Now, the good: you're paying for a heck of a lot more than just tee-vee there.
Reed was Vee-Jay's first star and helped the label take on local blues giant Chess Records.
Vee-Jay was doing well with regional hits but had yet to crack the mainstream.
What we can learn from Bobby Vee is how to face adversity with genuine grace and perspective.
The sound of pop music would be very different if it were not for the likes of Vee-Jay Records.
Vee-Jay's records were crossing over into the pop charts, but the label could not seem to capitalize on its success.
In 1963, British label EMI offered Vee-Jay a group that had been turned down by Capitol Records The Beatles.
Thirteen years later, Vee-Jay Records became the country's biggest independent, black-owned record label, and for a time, it was bigger than Motown.
Despite growing success and trend-setting artists, Vee-Jay was having money problems.
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.
Carole King started writing songs young and found solid success writing songs for artists like Bobby Vee and Dusty Springfield and The Shirelles and Aretha Franklin.
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.
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.
应用推荐