# Introducing... The Beatles
**Introducing... The Beatles** is a 1964 album by the Beatles released by Vee-Jay Records on January 10, 1964, and it was the first Beatles album issued in the United States.[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/) It is an abridged American version of the band's British debut *Please Please Me*, containing twelve of that album's fourteen songs.[2](https://www.allmusic.com/album/introducingthe-beatles-mw0000889073) Its tangled release history involves financial collapse at Vee-Jay, rival lawsuits with [Capitol Records](https://www.edgepedia.org/capitol-records), more than two dozen cover variations, and heavy counterfeiting that continues to challenge collectors.[3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| First US Beatles album | Released January 10, 1964 by Vee-Jay Records, ten days before Capitol's *Meet The Beatles!*[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/) • [4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) |
| Catalog numbers | Vee-Jay VJLP 1062 (mono) and SR 1062 (stereo)[3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles) |
| Content | Twelve tracks from the UK *Please Please Me*, omitting the title track and "Ask Me Why"; later pressings from February 1964 swapped those two in for "Love Me Do" and "PS I Love You"[2](https://www.allmusic.com/album/introducingthe-beatles-mw0000889073) • [1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/) |
| Planned release | July 1963, abandoned because of Vee-Jay's financial difficulties and unpaid royalties[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/) • [4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) |
| Chart performance | Number two on the Billboard album chart for nine weeks, behind *Meet The Beatles!*, which held number one for 11 weeks[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) |
| Sales certification | Certified platinum (over a million units sold) in 2014 after Bruce Spizer obtained sales data from Vee-Jay's comptroller[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) |
| End of availability | A settlement allowed sales until October 15, 1964, when American rights reverted to Capitol, which promptly issued *The Early Beatles*[3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles) |
## Background: Capitol passes, Vee-Jay signs
Capitol Records, the American subsidiary of the Beatles' British label EMI, declined to issue the band's early singles, believing British artists would not sell in the United States.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) EMI's US representative, Transglobal Music Co., instead leased exclusive American rights to Vee-Jay Records in January 1963. The agreement ran five years, required Vee-Jay to manufacture and ship a minimum of 1,000 discs within 30 days of receiving masters, and gave the label right of first refusal on future Beatles recordings.[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/)
Vee-Jay was a Chicago-based rhythm-and-blues label founded in 1953 by Vivian Carter and her husband Jimmy Bracken, and it was the most successful Black-run record company before Motown.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) Its first Beatles release was the "Please Please Me"/"Ask Me Why" single on February 25, 1963, with initial pressings misspelling the band's name as "The Beattles"; it sold just over 5,000 copies in its first year.[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/) The follow-up single "From Me to You" in May 1963 fared somewhat better but did not chart in the Hot 100 proper.[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/)
## A delayed release, then a rush to market
In April 1963 EMI sent Vee-Jay the master tapes for the *Please Please Me* album, which the label had 30 days to exercise its right of first refusal on.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) Vee-Jay planned a July 1963 release and dropped the previously released title track and "Ask Me Why" from the running order, leaving twelve songs in line with the American norm of a 12-song album.[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/) • [5](https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/album/introducing-the-beatles-1964/)
The release was halted that summer. Vee-Jay was in dire financial straits, owing thousands of dollars in taxes, printing costs, royalties, and pressing-plant bills, problems tied mainly to the gambling debts of its president Ewart Abner, who had by then left the company.[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/) • [6](https://beatlediscos.com/introducing-the-beatles) Transglobal unilaterally terminated the licensing contract in August 1963, after plans to print 6,000 copies of the album stalled and the company failed to pay royalties to either [Frank Ifield](https://www.edgepedia.org/frank-ifield), another EMI artist on the label, or the Beatles.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/)
**Rush release.** When "I Want to Hold Your Hand" broke big in America and [Beatlemania](https://www.edgepedia.org/beatlemania) took hold, Vee-Jay executives decided to issue *Introducing... The Beatles* anyway, worrying about the legal ramifications later, and it appeared on January 10, 1964.[3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles) • [2](https://www.allmusic.com/album/introducingthe-beatles-mw0000889073) Capitol, which had by then secured exclusive US rights in a deal with EMI, rushed out *Meet The Beatles!* on January 20, 1964.[7](https://www.thebeatles.com/us-1964-albums) • [4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/)
## Two track lists and two dozen covers
Because the release was rushed, no back sleeve had been prepared for the first version, which carried a full-color reproduction of Vee-Jay's standard inner sleeve advertising 25 "other fine albums of significant interest," known to collectors as the "ad back." This was followed by a plain white "blank back," and finally a black-and-white back cover with the title and track list.[3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles)
A week after release, after roughly 80,000 copies had been published, Capitol's publishing subsidiary Beechwood Music, Inc., which owned the American publishing rights to "Love Me Do" and "P. S. I Love You," served a restraining order.[3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles) Vee-Jay reinstated "Please Please Me" and "Ask Me Why" in their place, at first without even changing the track list printed on the back cover; pressings with those two substitutions appeared from February 1964 onward.[1](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/) • [3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles)
## The legal battle
Capitol sued Vee-Jay in January 1964, and an Illinois court granted a temporary injunction on January 15, 1964 barring Vee-Jay from manufacturing, selling, or distributing any Beatles recordings.[8](https://law.justia.com/cases/illinois/appellate-court/1964/47-ill-app-2d-468.html) According to Beatles historian Bruce Spizer, a "procedural blunder" by Vee-Jay's lawyer led a court to impose the ban, and over the following months "the injunction would be lifted and reinstated over and over again," undermining the label's ability to get records into stores.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) The repeated injunctions caused Vee-Jay to create over two dozen cover and label variations before the parties settled.[3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles)
The settlement, reached in April, let Vee-Jay continue issuing records from the 16 Beatles master recordings it possessed through October 1964; sales of the album were permitted until October 15, 1964, after which full American distribution rights reverted to Capitol.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) • [3](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles) Vee-Jay still found the year profitable: from the start of Beatlemania until the October 1964 expiration it issued four LPs, four singles, and an EP from those tracks.[5](https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/album/introducing-the-beatles-1964/) The label also released "Twist and Shout" as a single on its subsidiary Tollie, scoring a number two hit in 1964.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/)
## Sales, aftermath, and collecting
Both albums raced up the charts in early 1964, with *Meet The Beatles!* claiming the top spot for 11 weeks and *Introducing... The Beatles* holding number two for nine weeks.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/) The album sold well over a million copies; Vee-Jay presented the band with its own gold record (over 500,000 units) backstage at the [Hollywood Bowl](https://www.edgepedia.org/hollywood-bowl) on October 23, 1964.[9](https://www.beatlesebooks.com/introducing-the-beatles?sitecookie=3d2fb44451de978096967833e47cb8a4) Because Vee-Jay did not allow the [Recording Industry Association of America](https://www.edgepedia.org/recording-industry-association-of-america) to audit its books during the 1960s, the [RIAA certification](https://www.edgepedia.org/riaa-certification) came only in 2014, when Spizer obtained the comptroller's sales data and the album plus three 1964 Vee-Jay Beatles singles were certified platinum.[4](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/)
After the October 1964 cutoff, Capitol collected the material on *The Early Beatles*, released March 22, 1965, which peaked at number 43.[10](https://www.thebeatles.com/beatles-64) *Please Please Me* itself did not receive an official US release until 1987; until then, *Introducing... The Beatles* was the closest American listeners came to the band's debut album.[11](https://www.thebeatles.com/please-please-me) • [2](https://www.allmusic.com/album/introducingthe-beatles-mw0000889073)
**Counterfeits.** The album has been heavily counterfeited since it went out of print, usually mastered from needledrop copies of the originals and sounding inferior; a common tell is the artist name printed below rather than above the spindle hole on the label, and all known fakes are mono even when their covers advertise stereo.[2](https://www.allmusic.com/album/introducingthe-beatles-mw0000889073) The 2024 box set *The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono* collected the seven Capitol and [United Artists](https://www.edgepedia.org/united-artists) albums of January 1964 to March 1965 but did not include this Vee-Jay title.[12](https://www.thebeatles.com/beatles-1964-us-albums-mono-2024)
## References
1. [Introducing The Beatles (United States, 1964), The Beatles Bible](https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/introducing-the-beatles/)
2. [Introducing...The Beatles, AllMusic review by William Ruhlmann](https://www.allmusic.com/album/introducingthe-beatles-mw0000889073)
3. [Introducing The Beatles (United States, 1964), About The Beatles](https://aboutthebeatles.com/introducing-the-beatles)
4. [The Black Record Label That Introduced the Beatles to America, Smithsonian Magazine (Bryan Greene, February 23, 2022)](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-black-record-label-that-introduced-the-beatles-to-america-180979606/)
5. [Introducing... The Beatles (1964), The Paul McCartney Project](https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/album/introducing-the-beatles-1964/)
6. [Introducing...The Beatles](https://beatlediscos.com/introducing-the-beatles)
7. [US 1964 Albums, The Beatles official site](https://www.thebeatles.com/us-1964-albums)
8. [Capitol Records, Inc. v. Vee Jay Records, Inc., 47 Ill. App. 2d 468 (1964), Justia](https://law.justia.com/cases/illinois/appellate-court/1964/47-ill-app-2d-468.html)
9. ["Introducing The Beatles" album, BeatlesEbooks](https://www.beatlesebooks.com/introducing-the-beatles?sitecookie=3d2fb44451de978096967833e47cb8a4)
10. [Beatles '64, The Beatles official site](https://www.thebeatles.com/beatles-64)
11. [Please Please Me, The Beatles official site](https://www.thebeatles.com/please-please-me)
12. [The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono (2024), The Beatles official site](https://www.thebeatles.com/beatles-1964-us-albums-mono-2024)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Albums and recorded releases › Studio albums › Indie and alternative albums*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license