"Your First Beatles Collection"
For the next several months, I'll be writing about the Beatles, and the year 1964, when Beatlemania hit the USA with such force as to explode Frankie Valli's head and the heads of 2 of the other Four Seasons. Only Bob Gaudio somehow kept his composure. Just kidding, folks, but you get my drift.
Now as we tuned in to the Ed Sullivan Show at 8pm, Feb. 9, 1964…"B-Day":…some of us were taken by surprise by what we saw and heard. But there had been extensive publicity leading up to the show…after all, 73 million people didn't just happen to be watching. And many of those were already hard-core "Beatle people," because the Beatles were already starting to conquer the Billboard Magazine record charts.
As of that Sunday, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was celebrating its 2nd week at #1, where it would stay for another 5 weeks. "She Loves You" was at #7…it would be #2 for those next 5 weeks, then the 2 songs would trade places for another 2 weeks. "Please Please Me" and "I Saw Her Standing There" were also starting to climb. And the Beatles first American LP "Meet the Beatles" was #3 on the Albums chart…it would spend the next 11 weeks at #1, and a total of 21 weeks, almost half a year, in the top 10. What a difference from the previous year!
"We don't think the Beatles will do anything in this market." That was Capitol Record's judgement when their sister company Parlophone sent over a copy of "Please Please Me" in January, 1963. Over the course of that year the Beatles released 2 LPs in their homeland…"Please Please Me" and "With the Beatles," with 14 tracks on each. And starting with "Love Me Do" in October of 1962, they also released 5 singles, 3 of which were not included on either album, which came to be the practice in Britain, for a grand total of 34 songs. And they were selling well everywhere, Europe, Australia, Asia, just not here. Because Capitol simply wasn't interested.
But there were plenty of hustlers in the music business willing to take a flier on just about anything. Thus the single "Please Please Me" backed with "Ask Me Why" came out on Chicago's small VeeJay label in February, 1963. It was played for a couple weeks on Chicago radio station WLS, reaching #35 on their weekly survey, but went virtually unheard elsewhere. In May, VeeJay tried again with "From Me to You" backed with "Thank You Girl."
Billboard's Hot 100 chart had a "Bubbling Under" section that listed between 20 and 40 additional singles. "From Me To You" actually bubbled for 3 weeks in August, reaching #116. This was thanks to Del Shannon. After touring in England, and witnessing first hand the growing Beatle hysteria, he released his version of "From Me To You" in June, 1963. It spent 4 weeks on the charts, peaking at #77. That was the only reason the Beatles made it even as "high" as #116, as a few stations tried playing the "original" version, but again, listener response was nonexistent.
As Autumn approached, even VeeJay was losing heart, and in September they passed on "She Loves You." It was released on the small Philadelphia label Swan, backed with "I'll Get You," in the hopes of getting the Beatles played on American Bandstand. Dick Clark gave it a listen and was unimpressed. He put it on his Rate-a-Record segment and the crowd gave it low marks. But by this time, there were rumblings that something was about to happen. The buzz got louder in November when Ed Sullivan announced he had signed the Beatles for 3 appearances in February, 1964. Bolstered by this publicity, VeeJay re-released the LP "Introducing the Beatles," which was the Beatles first UK album, minus 2 cuts they no longer had the rights to. They'd originally put it out in July and it failed to chart…meaning 200 LPs in the US at that time were more popular than the Beatles! Of course in early 1964, it would spend 8 straight weeks at #2, lodged right behind "Meet the Beatles."
The Sullivan announcement also prompted Capitol to finally stick a toe in the water, and they scheduled "I Want To Hold Your Hand" for a January 13th release. "Leaked" copies starting airing on US radio stations, beginning in Washington DC, thanks to a record brought over by a BOAC stewardess, and the date was moved up to the day after Christmas. Even then, it took the single almost a month to debut on the charts at #45…#3 the next week, then its run of almost 2 months at #1. The first American album "Meet the Beatles" was released on January 20th. It was their 2nd British LP with 4 songs removed and 2 others added.
Of special interest to Northern New York Baby Boomers was the Canadian situation. Like the US, Canada lagged behind in catching the Beatle bug in 1963. After a 45 release of "Love Me Do"/"PS I Love You" tanked early in the year, Capitol of Canada laid off until almost the last minute. They released "With the Beatles" under the title "Beatlemania With the Beatles" in November, a 45 of "Please Please Me"/"Roll Over Beethoven" in December, and a slightly revamped "Please Please Me" album retitled "Twist and Shout" in January, 1964.
So here's the tale of the tape. On B-Day, between the VeeJay LP and 45s, the Swan 45, and Capitol's "Meet The Beatles," American fans had 30 of the 34 Beatles songs released thus far. Missing from "With the Beatles" were "Please Mr. Postman," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Devil in Her Heart," and "Money." If you had access to Canadian records, the first 2 were on a 45, and all 4 were on the "Beatlemania" LP. They would arrive officially in the US in April on the "Beatles Second Album."
But there's more! If you liked to spend your afternoons after school sorting thru the singles bin at your local record store, and grabbed anything that said "Lennon-McCartney" on it, you also had 5 Beatles songs performed by the Brian Epstein-produced Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas on Liberty, a subsidiary of Imperial Records. Released between June and November of 1963 were "Do You Want To Know a Secret?," "I Call Your Name," and 3 songs the Beatles wrote but never themselves recorded: "I'll Be On My Way," "Bad to Me," and "I'll Keep You Satisfied." And in November of 1963, ATCO released another "orphan" Lennon-McCartney composition, "Hello Little Girl" by another Epstein group, The Fourmost.
Who's to blame? An executive at Capitol Records named David Dexter. In 1963, he turned down not only the Beatles and Billy J. Kramer, but also Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Hollies, the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Yardbirds, and Herman's Hermits! He signed only Freddie and the Dreamers…and in all fairness, their only single in 1963, "I'm Telling You Now" failed to chart. Two years later it would zoom to #1. Till next time, keep that 20/20 hindsight in sharp focus, check out Deepfriedhoodsiecups.Wordpress.Com and the wonderful Stolf Stuff links you'll find there, and rock on!
