The Beatles' Second Album by Dave Marsh

Author:Dave Marsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Vee-Jay retained New York attorney Walter Hofer, an experienced music business practitioner, and things got more interesting. Hofer made an intriguing argument. He said that the Beatles were not a flash in the pan: “They have been popular for quite a few years in England, not in the United States; not as popular in the United States. And it is not something that will be here today and gone tomorrow.” He may have been the first person in America to figure this out, or at least to say so in public.

Injunction ping-pong went on for the next several months, with the temporary restraining order first being lifted, then reinstated, then lifted again and reinstated again, several times over. Meanwhile the Vee-Jay executives scrambled to keep the company’s insolvency from capsizing it entirely. By continuing to fight the lawsuit, Vee-Jay got the injunction lifted often enough to continue making and selling Beatles records for the next few months, a life-or-death difference.

After an appellate court lifted the restraining order in early February, Vee-Jay still couldn’t get around the Beechwood mess. So it did the logical thing: released a version of Introducing the Beatles that did not contain “P.S. I Love You” and “Love Me Do.” It also released a single of “Twist and Shout” on its subsidiary label, Tollie.

Introducing the Beatles sold very well, as it should have, since consumers cared only about music, not rights. The only song that Meet the Beatles, the first American Capitol album, and Introducing the Beatles have in common is “I Saw Her Standing There.” Introducing also featured the Beatles’ immediately famous “Twist and Shout,” which didn’t appear on a Capitol album for more than a year. The ready availability of 11 additional Beatles tracks that Capitol couldn’t provide made Introducing a major hit—Vee-Jay had planned an initial pressing of 30,000, but wound up shipping 80,000 copies that first week. “Don’t wait,” Vee-Jay president Randy Wood telegraphed his distributors. “This is best seller since Presley days.” Eventually, Introducing the Beatles sold about 1.4 million copies, a huge bestseller.

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