The company ventured into folk music with Hoyt Axton and New Wine Singers, and also picked up Little Richard who re-recorded his Specialty hits and recorded (1965) "I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)", an R&B success, with Don Covay, Bernard Purdie, Ronny Miller, Billy Preston, and Jimi Hendrix (before Hendrix became successful on his own).

Vee-Jay's jazz line accounted for a small portion of the company's releases, but recorded such artists as Eddie Harris, Wynton Kelly, Lee Morgan, and Wayne Shorter.

Calvin Carter set up Vee-Jay's first rehearsal space in a garage at 47th Street and King Drive in Chicago in 1953, then discovered and signed Jimmy Reed.

Carter also established a regular studio use arrangement with Universal Recording Corporation, one of the largest independent recording studios in the U.S.[7] Vee-Jay's biggest successes occurred from 1962 to 1964, with the ascendancy of the Four Seasons and the distribution of early Beatles material ("From Me to You" b/w "Thank You Girl," "Please Please Me" b/w "From Me to You," and "Do You Want to Know a Secret" b/w "Thank You Girl" via Vee-Jay;[1] and "Love Me Do" b/w "P.S.

I Love You" and "Twist and Shout" b/w "There's a Place" via its subsidiary Tollie Records), because EMI's autonomous United States company Capitol initially refused to release Beatles records[8][9][10][11][2] Vee-Jay's releases were at first unsuccessful, but quickly became huge hits once the British Invasion took off in early 1964, selling 2.6 million Beatles singles in a single month.

Cash flow problems, reportedly caused by Ewart Abner's tapping the company treasury to cover personal gambling debts, led to the company's active demise; Vee-Jay had been forced to temporarily cease operations in the second half of 1963, leading to royalty disputes with the Four Seasons and EMI.

by another British group, the Honeycombs), and Oldies 45 for reissues along with Tollie and Abner Records, which was an early subsidiary label formed in 1958.

Liens were placed on Vee-Jay assets still in Los Angeles after legal action by Pye Records due to non-payment of royalties.

[15] The assets were subsequently purchased by label executives Betty Chiappetta and Randy Wood (not the Dot Records founder), who changed its name to Vee-Jay International.

[16] From 1967 to 1972, Vee-Jay was limited to selling some of the inventory on hand when the company went under, and leasing or licensing the Vee Jay masters to Buddah Records, who came out with "The First Generation" series, and Springboard International, who issued dozens of albums featuring Vee Jay material on their subsidiary label, Upfront.

In the mid-late 1980s, a one-hour independent documentary film titled “Cradle of Rock and Roll" aired on PBS soon after its completion.