Remembering Dave Dexter Jr. On The 30th Anniversary Of His Passing

That’s because the American masses didn’t know how much better the UK versions were.

 

Geesh, give the guy a break.

It wasn't about musical taste as much as it was a generational divide (Dexter started working in the music biz in the 1930’s). The entire British invasion were up against a whole music industry that had it's roots firmly placed in jazz and orchestra music.

Don't forget, EMI owned Capitol; Dexter's bosses bosses were the brass at EMI. Why didn’t they stop Dexter from doing what he did? Because none of them had a clue how to deal with modern rock/pop music.

 

Hmm. So who did buy the US singles?

 

Key words being ‘UK versions’. The US is not the UK.

 

Impatient rich kids.

 

Contractually, Capitol had the right to rearrange the Beatles’ albums any way they saw fit, before sometime in 1966. EMI might have owned the majority of Capitol the company, but they did not run the company.

 

You were once one of our colonies!

 

We broke away from you because we wanted to put singles on albums and add compression and reverb. You had such a backwards-thinking king.

 

You guys just love being ripped off! An 11 track Revolver anyone?

 

That's children's music. I don't spend money on it. Sinatra didn't put singles on albums for artistic reasons, e.g., they did not fit the mood of the album and often used a different arranger. With teen pop music, the singles fit just fine. They were standalone, disposable pop tunes.

 

That wasn't under Dexter's watch, unfortunately.

 

“Disposable pop tunes” But not The Beatles. Still one of the biggest selling artists in the world today. Many American fans today clamour for re release of their US vinyl albums. Not bad for a pop group that lasted only seven years as recording artists & made only 13 albums.

 

Of course, in 1965, at the height of Beatlemania, the remarkably kind and generous Capitol forced US fans hungry for new Bug Music (tm, Schnitz) to pay extra for singles in order to get in-demand tracks that Capitol had arbitrarily deleted from just-released British albums, like:
Eight Days A Week/ I Don't Want to Spoil the Party (cut from Beatles for Sale for Beatles'65)
Yesterday/Act Naturally (cut from Help, featured weeks later in September on Ed Sullivan, with the single rush-released the next week to meet the demand)
Nowhere Man/What Goes On (cut from Rubber Soul; nb- Ringo B-side)
The Beatles put a stop to this nonsense by letting their contract lapse in June 1966, and including the No Dexter Clause in the January 1967 contract.
Note: In November 1966, with no recording contract in effect, the Beatles released Oldies in England, a generous, 16 track stereo collection of their singles, including those not included on their British albums. Capitol chose not to release it in the United States, presumably because nobody there could count as high as 16 without getting the shakes.

 

Yes, but these albums sold millions so the man must have been a genius. Or so I have read, over and over again, by a few in this thread.

Capitol, and Dave, deserve some credit -they learned quickly how to promote the Beatles. Why this should be celebrated years after the fact is a mystery to me as I believe the music was/is great enough to have found a USA audience without Capitol. But I wasn't weened on these early Capitol albums so what can I possibly know?

 

VeeJay, Swan, and Tollie had a year to break the Beatles and couldn't. Three months after She Loves You bombed on Swan, Dave Dexter comes along, boom, Beatlemania sweeps the United States.

What worked in the UK didn't work in the US. Dave Dexter fixed that. He re-sorted track listings on LP's and released them in a smarter manner. He knew about A&R and publicity and played it like a pure pro. The comedy producer and the shopkeeper asked to manage the same task in the UK were clueless in that art. And that's fine, it wasn't their wheelhouse. One was a producer, the other an impresario, neither understood how to take a year's worth of material, repackage it, make it appealing, and have it work to unheard of success in the US market.

So, yes, he was a genius. The Beatles bombed in the US just a few months before his magic touch. And after he moved on to other projects at Capitol, the Beatles copied his ideas. Suddenly the idea of a 'concept album' was their idea when it was Dave Dexter's strategy that they pushed back against.

 

With a "comedy producer and the shopkeeper" nonetheless

 

indubitably!

 

but the haters will never admit it...who cares what they say or think we know the real deal! Dave knew had to make them rock! just cue up ROB on the Beatles SA and let it ROCK!

 

The comedy producer grew into a brilliant pop and rock producer.

The shopkeeper had an eye for hidden musical talent.

Neither knew about marketing, promoting, launching, or strategizing from a creative, analytical, or business standpoint. That’s what Dave Dexter’s area of expertise was, decades of focus on those areas at Capitol. Not sure why it’s hard to admit that Martin and Epstein were great at certain things and weak at others. Not sure why it’s against the grain to suggest that Dave Dexter was as brilliant in his role as the other central figures were in theirs.

 

ah ha ha ha ha ...

 

He was such a genius that Capitol chased him off the job once they realised just how much he’d cost them. He hated pop music & the Beatles in particular. Dave Marsh tells us that as he was rejecting Beatles songs he actually put out two albums of German drinking songs. And Capitol had to be forced by EMI’s Chairman & Brian Epstein to put out I Want To Hold Your Hand.

That was Dave Dexter’s worst nightmare & he did his best to trash their sound ‘till he was forced off the job.

 

Dave Dexter continued to be employed by Capitol Records until 1974. He made more money for them than any executive had in the history of the label to that point.

He was right to reject the Beatles in 1963 as they were a known bust in America! You act like there is no proof and it was a huge miss on Dexter’s part. It wasn’t. VeeJay was no fly by night label, they had big artists and several huge hits with The Four Seasons too. The Beatles sucked for the US in 1963. They had their shot and they were rejected. Radio stations and fans didn’t bite at all.

I Want To Hold Your Hand was the difference. It was a better song than those that had preceded it. Dexter heard it, liked it, pushed it, and the rest is history.

It’s time for the phony narrative that Dave Dexter was the American version of Dick Rowe to stop. Everything he touched, once the Beatles made the right song, turned to gold. Rubber Soul his crowning achievement.

 

That is complete rubbish from start to finish. Dexter was none of those things. His “expertise” cost Capitol millions of dollars. I know that you like to wind people up on various threads but you’re just making a fool of yourself with those stupid remarks.