Customer Reviews

Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles Records on Vee-Jay

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This book is an absolute must for any serious Beatles collector or Beatles historian. It goes where no book has gone before. "Songs, Pictures, & Stories..." sets the record straight once and for all about the most mystifying Beatles album of all time, "Introducing the Beatles," and then goes on to explain, in great detail, everything you ever wanted to know about The Beatles and their short time on Vee-Jay Records. Not a stone is left unturned. Once you've started reading this brilliant masterpiece you will not be able to put it down, and you will return to it again and again as a fabulous reference.

This is a definitive Beatles book. I am so thankful for Mr. Bruce Spizer for coming up with such an excellent source of material, and handily placing it together into one magnificent hard-bound volume. The full-color illustrations are out-of-this-world! I never knew that so many different label and jacket variations ever existed before this. The very day that I purchased this book, I also purchased what I consider to be THE ultimate companion album; an imported CD by The Beatles, entitled "The V-J Story", which contains ALL sixteen original Beatles songs first issued on the V-J label. The good news is that ALL sixteen songs are in beautiful stereophonic sound (with the exceptions of "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You", which are only monophonic recordings electronically reprocessed into "fake" stereo). Nonetheless, this CD makes a perfect companion to Mr. Spizer's book. By all means, get this disc if you ever come across it.

This book is the best friend of anybody who is seriously interested in the Beatles' records on VeeJay. Even the most well informed fan will come away with tidbits of fresh information. The writing is sharp, clear and well organized and the work itself is nonpareil.

All in all, an excellent job. This one is a keeper. It gets two thumbs up, loud cheering and a hearty yeah, yeah, yeah!

When I got this book and held it in my hands for the first time, I thought I found the grail. I plowed through it in one evening and have found myself going back to it numerous times. I thought I knew plenty about the Vee Jay discs. Boy, was I wrong! One of the most misunderstood and overlooked areas regarding The Beatles is cleared up in one glorious volume. Rumors cleared up, complicated variations of a particular title explained, myths put to rest, this book raises the bar for all that follows.

Wow. A great book about a little known part of the Beatles history. Most British fans will probably never even heard of the Vee-Jay records - so for that reason I suggest they well steer clear of this book. It tells the history of each record in so much detail that it is almost exhausting. Most fans will probably not care about the different labels designs and misprints on the sleeve... and which record processing plant they were made in... but to all of the Beatles collectors out there who want to know every possible thing about the band, then this book is a dream.
Not only does it cover all the ground in exhaustive detail, but it is also accurate - a not inconsiderable detail when you read about Vee-Jay in other books. For example, Bruce lays to rest some of the fables about the Introducing The Beatles album.
It is also lavishly illustrated.
Well worth the high asking price.

Bruce Spizer has described in greater detail than ever before an important - and often forgotten - chapter in the history of The Beatles before they hit it big in America. The VeeJay label goes down in history not only for taking a chance on the unknown British group, but also for the creative and exploitive ways they capitalized on a small catalog of songs and helped contribute to Beatlemania as we know it. Spizer's book is essential for any Beatles fan, but it is also a high-end book suitable for any collector. It is comparable in quality to Mark Lewisohn's books - high praise indeed!

I received my copy of this book a couple of days ago with the similar Apple book (see my seperate review of that one). I bought it on the strength on the Author's similar Capitol volumes and boy it's amazing how much research this guy puts into his work. The Vee-Jay story was pretty much an unknown quantity to us Aussies so it's all the more fascinating to read the twists and turns of Vee-Jay's involvement in Beatlemania back in 1963-64. The chapters are mind-boggling to read. All 4 Capitol & Others vs Vee Jay legal cases are thoroughly detailed though I have skimmed through these because it's just so much to take in. The chapter on "Introducing The Beatles" was my main interest because I have a copy of the Mono Version #1 LP which I bought in an Auction here over 10 years ago. I have verified that it's the real deal thanks to this book + Perry Cox's "Beatles Price Guide". No, it's not for sale either!! The label representations and pictures of old original 45's are amazing and enough to drool over. I can't add much more than my colleague reviewers here other than you must have this and the Author's other books (On Capitol #1 & 2 & On Apple) if you're a serious Beatle nut like me. Even if you're not it's a wonderful addition to any Rock Music book library.

This is for all the beatle fans who wanted to know everything about vee jay. I do believe the Beatles on Vee-Jay is just a sentence or two in most biographies. Vee-Jay was something that the Beatles were picked up by before Capital came to their senses. However, if you want to know everything about it from the physical shape of the records in detailed description, from which warehouse a disc was manufactured, to the details of the royalty rates and how vee jay got hold of the beatles recordings and how they chose to release them. Only a lawyer can be this detailed and this good at describing the legal issues of the Beatles various contracts. The Beatles on vee-jay is a complicated matter, something someone from today wouldn't understand but the rock and roll business wasn't always so organized or money oriented, it was a much different world. A world of Singles, which don't exist anymore, a world of EPs which never caught big in America. The story how veejay marked down an ep to a singles price to help sell copies is priceless. Not only is this a book on the beatles it gives a grand idea on how rock and roll was marketed in 1963-1964. Initially you might think these are books are dull and obsessive but these books are essential, the pictures alone are worth the price of each book in the series, never mind all the text, the text is also detailed and through, remember if there's something that doesn't interest you, you may skip over that part i'm sure they'll be plenty in this book and the others that will interest you.

Virtually everything one needs to know about the Beatles on Vee Jay is here. It's fantastic. You can't put this book down once you've started reading it. An excellent reference, and a must have for any Beatles fan or collector.

The story itself is absolutely mind boggling. This incredible tale has more loose ends than a rastafarian hat factory, and just as incredibly, Mr. Spizer pulls all of the threads together into a coherent whole and ties it up in spectacular fashion. The bumbling, cheating, lying, greedy characters that make up the story of how a record company missed the brass ring and lost the Beatles almost plays out like a soap opera....but it's all true! This is one of those cases where the truth is stranger than fiction. And while the story plays itself out, one is overwhelmed by the shear volume of product that an albums worth of songs engenders. If you think that Capitol "Butchered" the Beatles, you ain't read nothin' yet. The book is replete with scads of dazzling pictures of everything from record labels to court documents and everything in between. If you're a dihard Beatles fan or a just interested in stories with a twisted plot, you won't be disappointed with this book.