Please Please Me/Ask Me Why UK single release - January 11, 1963

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Event
Date	January 11, 1963
Short description	UK single release of Please Please Me/Ask Me Why
Location	UK

This was the first single with music published by Dick James Music. The first single was promoted by an EMI company, Ardmore & Beechwood. Brian Epstein, however, was unhappy wth how little promotion it had gotten, so he started looking for another publisher. Brian had thought about using an American company, but George Martin suggested several British companies, including Dick James Music (George Martin had actually owed Dick James a favor after being the first one allowed the rights to How Do You Do It? only to have The Beatles reject it). Brian had set up appointments with many of these companies, the first of which showed up late to the meeting. He left that meeting. Afterwards, he met with Dick James who showed up half an hour early. Brian played James the record. He liked it and immediately called the producer for the popular TV show "Thank Your Lucky Stars" in hopes of getting them scheduled for appearance. James played them the record and they agreed. Brian then decided to sign them to Dick James Music. James had already had some of his artists chart in America with songs such as "You Can't Be True, Dear" (his first charting single), The Robin Hood Theme Tune (produced by George Martin), and Max Bygrave's "I'm A Pink Toothbursh, I'm A Blue Toothbrush" (written by James himself). After the publishing deal was done, Brian needed a way to advertise the record, so he called up Tony Barrow, a Decca Employee who had a musical column in the Liverpool Evening Echo. Barrow would later become their press agent. Barrow recalls this, "Brian didn’t know how you promoted a record, he said. So I put him in touch with the trade press. And then he said he hadn’t got a press officer – he’d just been sending round duplicated hand-outs on his own. So he asked me if I could help. So, sitting in my office at Decca, I wrote out the very first press release for the Beatles!" Because he worked for Decca, he did not want to use his own name and mailing list, so he wrote down a friend's name, Andrew Loog Oldham.