Editing Introducing... The Beatles (section)

==Initial non-release==
The Beatles' recording contract that began May 1962 with [[Parlophone]] in the United Kingdom gave the parent corporation [[EMI]] rights to offer any of the group's recordings to the various  labels EMI owned in many countries of the world.  However, EMI's United States subsidiary, [[Capitol Records]], declined to release the "[[Please Please Me (song)|Please Please Me]]" single.{{sfn|Wallgren|1982|p=16}}  Following this, Transglobal, an EMI affiliate that worked to place foreign masters with US record companies, negotiated with several labels before Vee-Jay Records signed a licensing agreement giving it the right of first refusal on Beatles' records for five years.{{sfn|Spizer|2004|p=14}} As part of that agreement, even after its singles releases of "Please Please Me" and "[[From Me to You]]" failed to chart above No. 116 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, Vee-Jay planned to release the ''[[Please Please Me]]'' album in the US, and received copies of the mono and stereo master tapes in late April or early May 1963.{{sfn|Spizer|1998|p=115}}

Originally, Vee-Jay considered releasing the ''Please Please Me'' LP unaltered, as it appeared in the UK. A surviving acetate made by Universal Recording Corporation of Chicago, probably in May 1963, contains all 14 songs in the same order as on the UK album, with the title still listed as ''Please Please Me''.{{sfn|Spizer|2007|p=256}} But in keeping with the American norm of a 12-song album, Vee-Jay chose instead to omit "Please Please Me" and "[[Ask Me Why]]" (which had comprised the first single release) and change the album's title to ''Introducing... The Beatles''.{{sfn|Spizer|1998|p=110}} Also, the engineer at Universal in Chicago thought that [[Paul McCartney]]'s count-in at the start of "[[I Saw Her Standing There]]" was extraneous rather than intentionally placed there, so he snipped the "one, two, three" (leaving the "four") from Vee-Jay's mono and stereo masters.{{sfn|Spizer|2004|p=34}} Except for those omissions, the order and contents of the album were untouched, resulting in a US album that bore the closest resemblance to a British Beatles LP until ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Beatles album)|Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'' in 1967.<ref name="Sgt. Pepper">
{{cite web
 | title      = Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
 | url        = http://www.thebeatles.com/#/albums/Sgt_Peppers_Lonely_Hearts_Club
 | work       = Albums
 | publisher  = Apple Corps.
 | access-date = 31 July 2013
 | location   = London
 | year       = 2013
}}
</ref>

Preparations for the LP's release continued in late June and early July 1963, including the manufacturing of masters and metal parts and the printing of 6,000 front covers.{{sfn|Spizer|1998|p=118}} But, despite the claims of many older Beatles books and discographies  that ''Introducing... The Beatles'' was first released on 22 July 1963,{{sfn|Castleman|Podrazik|1976|p=17}}{{sfn|Schultheiss|1981|p=56}}{{sfn|Wallgren|1982|p=145}} no documentation exists to confirm that the album was released at any time in 1963.{{sfn|Spizer|1998|p=120}}

A management shake-up at Vee-Jay, which included the resignation of the label's president [[Ewart Abner]] after he used company money to cover personal gambling debts,{{sfn|Spizer|2004|p=36}} resulted in the cancellation of the release of ''Introducing... The Beatles'' and albums by [[Frank Ifield]], [[Alma Cogan]] and a Jewish [[cantor]].{{sfn|Spizer|2004|p=36}}