Questions for First Generation US Beatles Fans in 1964

LMAO

 

We've hit a new low. Even the UK label designs are superior.

 

I was 9 when The Beatles debuted on Ed Sullivan hearing them for the first time on my transistor AM radio (77 WABC) the month before. She Loves You/I'll Get You was the first single I bought after seeing them on television yet there wasn't any confusion on my part because there were no dedicated record stores (that I knew of) only limited record departments within larger stores like Woolworths that sold milkshakes, galoshes, & parakeets. Besides, I didn't have my own portable record player until Christmas 1964 whereby Santa somehow knew that The Beatles would be the biggest thing to hit the sixties since sliced bread.

 

When I first saw the photo of Paul’s bass on the cover, I thought it looked very space aged.

 

To me Paul's bass looked like a violin well before Yesterday came along.

In other words, a musical nod to classical music of the past!

Eye of the beholder I guess....

 

You’ve started a great thread, but the tone of your comment puts you at risk of spoiling it.

I was surprised to see our host expressing his hatred of “that Apple label”, as I’ve always liked it. On seeing the washed-out colors and crude block typeface of the US Hey Jude single illustrated in Post #9, however, I was inclined to agree with him.

It occurred to me that, had the UK design been used in the US, our host - and other US fans who might share his opinion - might have liked the design more, or at least enough not to hate it.

Nothing more.

 

Meaning the US which looks like crap next to the UK or the whole fruit basket?

 

What’s up with this? I just got the 2014 mono of TWA and noticed the Apple label is different from what I’ve seen before on US albums. Is it authentic to the original UK labels?

 

This is close to my experience as well. I remember buying 45s at Woolworths and lps at Sears.
As for being on different labels in 1964, I was confused AHDN 45 as shown earlier in this subject, was on Capitol
But the lp was UA. Vee Jays lp, Introducing... was easily found but Capitol’s Early Beatles with the same songs
Not so much.

 

I was 10-11 in '64. I was surprised that so many labels issues Beatles records. I figured at the time they were so huge no one label could handle them.

 

I was buying records before the Beatles. The first records I owned were by Bobby Rydel, Chubby Checker, Elvis, Jan and Dean,
Ricky Nelson, Beach Boys, etc. when 1964 came around, I got I Want To Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, From Me To You,
and records by Dave Clark Five,Hermans Hermits, Peter and Gordon,Rolling Stones, etc.
But my parents got me me my first Beatles Album. I had to pay for records out of my allowance.

 

None of the stores I shopped in had UK titles or recording. I remember owning ONE Canadian single which was Please Mr. Postman. But as far as UK product went, I never even saw a UK title until the 1970's and I believe those were ODEON labels from S. America.

 

I didn't actually accumulate any Beatles records until 1966 ("Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby"45 rpm) but I did have an older sister (13 y/o in 1964)
who bought every Beatle Lp upon release. For some reason, she never bothered to buy the singles, only the U.S. LP's. I guess she figured she would like all of the songs on the albums. What some Beatle fans might see as a ripoff, we considered a plus... you got the hit singles on the albums, and the 45's were unnecessary. I wasn't aware of the MGM or Atco singles (excepting "Ain't She Sweet", which I loved. When I asked my sis why she didn't buy that single, she replied "That song is old. I only like their new songs.") until the Polydor "Circa 1960" LP came out in 1970.

 

I was only 6 years old in 1964. As I heard new songs on the radio I assumed they were all being released in that order. My mother got THE BEATLES 2ND ALBUM and since She Loves You was on that album and I Want To Hold Your Hand was on MEET THE BEATLES, I assumed IWTHYH came first (and that it was the first song they released).
It wasn't until the RED ALBUM that I learned the order of the singles being released and it wasn't until Nicholas Schafner's THE BEATLES FOREVER that I got the full picture of how everything in those early years actually happened.
Two of the most amazing things I learned then were that All My Loving wasn't a huge hit (I remember hearing it a lot-maybe since I lived in New England we got to hear it more as a Canadian import?) and the other was that Eight Days A Week was only a single in the US and not in the UK. To my ears it seemed like an absolutely perfect obvious single. Based on the success of it in the US, perhaps I was right!

 

This raises an interesting subject. I volunteered at a college radio station for a few years, and I remember a term, "parting," which meant not to play songs by the same artist back to back. It seems like that would have been difficult to do in 1964.

 

Alongside the milkshakes, galoshes and parakeets, did they have posters, incense and strobe candles?

 

Nobody knew there were any choices. The entire music universe consisted solely of what was in the bins of the local music store, and in Jersey City, that meant mostly Capitol and some Vee Jay.

 

Nope most of that stuff appeared in privately owned head shops around 1967.

Woolworths on the other hand was a major chain far more straight-laced 'til the end.

Hard to believe how so much had changed in just three years.

 

Maybe on the west coast. On the east coast Meet the Beatles was the one. On Capitol.

And the better of the two by far.

 

As an east coast boy all I remember was that the Capitol singles labels were orange & yellow whereas my She Loves You/I'll Get You label was black.

Simpler times indeed....

 

Wasn't able to afford records in 1964, so all my Beatle listening was via the radio or listening to friends' (usually girls) records at their houses. Seems the girls were the biggest fans in 1964. That was done a lot back then. Whoever had an LP or even a single would bring it to school to show and brag, and then have a bunch of kids over after school to listen.

That said, in 1965 or 66, my buddy offered to sell me his copy of VJ Introducing for 50 cents, but I declined as it was " old music by then. Kicking myself now.

 

It’s kinda surprising that All My Loving wasn’t a single isn’t it? Sure sounded like a hit to me. Especially since they opened with it on Sullivan in the States.

 

It was one of the many 1964 singles alluded to in my opening post. It was one of the Canadian singles that dented the U.S. charts.

 

This was my first Beatle album, I was 7 year old, I had recently bought the single, I want To Hold Your hand.