Liking the timeline so far, good work! I’m ashamed to say I don’t know enough about the Beatles especially as I’m British but this is helping.
As a silly side note, I hope butterflies somehow make Maxwells Silver Hammer a smash hit single. (It’s my favourite Beatles song)
Thank you so much for the compliment. Not sure about Maxwells Silver Hammer though, we'll have to see. Anyway, on with the timeline:
December 1963 - Marsha Albert, a teenager living in the Washington DC area, writes to WWDC DJ Carroll James asking him to play a Beatles record. The Beatles' first TV appearance in the US was on
The Huntley-Brinkley Report aired by NBC News on November 18. Albert watches the CBS Evening News on the 10th which features the group. She recalls later, "I wrote that I thought they would be really popular here, and if he could get one of their records, that would really be great." As The Beatles' latest single, "I Want To Hold Your Hand", has not been released in the US yet, James has a UK pressing of the single flown over from Britain. He subsequently plays the record on his radio show. The song immediately provokes a positive reaction from the station's listeners, and it is put in heavy rotation on WWDC. James sends a tape of the song to a DJ in Chicago, who in turn sends it to a DJ in St. Louis. The song has a positive reaction in those cities as well. The rapidly growing popularity of the song catches the eye of EMI's affiliate in the US, Capitol Records.
December 26, 1963 - "I Want To Hold Your Hand" b/w "I Saw Her Standing There" is released in the US as Capitol 5112. Being EMI's affiliate in the US, Capitol Records has had rights of first refusal on all EMI artists, something that they've exercised on every one of the group's releases in the US to this point, saying in a memo that “We don’t think the Beatles will do anything in this market.” Brian Epstein and EMI recently convinced Capitol to finally release a Beatles single in the US, and the label committed to releasing "I Want To Hold Your Hand" on January 13th. However, the growing popularity brought on by WWDC's playing of the record causes Capitol to release the single on this date two weeks early. Both of the label's pressing plants in Scranton, PA and Los Angeles shift into high gear to keep up with the astronomically high demand. The song immediately enters the US charts, debuting on the Cash Box Top 100 at the #80 slot on January 11th. It reaches the #1 spot just two weeks later. The song also reaches #1 in Billboard and Music Vendor. Beatlemania has taken hold in America.
January 10, 1964 -
Introducing... The Beatles is released in the US as Vee-Jay 1062, the group's first album release in America. The album is a reissue of
Please Please Me, only missing "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" due to the fact that American pop albums only have six tracks per side instead of seven. The album goes to #2 on the US Album chart, kept out of the #1 spot by...
January 20, 1964 -
Meet The Beatles is released in the US as Capitol 2047. The album is mostly a reissue of
With The Beatles. However, Capitol removes all of the cover songs with the exception of "Till There Was You" in fear that the American public would be turned off by remakes. Replacing the cover songs are both tracks off the "I Want To Hold Your Hand" single and "This Boy". The album becomes their first #1 album in the US.