‘Meet the Beatles,’ 50 years later

Fifty years ago today, Capitol Records released the Beatles’ first album, “Meet the Beatles.” In the current era of integrated marketing plans for the launch of a new album, movie, or online enterprise, you might think the release of the first big-label Beatles album in the U.S. would have been the fruit of months of planning with the full force of Capitol Records behind it. But that wasn’t exactly the case. Beatles historian Kenneth Womack, an English professor at Penn State, tells the story to Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio. Click the audio player above to listen.