Vee-Jay Records
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:VeeJayRecord.jpg Vee-Jay Records was a record label, specializing in blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll. It was owned and operated by African Americans.
Vee-Jay was founded in Gary, Indiana in 1953 by Vivian Carter and James C. Bracken, a husband-and-wife team who used their initials for the label’s name. Vivian's brother, Calvin Carter, was the label's A&R man. Ewart Abner, formerly of Chance Records, joined the label in 1955, first as manager, then as vice president, and ultimately, as president.
The label quickly became a major R&B label, with the first song recorded making it to the top ten on the national R&B charts. Vee-Jay Records filed for bankruptcy in August 1966.
Major acts on the label included Jimmy Reed, Memphis Slim, John Lee Hooker, Jerry Butler, Gene Chandler, The Four Seasons, Hoyt Axton, Betty Everett, Little Richard (who re-recorded his Specialty Records hits in the early 1960s), and, before he became successful, Billy Preston.
Vee-Jay's jazz releases formed a small portion of the company's releases, but include releases by Wynton Kelly, Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter. The A&R for the jazz releases was Sid McCoy.
The label also released early Beatles material ("Please Please Me", "From Me to You" via Vee-Jay and "Love Me Do" via its subsidiary Tollie Records), because EMI's autonomous United States company Capitol initially refused to release Beatles records. Vee-Jay's releases were at first unsuccessful, but quickly became huge once the British Invasion took off in early 1964, selling 2.6 million Beatles singles in a single month. Cash flow problems caused by the leasing of the British act's records are generally given as an explanation of the company's demise.
Since 2000, U.S. based record label Collectables Records has been remastering and reissuing the Vee-Jay catalog on Audio CD.