Oldies-45

• Name — Oldies-45 • Parent — Vee-Jay Records • Founded — 1963 • Defunct — 1964 • Country — United States • Location — Chicago, Illinois • Genre — Rock and roll, Rhythm and blues, Pop

Vee-Jay Records was founded in 1953 by Vivian Carter and James Bracken in Gary, Indiana, with operations centred in Chicago, Illinois. Carter's brother Calvin Carter served as the label's A&R director. By the early 1960s, Vee-Jay had become the most successful Black-owned record label in the United States, generating approximately $3 million annually with a staff of twenty-two. In mid-1962, EMI (through Transglobal Music Co., Inc.) offered Vee-Jay a licensing arrangement for Beatles recordings after Capitol Records had declined to release the group in the United States. Vee-Jay released "Please Please Me" (catalog number VJ 498) in late February 1963, making it the first Beatles single issued in the United States; early pressings misspelled the group's name as "BEATTLES." In 1963, facing financial difficulties partly attributable to generous royalty terms negotiated with the Four Seasons, Vee-Jay created two reissue imprints: Oldies-45 for 45 rpm singles and a companion imprint, Oldies-33, for album-format reissues. The concept was described internally as "a new concept for merchandising 'oldies but goodies.'" Following the surge of American interest in the Beatles in early 1964, Capitol Records obtained a court injunction on January 15, 1964, against Vee-Jay manufacturing Beatles recordings, asserting that Vee-Jay's rights had been cancelled on August 8, 1963, due to non-payment of royalties. The legal contest was prolonged and bitter. Calvin Carter later described the situation: "They would get an injunction against us on Monday, and we would get it off on Friday, then we'd press over the weekend and ship on Monday." On April 9, 1964, Vee-Jay and Capitol reached a settlement under which Vee-Jay received a license to continue selling its existing Beatles product while paying Capitol royalties, including substantial back payments. The settlement permitted Vee-Jay to sell its previously released Beatles records until October 15, 1964, after which all rights would revert to Capitol. Carter reflected on the outcome: "We finally made something out of the court settlement, because we just couldn't afford to fight that big a company." By the time the license expired, 1.3 million copies of Introducing... the Beatles had been sold.