The Beatles is the first Beatles album released in the United States. Originally scheduled for a July 1963 release, the LP came out on January 10, 1964, on Vee-Jay Records, ten days before Capitol’s Meet The Beatles!. It was the subject of much legal wrangling, but ultimately, Vee-Jay were permitted to sell the album until late 1964, by which time it had sold more than 1.3 million copies.
When the “Please Please Me” single was issued in the United States, Vee-Jay Records signed a licensing agreement with Transglobal, an EMI affiliate that worked to place foreign masters with US record labels, giving it the right of first refusal on Beatles’ records for five years. As part of that agreement, Vee-Jay planned to release the Please Please Me album in the US, and received copies of the mono and stereo master tapes in late April or early May 1963.
Originally, Vee-Jay considered releasing Please Please Me as it appeared in the United Kingdom. A surviving acetate made by Universal Recording Corporation of Chicago, probably in May 1963, contains all 14 songs in the same order as on the UK album, with the title still listed as Please Please Me. But in keeping with the American norm of a 12-song album, Vee-Jay chose instead to delete “Please Please Me” and “Ask Me Why” and change the album’s title to Introducing… The Beatles. Also, the engineer at Universal in Chicago thought that Paul McCartney’s count-in at the start of “I Saw Her Standing There” was extraneous rather than intentionally placed there, so he snipped the “one, two, three” from Vee-Jay’s mono and stereo masters. Except for those deletions, the order and contents of the album were untouched, resulting in a US album that bore the closest resemblance to a British Beatles LP until Revolver in 1966.
Preparations for the LP’s release continued in late June and early July 1963, including the manufacturing of masters and metal parts and the printing of 6,000 front covers. But, despite the claims of many older books that Introducing… The Beatles was first released on 22 July 1963, no paper trail exists to suggest that the album was released at any time in 1963.
After a management shake-up at the label, which included the resignation of company president Ewart Abner after he used company funds to cover gambling debts, Vee-Jay cancelled Introducing… The Beatles as well as albums by Frank Ifield, Alma Cogan and a Jewish cantor.
Introducing… The Beatles is one of the earliest, and most prevalent, of counterfeit bootleg albums.
TRACKS:
All songs written and composed by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.
Side one
1. “I Saw Her Standing There”
2. “Misery”
3. “Anna (Go to Him)” (Arthur Alexander)
4. “Chains” (Gerry Goffin, Carole King)
5. “Boys” (Luther Dixon, Wes Farrell)
6. “Love Me Do” (“Ask Me Why” on version two)
Side two
1. “P.S. I Love You” (“Please Please Me” on version two)
2. “Baby It’s You” (Burt Bacharach, Mack David, Barney Williams)
3. “Do You Want to Know a Secret”
4. “A Taste of Honey” (Ric Marlow, Bobby Scott)
5. “There’s a Place”
6. “Twist and Shout” (Phil Medley, Bert Russell)
