"The Very Best of Blues" - Volume 5 (Vee Jay)

Vee-Jay Records is an American record label founded in the 1950s, located in Chicago and specializing in blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
..."Another crazy stunt that he pulled was there was a big convention for black DJs. He flew in 15 Scandinavian prostitutes, fresh from Scandinavia directly to the convention. And you can understand why he was having pop hits because he was doing things like that! He knew exactly how to get his records played."
Vee-Jay was in the big league and decided to do what no other black-owned label had dared to do: It began signing white acts, among them Hoyt Axton and, under license, The Four Seasons.
In 1963, British label EMI offered Vee-Jay a group that had been turned down by Capitol Records — The Beatles. Vee-Jay did not really want the Beatles, either. It wanted another EMI hit, "I Remember You" by Frank Ifield, which was a monster smash worldwide at the time. EMI told Vee-Jay it could have the hit but only if it also agreed to take the other group.
It sold 2.5 million Beatles records in one month, but Vee-Jay could not keep the records pressed and on the shelves or pay the artist royalties. Then, to strike another blow, lawsuits came from both the Four Seasons and Capitol Records, the latter regretting that it had passed up the Beatles.
Vee-Jay shut its doors in 1964. For a label that had once been ahead of its time, it was over. Eerily, one of the last singles was from an icon of the past: Little Richard, in full gospel mode on "I Don't Know What You've Got, But It's Got Me," featuring a young Jimi Hendrix on guitar.
In the end, Vee-Jay's success was also its undoing, and it is easy to view the label as just a footnote in the career of the Beatles. But more important is the enormous influence of its catalog, particularly the blues of Reed and Hooker. The sound of pop music would be very different if it were not for the likes of Vee-Jay Records. Ask the Rolling Stones. Ask the Beatles. - npr

trax:
1 Boom Boom - John Lee Hooker 2 Bright Lights, Big City - Jimmy Reed 3 I'm A Woman - Christine Kittrell 4 Just A Little Bit - Rosco Gordon 5 You're So Hard To Please - Willie Cobbs 6 Do What I Say - J.B. Lenoir 7 I'm Sitting Here - Eddie Taylor 8 Goin' Home Tomorrow - Little Richard 9 Crying For My Baby - Harold Burrage 10 No Shoes - John Lee Hooker 11 Big Boss Man - Jimmy Reed 12 Kansas City - Jimmy Witherspoon 13 Somebody's Stealing My Love - Ivory Joe Hunter 14 You Don't Love me - Willie Cobbs 15 What You Do To Me - Rosco Gordon 16 Come Back Baby - Jerry Count Jackson 17 It's Nobodys Fault - Christine Kittrell 18 Oh Baby - J.B. Lenoir 19 I'm The Man Down There - Jimmy Reed 20 Big Legs, Tight Skirt - John Lee Hooker
…served by Gyro1966...