to its right place.) McCartney’s memorable album-opening count-in can also be clumsily edited, so he merely says, “Faaah!”

New iterations of Vee-Jay Records got here and maybe inevitably went earlier than their catalog – minus the Beatles songs – was bought by Concord in 2014.