Debuted #86 week-ending March 7, 6 weeks playing the Billboard Singles chart, “From Me To You” drops out at #58 (final week on chart), last week, week-ending April 11, 1964.
NOTE: ‘From Me To You” was the flip-side title to the Beatles’ VJ single, “Please Please Me”, which dropped to #9, last week, April 11, 1964.
Source: Billboard Pop Singles
Debuted #79 week-ending April 4, 1964, three weeks playing the Billboard Singles chart, “Thank You Girl” climbs to #49, this week, April 12 through week-ending April 18, 1964.
Source: Billboard Pop Singles
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TEN WEEKS on the singles chart, “Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles peaked at #1 this week (5 weeks overall) on the Billboard Hot 100. Week ending, April 4 through week ending, May 2, 1964. (Source: Billboard)
For our previous Billboard 1964 Number One U.S.A. Hits go HERE
Beatles Wax Hot 100 With 12 Singles; Owns Top 5 on Chart, Week-Ending, April 4 1964
NEW YORK — Just about everyone is tired of the Beatles. Disk jockeys are tired of playing the hit group; the writers of trade and consumer publication articles are tired of writing about them and the manufacturers of product other than the Beatles are tired of hearing about them. Everyone’s tired of the Beatles — except the listening and buying public.
Two more Beatles singles popped onto the Hot 100 this week, “You Can’t Do That” on Capitol and “Thank You Girl,” on Vee-Jay. This ups last week’s total of Beatles records on the chart to 12. “You Can’t Do That” is the flip side of “Can’t Buy Me Love” which broke in at No. 27 last week and went to No. 1 this week.
Canada Source
The mass of Beatles material being supplied to American radio stations and stores is being increased again by product from Canada. Latest is “Love Me Do”, which is getting hot air play across the country. Now that U. S. retailers and subdistributors have set up air corridor channels of supply with Canadian subdistributors, “Love Me Do,” like the previous “All My Loving”, can be expected to funnel into the country at a much quicker and regular rate.
One thing that seems to have handicapped output of the “Love Me Do” single is the accidental breaking of one of the pressing masters in Capitol of Canada’s plant.
The Prices
Prices paid for those three Capitol of Canada disks from Canadian one-stops is approximately 61 cents and they are being sold to other retailers in this country for 75 to 89 cents. The retailer who gets on the street first with the disks can sell them for anything from $1.25 to $1.75. But as the amount of Capitol of Canada singles appear the price declines. It seldom goes below 99 cents, however.
There was also some demand for the Capitol of Canada LP, “Beatlemania”, but requests for this have diminished somewhat. It is understood that “Beatlemania” will be repackaged to conform with the new U. S. Capitol LP called “The Second Beatles Album”. There are two Capitol of Canada LP’s which have found their way into the U. S. market. “Twist and Shout” is the other. These package are being purchased for approximately $2.60 and it was reported that in Boston they were sold by some retailers for as high as S6. The Canadian LP price is S4.20.
Nine Positions
In Canada, the Beatles hold the first nine chart positions (italics added here for emphasis). With the addition of “Can’t Buy Me Love” at the No. 1 post, they now hold the first five slots on the Hot 100. Geoffrey F. Racine, executive vice- president of Capitol of Canada, has denied reports that any firm in the U. S. has distribution rights to “Roll Over Beethoven”. Racine also said that the company is not exporting Beatle Records to the United States and has no intention of doing so. He does admit. however, that records are being shipped here through one-stops and other large buyers of records who happen to have branches in Canada. It is also known that many American record merchandisers have set up specific deals with Canadian subdistributors of Capitol product. END
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Information and news source: Billboard; April 4, 1964
How Capitol Records Prepped The Beatles’ Single and Album to Satisfy Overwhelming Demand in the United States
Music Business March 21, 1964
ONE THING IS CERTAIN — the record industry will never be the same as it was before The Beatles, and neither will Capitol Records.
The incredible success of The Beatles on record (3.5 million singles and 3.5 million LP’s on Capitol alone, and million-plus sellers on both Vee Jay and Swan), and the attendant success of the lads on TV, in personal appearances and in media coverage, indicates that records are the most dynamic exposure medium available for young artists. Records far outdistance TV and movies, live appearances or anything else in creating a national image in a hurry.
And it also indicates that the record industry, working with its partner — radio — can expect at any time that one of its artists overnight can become an overwhelming national favorite, to an extent that would have surprised even the most optimistic record manufacturer less than two years ago.
IN A YEAR AND A HALF, the record industry has seen three massive break-outs of records featuring new artists, who-until their records were exposed — were relatively unknown. In the fall of 1962 the album of folk song parodies by Allan Sherman on Warner Bros. sold more than a million in little over two months. In November and December of 1962 and January of 1963, the album by Vaughn Meader on Cadence, “The First Family”, sold four million LP’s and broke every existing LP sales record.
And less than a year later, The Beatles did it again. There have been, of course, massive sellers before Sherman, Meader and The Beatles. Elvis Presley is the outstanding example on the pop side. Johnnie Ray did it with his smash hit; “Cry”. And there have been a number of show albums or sound tracks, “My Fair Lady”, “South Pacific”, “The Sound Of Music”, “West Side Story”, which have racked up sales in the millions. But these have occurred sporadically; the demand has not been concentrated in such a short time span as with the Sherman, Meader and Beatles releases.
Record companies are now learning to cope with the type of massive demand for records exemplified by these three big-selling artists. Warner Bros. fumbled a bit at first in getting the LP’s and the jackets available at the same time when the Sherman set broke for them in the fall of 1962. Cadence did a masterful job in getting its product to market after only a few days of being over-whelmed by what it had wrought with “The First Family”.
Neither Warner Bros. nor Cadence owns its own pressing facilities. Capitol Records does. Its plants at Scranton, Pa., and Hollywood are among the largest in capacity in the U.S. Being able to turn out its own product was a tremendous advantage to Capitol when The Beatles got hot. But Capitol faced other production problems that did not affect either Warner Bros. or Cadence.
NO ONE AT CAPITOL believed the firm had latched on to an all-time seller when Capitol a. & r. chief Voyle Gilmore made a deal with Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein in November last year for future Beatles’ product. Two previous Beatles’ releases had died in the U.S., one on Vee Jay and one on Swan. (Obviously, these records were not really dead, only sleeping.) But EMI executive Leonard Wood had told Gilmore and Capitol foreign boss Lloyd Dunn about the Beatles’ continuing success in England, and early stories about the Beatles (New York Times,Variety, Newsweek) had alerted other Capitol brass.
On word from Capitol president Alan Livingston, eastern operations chief, Brown Meggs, sent out first announcements to the trade. (Meggs, his secretary, Stacy Caraviotis, and West Coast-based publicity chief Fred Martin, were to bear the brunt of wearying public relations during the whole Beatles explosion.)
Immediately after the first press releases, many Capitol executives began to smell a hit. Calls began to come from dealers. There were other calls from press representatives, magazine editors, and newspaper free lance writers, TV bookers — all waiting on the Beatles. And disk jockeys wanted to know when the records would be ready.
At this time the first Beatles record release was scheduled for February, when the lads were set to appear on the Ed Sullivan TV show. Capitol decided to move the release date up, and set it for early January.
But in December, Ed Sullivan began to plug a Beatles appearance on a February show, and Jack Paar, who enjoys tangling with Sullivan, let his audience know that he would beat Sullivan by showing a TV film of The Beatles. This accelerated the excitement at Capitol and the firm again moved back the release date, this time to late December.
WITH A COMPANY the size of Capitol, it is not easy to play fast and loose with release dates. Capitol was already hot last December, with strong-selling singles by The Beach Boys, Al Martino, Nat King Cole and other acts, and the firm also had a number of hot LP’s riding the album charts, nationally. But somehow, in spite of Christmas (no shifts worked at the pressing plant Christmas eve or Christmas day), the firm had 1,342 Beatles singles in its Capitol distributing branches on December 26. These were immediately sent out to jockeys.
All over the country jockeys appeared to be waiting for The Beatles new record. The teen-age grapevine, which can smell a big hit from as far away as Japan, or as near as England, knew all about The Beatles, wanted the Beatles, and were calling local deejays for Beatles action. All over the country, from December 26 on, The Beatles got radio action on stations in big cities, small cities and everywhere else.
Before the record hit the stands, Capitol publicity had been busy. Bios of George Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Ringo Starr were in the works. There was an overall story of the Beatlemania craze. A four-page newspaper, called The National Record News, “Special Beatles Issue” was being printed. (This later became a collector’s item.) And pictures in many poses hit editors’ desks. What seemed to be adequate amounts of each of these were ordered. (They turned out to be underestimated.) Capitol was embarked on the biggest promotion campaign in its history.
Within one week from the time the record was released (December 26), Capitol had orders for 200,000 Beatles records. (Most of these orders came from New York.) The plants in Scranton and Hollywood made their move to catch up. During the week from December 30 to January 6 (in spite of the New Year’s holiday when the plants were closed), the firm pressed 134,225 Beatles’ singles. The next week the plants turned out 233,250 singles, and the week of January 13-17, the plants pressed 535,482 singles. And singles were still being back ordered. (At this time the greater New York area had used 262,381 singles.)
THE DEMAND for records became so intense, that the following week, Capitol Records ordered 300,000 records from the RCA Victor pressing plant located in Rockaway, New Jersey. And that same week Capitol issued the album called “Meet The Beatles” with 250,000 LP’s ready at date of issuance. These were soon gone into the throes of Beatlemania.
While the demand for records was outstripping production, Capitol continued to press records by other artists, who, in spite of The Beatles, were also selling. It has been a practice at the Capitol plants that no matter what the demand might be for one artist, it would also continue to press some other product, so that it would not get caught with only one artist on the market. During the period January 1 to February 28, Capitol pressed, in its own plants, about 1,250,000 records by such artists as The Beach Boys, Jody Miller, Al Martino, Ferlin Huskey, Wayne Newton, Bobby Darin, Nat King Cole, Donna Lynn, and the Drew-Vells.
Demand was also outstripping production for press matter. More than 25,000 bios of The Beatles were requested by jockeys, reporters and editors; more than 15,000 photos were requested. And one million copies of the four-page newspaper were run off before the demand was exhausted!
ON FEBRUARY 14, after Capitol plants had pressed about 1.7 million singles and almost one million albums, it began to farm out some Beatles work. Eight plants started to press Beatles’ singles and LP’s, and of this writing are still pressing, along with Capitol plants. It was February 28 before Capitol reached the point where it had enough merchandise on hand to fill back orders for the single.
Capitol was lucky with its single in one regard. On a sale of more than 3.5 million it gave away only 200,000 records. Though there was a 300 free-deal for every 1000 bought when it was first issued, the demand for the record was so strong that Capitol Records Distributing Corp. singles sales chief Vito Samela was able to cut off the deal as of January 7. Samela and distributing promo head Manny Kellem had both been up to their ears in work in the frantic days.
The firm had a discount arrangement for the album. There was a 15 per cent deal on the LP from the start, and it was still on the first week of March, at which time the label had sold more than 3,000,000 “Meet The Beatles” LP’s.
Capitol Records, like Victor with its first Presley release, has now been through its bath of fire. A new Capitol single by The Beatles was released Monday, March 16. One million copies of the record were available at the Capitol branches the day it was issued. As Samela told Music Business: “We will be able to keep up with the demand this time.”
ONE THING IS CERTAIN, the record industry will never be the same as it was before The Beatles, and neither will Capitol Records. END
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Information and news source: Music Business; March 21, 1964
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FIFTEEN WEEKS on the singles chart, “She Loves You” by The Beatles peaked at #1 last week and through this week (2 weeks overall) on the Billboard Hot 100. Week ending, March 21 through week ending, March 28, 1964. (Source: Billboard)
For our previous Billboard 1964 Number One U.S.A. Hits go HERE
Capitol Records Claim Beatles Under Label’s Sole Ownership In Court
CHICAGO — The Beatles continued to generate their own peculiar brand of legal heat between Capitol, Vee Jay and Swan here last week.
An injunction issued in Circuit Court restraining Vee Jay from selling Beatles product is still in force. Vee Jay was denied a motion to dissolve the injunction by Judge Cornelius Harrington.
However, the Chicago-based recording company gave notice through its attorney Robert Downing that it had a right of appeal which it planned to exercise this week.
Meanwhile, a hearing on the merits of the case has been referred to a Master in Chancery, with a date not announced as of press time.
Also involved is a Capitol petition to have Vee Jay and M-S Distributing Company held in contempt of court for allegedly continuing to sell Beatles product.
The court denied M-S’ motion to be dismissed and ruled the Chicago distributorship had to answer the Capitol petition. This also will be done’ when the case is heard before the Master.
The legal maneuvering in the case has virtually matched the feverish excitement which the Beatles – oblivious to everything – are generating wherever they go.
At last Thursday’s hearing, counsel for Capitol, Vee Jay and M-S Distributing Company easily outnumbered the handful of spectators in the courtroom.
At one point, four teen-age girls entered quietly, evidently hoping to catch a glimpse of the mop-headed English four, but left after it became apparent this was an afternoon for serious matters only. END
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Information and news source: Billboard; February 8, 1964
Debuted #69 week-ending January 25, 1964, 3 weeks playing the Billboard Singles chart, “She Loves You” climbs to #7, this week, February 2 through (week-ending) February 8, 1964.
Debuted #68 week-ending February 1, 1964, 2 weeks playing the Billboard Singles chart, “Please Please Me” climbs to #57, this week, February 2 through (week-ending) February 8, 1964.
British Chart-Toppers’ Fame and Popularity Spurs Rapid-Climb in U.S. Record Sales
LONDON — The Beatles are certain to establish Britain’s biggest ever selling single in the world with “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”
Home sales of 1,550,000 make it the biggest-ever seller in Britain (sales of “She Loves You” are less than 50,000 behind it here) and with American sales added to totals increasing rapidly in other parts, the record must top the Tornados’ three-million seller, “Telstar.”
Under the direction of their producer, George Martin, the Beatles waxed the follow-up to “I Want To Hold Your Hand” at the Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris last week — there was not sufficient time for the group to record in London between the completion of their Paris stint and their departure for New York.
The new song is virtually certain to be one of those written by Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney (they write all the group’s material) for inclusion in the United Artists film which goes into production at the end of this month starring the Liverpool foursome.
During their Parisian sessions the Beatles also waxed “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in German.
Next week the Beatles make their U. S.concert debuts at Washington’s Uline Arena (Feb. 11) and New York’s Carnegie Hall (Feb. 12). George Martin, who will be in New York to record Shirley Bassey at the Carnegie Hall (Feb. 15) is still considering waxing an album with the Beatles there.
His decision will be literally last-minute for it is dependent on John and Paul having written sufficient new material for their act to make up an original LP — and they write their songs overnight.
Their staggering success in Britain continues — a paperback titled “Meet The Beatles” has become the hottest thing on the bookstalls and at lightning speed has become only the eighth paperback to notch up one million sales in this country. A leading manufacturer is having difficulty in keeping up with the demand for his latest line — Beatles wallpaper! END
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Information and news source: Billboard; February 8, 1964
Note: It bears noting this article was published by Billboard, Saturday, February 8. The eve of The Beatles first U.S. television appearance on CBS’ Ed Sullivan Show, Sunday night, February 9, 1964. Fifty-seven years ago.