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The Beatles experienced huge popularity on the British record charts in early 1963, but record companies in the United States did not immediately follow up The Beatles' successes in the United Kingdom with North American releases,[1] and even once they began to do so, The Beatles' commercial success in the US continued to be hampered by other obstacles including issues with royalties[2] and public derision at the Beatle haircut.[3]
It was nearly a year before a 5-minute news shot about Beatlemania in the UK, shown on the CBS Evening News on 10 December 1963, led to a teenage girl making an airplay request to a local radio station, which in turn sparked a sequence of events leading to the rush-release of the single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and the long-awaited commercial breakthrough.[4]
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Despite The Beatles' huge popularity on the British charts, EMI's American operation, Capitol Records, declined to issue the singles "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You", their first official number one hit in the UK.[1] Vee-Jay Records, an independent (mostly R&B) Chicago label, issued the two singles as part of a deal for the rights to another performer's masters. Art Roberts, music director of popular Chicago radio station WLS, placed "Please Please Me" into radio rotation in late February 1963, arguably the first time a Beatles record was heard on American radio. Vee-Jay's rights to The Beatles were later cancelled for non-payment of royalties.[2]
In August 1963, Philadelphia-based Swan Records released "She Loves You", which also failed to receive airplay. A testing of the song on Dick Clark's TV show American Bandstand produced laughter from American teenagers when they saw the group's distinctive hairstyles.[3] In early November 1963, Brian Epstein persuaded Ed Sullivan to present The Beatles on three editions of his show in February, and parlayed this guaranteed exposure into a record deal with Capitol Records. Capitol committed to a mid-January release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand".[5] On 10 December 1963, a 5-minute story shot in England about the phenomenon of Beatlemania was shown on the CBS Evening News. The segment first aired on the CBS Morning News on 22 November and had originally been scheduled to be repeated on that day's Evening News, but regular programming was cancelled following the assassination of John F. Kennedy earlier that day.
The CBS Evening News segment inspired a teenage girl named Marsha Albert living in Silver Spring, Maryland to write to Carroll James, a disc jockey at Washington DC's WWDC radio station, requesting that he play records by The Beatles. Carroll James had seen the same news story and arranged through a friend to have a copy of The Beatles' new single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sent over to him in Washington DC. Immediately after debuting the record on 17 December, the station received overwhelming positive audience reaction, with the station escalating airplay of the record. Made aware of the overwhelming listener response, Capitol Records president Alan W. Livingston decided a few days later to take advantage of the response and rush-release the already-prepared single three weeks ahead of schedule on 26 December 1963.[4]
Several New York radio stations began playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on its release day. The positive response to the record that had started in Washington was duplicated in New York and quickly spread to other markets. The record sold one million copies in just ten days, and by 16 January 1964, Cashbox magazine had certified the record number one for the week ending 25 January, in the edition datelined 23 January, after just three weeks in their Top 100 chart.[6]
It was around this time that Brian Epstein was besieged by merchandising offers and, completely underestimating this relatively new market within the pop industry, chose to effectively give it away. Seltaeb was a company set up in 1963 by Nicky Byrne exclusively to look after The Beatles merchandising rights on a 90 /10 basis in Byrne’s favour. This quickly led to contractual disputes and lawsuits which eventually cost NEMS an estimated $100 million in licensing fees.[7]
After The Beatles' success in 1964, Vee-Jay Records and Swan Records took advantage of their previously secured rights to the group's early recordings and reissued the songs; all the songs reached the top ten this time. Three singles released by Capitol Records of Canada (which began issuing Beatles records in February 1963) were imported into the United States and sold enough quantities to make the American charts. One of them, "Love Me Do", was then issued by Vee-Jay on the Tollie label and made it to #1. (MGM and Atco also secured rights to The Beatles' early Tony Sheridan-era recordings and had minor hits with "My Bonnie" and "Ain't She Sweet", the latter featuring John Lennon on lead vocal.)
These Beatle record releases led to a new dimension of chart success for The Beatles. On 4 April 1964, The Beatles monopolised the top 5 positions on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 chart[8] and the Cashbox magazine Top 100 chart.[9] The following week, a record 14 Beatle records were on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[10]
In addition to Introducing... The Beatles (1964), which was essentially The Beatles' debut British album with some minor alterations, Vee-Jay also issued an unusual LP called The Beatles Vs The Four Seasons. This 2-LP set paired Introducing... The Beatles and The Golden Hits Of The Four Seasons, another successful act that Vee-Jay had under contract, in a 'contest' (the back cover featured a 'score card'). Another unusual release was the Hear The Beatles Tell All album, which consisted of two lengthy interviews with Los Angeles radio disc jockeys (side one was titled "Dave Hull interviews John Lennon", while side two was titled "Jim Steck interviews John, Paul, George, Ringo"). No Beatles music was included on this interview album, which turned out to be the only Vee-Jay Beatles album Capitol Records could not reclaim.
Following litigation between Capitol and Vee-Jay, a legal settlement was reached giving Vee-Jay the rights to market Beatle recordings they possessed until 10 October 1964 at which point all rights to all EMI Beatle recordings in the United States were assigned to Capitol Records.[11]
The Vee-Jay/Swan-issued recordings eventually ended up with Capitol, which issued most of the Vee-Jay material on the American-only Capitol release The Early Beatles, with three songs left off this final US version of the album. ("I Saw Her Standing There" was issued as the American B-side of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and also appeared on the Capitol Records album Meet The Beatles. "Misery" and "There's a Place" were issued as a Capitol "Starline" reissue single in 1964, and reappeared on Capitol's 1980 US version of the Rarities compilation album.) The early Vee-Jay and Swan Beatles records command a high price on the record collectors' market today, and all have been copiously bootlegged.[12] The Swan tracks "She Loves You" and "I'll Get You" were issued on the Capitol LP The Beatles' Second Album. Swan also issued the German-language version of "She Loves You", called "Sie Liebt Dich". This song later appeared (in stereo) on Capitol's Rarities album.
This is a list of albums released in America whilst the band were still active. Albums starting with 'The Beatles' were released Worldwide on Apple Records.