•The Beatles made their debut in America at a time when the United States record industry was stagnating. The years 1955 through 1959 had seen sales increase as much as 36 percent each year. In 1960, however, industry-wide sales were actually down (.5 percent) from the year before, and 63 sales were up less than 2 percent from the year before. The general recession explained some of the decrease but a bigger problem was the music itself. With the exception of the 'girl groups', the excitement generated by the the r & b crossovers and the first wave of rock and roll had subsided; Philadelphia schlock did little to bring it back (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 63).

•In the summer of 1963 Vee Jay records was involved in financial disputes that would eventually lead the company to file for bankruptcy in 1966 (Goldsmith, M. The Beatles Come to America,p. 102).

Specific Titles:

•John, Paul, George, and Duff Lowe recorded 'That'll Be the Day' for 17 s and 6p. There was one copy and the tape was destroyed.

•EMI did not promote "Love Me Do".
Before Capitol changed its mind (about the Beatles), two independents, Vee Jay in Chicago and Swan in Philadelphia, put out singles based on rather minor agreements with the Beatles. The records engendered several lawsuits, but Swan's 'She Loves You' still became the second best-selling single of the year. For its part MGM even pressed a single from a tape which an affiliate had made in Germany the year before (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 70).

•Brian would be able to sell "My Bonnie" for 6s each. 25 were sold within 24 hours, so he ordered 2 more boxes.

•'Love Me Do' the band's first record in Canada sold 175 copies. 'Please Please Me did a little better. The third release, 'From Me To You', sold about 500 copies (Kendall, p. 16).

•It is reported that Brian ordered ten thousand copies of Love Me Do in order to land it on the British charts. Epstein denied purchasing the records but friends and associates say that it is almost certain he did (Lewisohn, Live).

•"I Want To Hold Your Hand" became the fastest breaking record that EMI's American subsidiary Capitol had ever released (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 70).

•By September 63 sales of 'She Loves You' reach 750,000; total sales for Beatles releases has reached 2 million.

•By October 'She Loves You' has reached gold (1 million sold). Please Please Me pass 250,000 in UK.

•In Nov 63 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' is released in the UK with advanced orders of 700,000 (Schultheiss 68).

•The store [NEMS] sold box after box after box of the record [My Bonnie] before it was realised that The Beatles were, in fact, a Liverpool group and not from Germany (Gunby, G. Hello Goodbye, p. 2).

•‘From Me to You’ sold over 500,000 copies, reaching #1, before being replaced in the number one spot by another Beatles’ record.

•In the late summer of 1963 Dave Dexter of Capitol Records decided against releasing She Loves You as a single, so EMI made a deal with the small Philadelphia-based label Swan(Goldsmith, M. The Beatles Come to America, p. 103).

•Since Capitol had turned down the Beatles’ music for release in America, Brian was free to offer the records to another company in the U.S. Vee Jay, a Chicago record company, accepted distribution for the songs. ‘Please Please Me’ sold only a few hundred copies (Brown, p. 109).

•Swan Records accepted ‘She Loves You’ for distribution. The single “vanished as soon as it was released” (Brown, p. 109).

•Advance orders for With the Beatles in the UK were 300,000. Domestic sales quickly passed 500,000. In 1965 the album passed the 1,000,000 mark. The album even placed on the singles chart because the singles chart included any disc sold regardless of its diameter (Lewisohn. Chronicle p. 126).

•Recording costs for Please, Please, Me added up to a mere four hundred pounds (Mackenzie. Every Little Thing, p. 167).

•A Brief History on EMI Courtesy of Scripophily.com "Wall Street History Lost and Found"
Source: Ottawa Beatle Site

•In 1897 the Gramophone Company began trading in London, intending to establish a European market for the gramophone and its flat disc records which Emile Berliner had invented and patented in the USA some ten years earlier. Initially the Company's catalogue consisted mainly of songs by music hall artists, brass band recordings and other popular material, but in 1902 a rising young opera star, Enrico Caruso, recorded ten arias in a hotel room in Milan, and thereby helped to establish the gramophone as a serious medium for classical music. The Gramophone Company flourished, selling both classical and popular recordings throughout the whole of Europe as well as Australia, India and other parts of the old British Empire.

•Meanwhile, the Columbia Graphophone Company was also establishing itself in Europe, initially selling the cylinder records and phonographs invented by Thomas Edison, but quickly switching to flat discs. Columbia was soon the main competitor of the Gramophone Company, which had become known as HMV because of its use of the "His Master's Voice" painting as its main trademark. By 1929 record sales were booming as never before, with dance band recordings selling literally millions of copies, but then the Great Depression hit, and sales slumped dramatically. To avoid bankruptcy, the Gramophone Company and its arch-rival the Columbia Graphophone Company merged in April 1931 to form Electric and Musical Industries (EMI).

•In November 1931 EMI opened the world's first purpose-built recording studio complex in North London at 3 Abbey Road, which remains to this day the centre of EMI's recording and post-production work. Throughout the 1930s the record business gradually picked up, with classical artists like violinist Yehudi Menuhin and tenor Beniamino Gigli giving significant support to EMI's recovery. After a further major setback caused by the Second World War, the Company revived its classical catalogue with major new stars like Herbert von Karajan and Maria Callas, and hired a number of talented producers, including George Martin, to strengthen the pop recording programme.

•The 1950s saw the arrival of rock 'n' roll and the beginning of the pop culture that resulted in a massive sales explosion, aided by the arrival of the 45 rpm single and the 33 1/3 rpm long-playing record. In 1955, to replace the loss of its long-established licensing arrangements with RCA-Victor and CBS, EMI entered the important American market by acquiring Capitol Records, whose artists included Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole and, later, The Beach Boys. EMI was in the forefront of the development of the British pop scene that reached its initial peak with The Beatles in the early 1960s, and subsequently produced many successful groups such as Pink Floyd, Queen, Deep Purple and Iron Maiden.

•In recent years EMI has further strengthened its position in the world record market by acquiring a number of other important record companies, including Chrysalis and Virgin, as well as developing its own roster of outstanding acts. Today EMI is unrivaled both for the richness of its past heritage and for the strength of its current catalogue featuring many of the world's most successful pop and classical artists.

General Statements:

•It was estimated that during the first year the Beatles would sell about 6 million pounds worth of records in the UK. This would increase EMI’s profits by 80% (Brown, p. 110).

•For 1963 they received 1 farthing per double-sided disc. Millions of records were sold under this original Parlophone contract. By the end of the year (1964) the group had gotten twenty-eight sides on the singles charts and produced six
top selling albums (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 70).

•Within two years of turning down the Beatles Decca would help EMI press Beatle records due to the high demand of the records.

•John Burgess (British record producer): We never anticipated anything being released in America, quite frankly. I used to regard England as the world...George Martin was the one who got the whole thing off when EMI put a guy out there and he took all the product with him. His name was Roland Rennie, a British guy from EMI who lived in New York. All the product was channeled through him. He licensed the first three Beatles records to Swan and Vee Jay and not to Capitol, who didn't want them.

•Capitol Records in Los Angeles continuously turned down the opportunity to distribute Beatles' records in the U.S. But in Canada Paul White, an executive at Capitol in Canada said, "I used to listen to about fifty new records a week. Then one day I put on 'Love Me Do' by a group called the Beatles...I decided to release the Beatles' records in Canada (Kendall, p. 16).

•The British Press reports that a Church of England vicar has proposed that the Beatles record a record called 'Oh Come All Ye Faithful Yeah Yeah .

•Songwriting credits on records change from McCartney/Lennon to Lennon/McCartney in November of '63 (Schultheiss 64).

•The Record Retailer in Britain announced that the British had bought £6,250,000 worth of Beatles' records in '63 (Lewisohn. Chronicle p.93).

Recording in Germany:

•Beatles made a record in Germany with Rory Storm's singer, Lu Walters. The Beatles were backup with Ringo on drums. The flipside was a sales pitch by a gentleman selling leather goods. Alan Williams paid 10 quid for the recording.
Fever, Summertime, and September Song were the recordings the entry above is referring to. A 78 rpm disk was produced and four copies were made. Some sources say that only Summertime was recorded.

•The Beatles offered to pay if they could make their own recording at the above mentioned German studio. Alan Williams advised that they had to get back to their performance that evening. (Williams).

•The Beatles were to be paid a flat fee of three hundred DM (about 26 pounds) and would not be eligible to receive any royalties from the Tony Sheridan sessions (Flippo, p. 134).