The Early Beatles

Background

Vee-Jay had gained American distribution rights to the tracks before the group became popular in America (because Capitol, the US subsidiary of EMI which owned the Beatles' record label Parlophone, had declined to release the group's records in America), and their releases had initially failed to chart. But after the group became famous, Vee-Jay, still holding the rights to the early material, was able to reissue them in America and this time the records sold in the millions. Capitol filed a lawsuit to stop Vee Jay from distributing the tracks, but was not successful. In October 1964, Vee-Jay's license to distribute the Beatles recordings they possessed expired, so Capitol finally got the American distribution rights for the album.

Release and reception

Though Vee-Jay had compiled four Beatles albums, ten singles and one EP in the space of just fifteen months from these tracks, when issued on Capitol, the album sold well, but its highest chart position was only number 43, making it the only original Capitol or United Artists released Beatles album not to reach numbers 1 or 2 in America (with the exception of the Capitol documentary album, The Beatles' Story, which peaked at number 7). Capitol did little to promote the album since the label merely viewed it as a replacement for the Vee-Jay LP, rather than a "new" Beatles album. The Early Beatles sold one million copies by late 1973 and was certified gold on 8 January 1974 and platinum on 10 January 1997 by the RIAA. It was released in both mono and stereo versions. As no stereo masters of "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" exist, Capitol used EMI's duophonic mixes of both songs. The mono pressing of the album was made with a two-to-one fold-down of the stereo tapes, as evidenced by John and Paul's vocal collision and chuckle heard in the third verse of "Please Please Me". The original mix on the UK mono issue of the Please Please Me LP uses an edit to correct the mistake, while the stereo version of the same LP does not. So the existence of the vocal error in a mono mix is unique to The Early Beatles as well as a short-lived Capitol Starline 45 released in October, 1965 (deleted two months later).

Compact disc

The Early Beatles is available on compact disc as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 boxed set (catalogue number CDP 0946 3 57498 2 3), in both mono and stereo. A second CD version of The Early Beatles with the songs in both stereo and true mono was issued in 2014 individually and part of the Beatles The U.S. Albums boxed set.

Track listing

The album consists of eleven of the fourteen tracks from the Beatles' first American album Introducing...The Beatles as well as their first British LP Please Please Me. All songs written by Lennon-McCartney except where noted.

1. "Love Me Do" – 2:23
2. "Twist and Shout" (Phil Medley and Bert Russell) – 2:33
3. "Anna (Go to Him)" (Arthur Alexander) – 3:00
4. "Chains" (Gerry Goffin and Carole King) – 2:27
5. "Boys" (Luther Dixon and Wes Farrell) – 2:25
6. "Ask Me Why" – 2:28

1. "Please Please Me" – 2:00
2. "P.S. I Love You" – 2:05
3. "Baby It's You" (Burt Bacharach, Mack David, and Luther Dixon, credited as Barney Williams) – 2:38
4. "A Taste of Honey" (Ric Marlow and Bobby Scott) – 2:04
5. "Do You Want to Know a Secret" – 1:59