How Black-Owned Vee-Jay Introduced the Beatles to America - Ultimate Classic Rock Ultimate Classic Rock

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

A popular nighttime DJ in Chicago first played the Beatles in February 1963, spinning a single version of "Please Please Me" that wasn't released through EMI, Parlophone or Capitol Records.

Instead, it was tiny Vee-Jay Records, a Black-owned label from Chicago's South Side founded by Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken. The Beatles were already surging in popularity back in their native England. Without Vee-Jay, however, they might never have broken in America. Capitol Records, EMI's American subsidiary, had initially turned them down.

Carter was also a radio personality and hosted a well-regarded gospel program in her Indiana hometown. She married Bracken, an entrepreneurial dreamer, four years before John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met in 1957. They started Vee-Jay, named after the first letters of their first names, with a $500 loan from a local 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 way.

They hired Ewart Abner as general manager. He'd later serve as label president at Vee-Jay before rising to the same position at Motown, Vee-Jay's successor as the most successful Black-operated record company. Previous experience at Chicago's Chance label had given Abner a wealth of insight into getting records made – and played.

Source: ultimateclassicrock.com