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When Will Their Bubble Burst? Beatles For Sale!

August 10, 2012

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Folks who weren’t around in the Sixties may find it hard to believe, but The Men In Suits at Capitol Records refused, initially, to release Beatle records in the United States because no pop group from England had ever sold in this country. What made this even more nonsensical was that The Beatles’ UK record label, Parlophone, and the U.S. label, Capitol, were both divisions of the EMI recording giant. Thus, Parlophone was contractually obligated to offer their releases to Capitol first, and Capitol responded, more than once, “No, thanks!” Parlophone would then sell or lease the records to whomever they could find in the U.S. to deal with.

In an earlier post, I mentioned The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan Show appearance in early February, 1964. Both before and after that milestone, members of the press were constantly speculating about how long the Beatles “bubble” would last, and they’d query the band as to what they planned to do for a living once the bubble burst. Ringo famously replied to one such question that he’d like to own a beauty parlor!

So at first, if you wanted to listen to a Beatles record in this country, you had to look hard to find it. I remember the first 45 or single (two-songs, front and back for today’s younger readers) of The Beatles that I bought was She Loves You issued by Swan Records, a small independent label out of Philly.

As far as albums, or LPs (long-players) as we called them then, the first release of The Beatles in the U.S. was on the jazz/R&B VeeJay label. It was a version of The Fabs’ first British LP, Please Please Me. Here’s the VeeJay album cover with some very young-looking Beatles; note that Ringo’s hair hadn’t quite settled into the “moptop” style at the time this photo was taken:

After the appearance on Ed Sullivan, Capitol released Meet the Beatles in this country, and it was a chopped-up version of the second UK Beatles release, With the Beatles:

So began a long series of U.S. Capitol record releases that took Beatles UK releases and switched or cut songs, added reverb and generally fiddled around with them.

It wasn’t until Sgt. Pepper that a Beatles LP was the same in both Britain and the U.S., and even after that, there was still some monkeying around with U.S. releases on Capitol Records.

Ladies And Gentlemen . . . The Beatles! And A Theory!

August 10, 2012

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When The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday night, February 9, 1964, it was a very big deal, at least to the kids in this country. Our family was living in Fernandina Beach, Florida, and for once, I put my foot down and told my mom we had to have a new TV. Our old one had conked out a couple of months before, and I wanted to see and hear The Beatles on TV.


At that point, I was on the fence about whether I liked them or not, but I wasn’t going to miss out on the chance to see them and make up my mind. Amazingly, my mom caved in and bought us a new GE 19″ portable, and, of course, it was a black-and-white set, with the nifty stand as shown in this ad. Television wasn’t usually in color in those days; the first primetime TV season broadcast totally in color wasn’t until 1966.

This was arguably the most important television session The Fabs ever did; it was their first chance to perform in the United States and Ed Sullivan was the (then) most popular show on TV.

Now here is something I think is pretty obvious, but I’ve never seen it written about or discussed elsewhere: I firmly believe John’s mike went out on him during the last song (I Wanna Hold Your Hand). The key to this: Watch George! I can hear the audio change about 11:22 in this clip and after that point, all I hear in the vocal mix is Paul. I also think you can see at about 11:55 George is starting to realize something is amiss. If you don’t want to watch the whole clip, just move the slider at the bottom of the view to the time markers I indicate!

Listen carefully to the vocals beginning at 11:58; that should be a two-part harmony but all you can hear is Paul’s part.

I contend that George realizes at about 12:00 that John’s singing into a dead mike and starts laughing at about 12:05.

No matter; they sounded great and by the end of that show, The Beatles had done what they had set out to do: Become the first British rock-and-roll band to be taken seriously by U.S. kids. As for me, I was convinced The Beatles were something new, different and exciting, and thus began my quest to switch from playing an alto saxophone to an electric guitar.

That theater, on Broadway between West 53rd and West 54th in Manhattan, has a wonderful history. Opened in 1927 as Hammerstein’s Theater, it was converted in 1950 to use for television and was renamed CBS-TV Studio 50. Now it’s called the Ed Sullivan Theater and it’s home to David Letterman’s Late Show.