Showing posts with label 1964. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1964. Show all posts
9/29/17
8/26/14
6/13/14
5/25/14
5/24/14
10/26/13
10/23/13
2/25/13
50 Years Ago Today: "Please Please Me" by The Beattles & Bee Gees
It was fifty years ago today - February 25, 1963* - that Vee-Jay Records released the first single by The Beatles in America. (Technically, it was the group's second released single after "Love Me Do" in the UK.) "Please Please Me" was offered to the label which had first dibs on Beatles music stateside - Capitol Records - but they turned it down. The rights were then shopped to other labels, beginning with Atlantic Records, which also declined. Finally, the small-ish label Vee-Jay was offered the rights to issue the single and promptly did so, misspelling the Fab Four's group name on the label as THE BEATTLES on initial pressings (above), of which less than 8,000 were manufactured.
The single (above) was released back home in England on January 11th. It was first played on American radio on February 8, 1963 on Chicago's own WLS. It failed to dent the Billboard charts here despite topping a few charts in the group's homeland. On the UK equivalent of the Billboard charts - then known as the Record Retailer chart** - the single peaked at #2.
When Beatlemania finally hit the States almost a year later in January 1964, Vee-Jay re-released the single (above) and got the spelling right this time. The single peaked at #3 behind the two current Capitol singles "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You", selling over a million copies. The original 1963 b-side had been "Ask Me Why" but for the re-release, "From Me To You" was the b-side. That song had originally been the third Beatles single released and Vee-Jay had first rights this time by virtue of their agreement to release "Please, Please Me" (now with a comma!). While "From Me To You" sold better than the previous single, it barely made the Billboard Bubbling Under Chart of songs just outside the Hot 100.
You can read more about "Please, Please Me" HERE.
BONUS VIDEO
Witness seventeen year old Barry Gibb and his fourteen year old twin brothers, Robin and Maurice - professionally known as the Bee Gees - cover "Please Please Me" on Australian television, February 1963.
*Most Beatles scholars claim the single was released on February 8, 1963. HERC's trusted sources indicate February 25, 1963 as the release date. Plus it ties in better with today's date and HERC is in no position karma-wise to argue with sweet serendipity.
** The chart is now known as The Official Singles Chart or UK Singles Chart. Or Nigel, to his friends.
8/8/12
Chart Flashback: Billboard's Hot 100 Turns 54!!!
[Anyone else feel like they're playing catch up? HERC was hoping to have this post up and out last week but, as the saying goes, life happens. So here it is.]
August 7, 1976 [missing #4 "Let 'Em In" and
#7 "Got To Get You Into My Life"]
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| www.yourlogoresources.com |
Prior to August 4, 1958, Billboard magazine published a variety of pop record charts including Most Played In Jukeboxes, Best Sellers In Stores, Most Played By Jockeys and the Top 100 - an aggregate of the previous three charts listed with extra weight given to Best Sellers. With the August 4th issue, Billboard debuted their Hot 100 chart and had discontinued the other charts listed above except Best Sellers which lasted until October 1958.
The Hot 100 is still going strong today. It is still compiled using singles sales but now that includes physical and digital download data. Radio plays still factor in and so do on-demand streams - like the Spotify playlists below.
The research library here at the Hideaway is littered with books devoted to the history of the Billboard charts including definitive ones by Joel Whitburn and Fred Bronson. What we're gonna do today is go back to the beginning of the Hot 100, list the Top 10 and then skip forward six years at a time (listing the Top 10 each time) until we find ourselves with last week's Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Why six? That is HERC's lucky number! [Check the post times of his blog entries.]
August 9, 1958
August 8,1964 [missing the #1 song: "A Hard Day's Night"]
August 8, 1970
August 7, 1976 [missing #4 "Let 'Em In" and
#7 "Got To Get You Into My Life"]
August 7, 1982 [missing #3 "Abracadabra"]
August 6, 1988 [missing #9 "Pour Some Sugar On Me"]
August 6, 1994
August 5, 2000
August 5, 2006
August 4, 2012
That's all folks!
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