The Beatles arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on February 7, 1964.
Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
On December 26, 1963, syndicated Hollywood columnist Erskine Johnson issued a stark notice in newspapers across the United States.
“Warning: ‘Beatles’ Are Coming,” the headline read, like a 20th-century version of Paul Revere’s midnight ride.
Johnson, for one, was not impressed with the British band, who had just released their breakout singles, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “I Saw Her Standing There,” in the U.S. that day.
“I watch. I’m appalled,” he wrote after attending a Beatles show in London. He described the stage presence of John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Paul McCartney as “eels after an explosion in a wig factory.”
Their music was brash, loud and full of guitars, and it apparently had “little or no melody.” Worse, Johnson found, were the fanatic fans who inspired the term “Beatlemania.” Girls fell to their knees during the concert and beat their fists against the floor, he reported.
“The thought of U.S. teenagers becoming Beatle Bewitched is frightening,” Johnson wrote. “It isn’t fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
The Beatles’ first appearance on American TV — NBC News
But, indeed, the Beatles were coming stateside, having already conquered their home island. On December 26, they already held five top-20 slots on the British pop charts, including the coveted first two. (The Fab Four also made a cameo appearance in the 20th spot on Dora Bryan’s single “All I Want for Christmas Is a Beatle,” in which the singer pines for “a real live Liverpool boy.”)
Four days before releasing their second studio album With the Beatles on November 22, the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Beatles had made their first television appearance in the U.S. during a four-minute report by NBC’s Edwin Newman. Millions of people watched, and hype for the British group’s American visit skyrocketed.
“Whatever the nature of Beatlemania, this country is about to be exposed to its carriers,” the New Yorker wrote in a profile of the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, who was tirelessly arranging the band’s visit to America.
On February 7, 1964, it finally happened: The Beatles touched down at the recently renamed John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. As they stepped off their airplane, “they were met by a crowd of 200 jostling reporters and photographers and some 4,000 fans, mostly teenaged girls, who lined the rooftop observation deck of the airport’s International Arrivals Building in a great singing, shrilling mass,” Jonathan Gould wrote in Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America.
The Beatles performing on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964
Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
After a chaotic and quippy press conference, four black Cadillac limousines brought each Beatle individually to the Plaza Hotel, where they were trapped by throngs of press and fans.
Then, on February 9, the Beatles had their formal television introduction to the American public through a live performance on the “Ed Sullivan Show.” Seventy-three million Americans, roughly 34 percent of the population, tuned in, and Beatles fans in the studio were so rowdy while the show’s other guests performed that Sullivan at one point joked, “If you don’t keep quiet, I’m going to send for a barber.”
To joyous screams, the four Beatles came onto the stage. They ripped through three songs: “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You” and “She Loves You.” During the second number, the camera cut between individual Beatles, displaying their first names and introducing them personally to America. (Under Lennon’s name, text stated, “SORRY GIRLS, HE’S MARRIED.”) The show then went to commercial, but the course of rock music was forever changed.
Writing for Smithsonian, Joseph Stromberg described the Beatles’ performance on the show as “a watershed moment, a turning point in the history [of] American music that inextricably influenced a huge proportion of all the pop and rock that’s come since.”
In retrospect, Johnson’s warning back on December 26 was apt. The British Invasion was underway.
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Filed Under:
American History,
Celebrities,
Music,
Musicians,
On This Day in History,
Pop culture,
Rock and Roll,
Television,
The Beatles
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Publish date : 2024-12-25 21:00:00
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