On February 9, 1964, exactly 60 years ago today, the British band The Beatles, made up of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, made their live television debut in the US on The Ed Sullivan Show. The program was filmed in CBS Network’s Studio 50 in New York City. While the theater seated only 728 people, there had been 50,000 requests for tickets to watch the show live that Sunday evening. According to television ratings, the show’s 73 million viewers made it the largest television audience in the history of the medium.However, what appeared to be an overnight success story was actually a combination of good planning and luck that came together on that cold winter evening in 1964. To get a clearer picture of the background to this event, we have to travel back in time to the United Kingdom in January 1962.
Record company auditions plus a new manager
On New Year’s Day 1962, the hopefuls, who would come to be known as the “Fab Four,” traveled from their hometown, Liverpool, to London for an audition at Decca Records, arranged by Brian Epstein. A month later, the record label rejected them, stating: “Guitar groups are on the way out, and The Beatles have no future in show business.” This was a decision that the label’s executives would come to regret and the likes of which they subsequently swore never to make again. Just a little over a year later, Decca welcomed to their label a new and upcoming British band called The Rolling Stones.
Two weeks after the Decca audition, The Beatles (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Pete Best – the original drummer) signed a contract with Epstein to be their manager for the next five years. Epstein, the son of Harry and Queenie (Malka) Epstein, was from an observant Jewish family in Liverpool who were active in the Greenbank Drive Synagogue. The family had a successful business which originally started out as a furniture store but expanded to include household appliances, musical instruments, and records. It was in the record department of this enterprise, then called NEMS (North End Music Stores), that Epstein first heard about The Beatles. He went to hear them perform at the Cavern Club just a few blocks away. Impressed with what he had heard, Epstein predicted that one day they would be more popular than Elvis Presley. Although he had no experience as a manager of popular music groups, The Beatles decided to go with him because of his belief in their future success.
When Decca notified Epstein that The Beatles would not be signed by the label, the band’s new manager went down to London to try to convince them to change their minds. Although his appeals were unsuccessful, he nevertheless managed to walk out with two tapes containing the 15 songs they had played at their audition. Epstein knew the manager of the EMI-owned HMV (His Master’s Voice) Music Store. After he listened to the music and expressed some interest, it was suggested that Epstein make acetate demonstration records, which were less cumbersome than the tapes and easier to play.
The engineer cutting the discs also thought the band sounded good and asked if The Beatles had signed with a publisher. He then called the manager of Ardmore & Beechwood, owned by EMI, to come down and give the songs a listen. The publisher, too, liked what he heard and called George Martin who managed Parlophone, which at the time was the smallest division of EMI – compared to their bigger labels Columbia and HMV. Previously, Martin had produced a number of popular hits for the label plus some comedy albums featuring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.
A meeting between Martin and Epstein took place the following week, where they discussed the possibility of Martin going to Liverpool to hear the group. It would be another three months before Epstein heard from the producer again. After pressure from Ardmore & Beechwood who wanted to sign Lennon and McCartney to a publishing contract, Martin finally offered The Beatles the chance to record for Parlophone.
Beatlemania breaks out in the UK
A few weeks later, the group found themselves at EMI Studios on Abbey Road for their first recording session. It went well, but the producer was unhappy with Pete Best’s drumming and said it was not suitable for records. Best, who was quite good-looking and at the time was attracting more girls than his fellow band members, refused to adopt their fringe-style hairdos. The other band members wanted him out of the group, and it became Epstein’s unpleasant task to fire the veteran drummer to be replaced by Richard Starkey, aka Ringo Starr. A friend of The Beatles, Starr had previously drummed for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, another popular band from Liverpool.
So, with Ringo Starr now in The Beatles, the band returned to Abbey Road for their second recording session. Martin was still not happy with the drumming, so he had the group return to the studio a week later for one more attempt at releasing a single. This time, he had a studio musician play drums on the take. “Love Me Do” with B side “P.S. I Love You” came out a month later and by the end of December had reached Number 17 on the charts.
The Beatles started the New Year with the release of their second single, “Please Please Me,” which was their first to go to the top of the British record charts. This would be repeated three more times in 1963 with the release of “From Me to You” in March; “She Loves You” in August; and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in November. The group also put out two number-one albums, with Please Please Me released in March and With the Beatles in November.
The band also headlined tours with American artists such as Tommy Roe and Roy Orbison. The Beatles’ appearances on radio and television helped to bring them into the public eye. They went on their first international tour to Sweden in October and, upon their return home, were met at the airport by thousands of screaming female fans. By chance, American television personality Ed Sullivan was at the airport changing flights and wondered what the fuss was about. He made a mental note about this new English pop group that was totally unknown to him. Sullivan would eventually play a major role in the rise of “Beatlemania” in the United States. The term, first used by the British press, described the thousands of crazed fans of the group.
The highlight of the year was The Beatles’ appearance at the Royal Command Performance for the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret in November. The Beatles were now performing for the British upper class and were able to win over this crowd. Just before launching into their final song, John Lennon spoke to the audience and said, “For our last number, I’d like to ask your help. Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.” Nothing could stop the band in their trajectory toward stardom. All that remained was to bring The Beatles to America.
Attempting to expand the group’s success to North America
Except for Cliff Richard and The Shadows in 1959, no English singer or band had ever had a Top 40 hit in the United States. Thus, American record companies were wary of releasing discs imported from England. But The Beatles’ record company in England, Parlophone, was a subsidiary of EMI, and EMI owned Capitol Records in the US and Canada. A producer at the label in the US turned down “Love Me Do,” “Please Please Me,” “From Me to You,” and “She Loves You.” Eventually, the second and the third British singles were licensed to Vee Jay Records in Chicago, but neither of them made it onto the charts.
After failing to chart with two singles, Vee Jay declined to put out “She Loves You.” It was Swan Records, based in Philadelphia and originally owned by Dick Clark, that released The Beatles’ newest single. The host of American Bandstand actually featured the record on his television show, but it got a mediocre response. It was just another Beatles tune that didn’t make it onto the American charts.
The Canadian division of Capitol Records decided to release the first Beatles single, “Love Me Do,” but it only sold 78 copies. The second and third singles did no better. However, by the end of the year “She Loves You” was in the number one spot on the Canadian record charts. Subsequently, Capitol of Canada decided to release With the Beatles, renamed Beatlemania, as the first Beatles album in North America.
Capitol Records in the US finally agreed to release a Beatles single, and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” came out at the start of 1964. After American radio stations began playing copies of the record that had been imported from the United Kingdom, Capitol decided to release it the day after Christmas. It shot to the top of the American charts by February 1, 1964, just days before the band’s appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Shortly before this, articles about The Beatles started appearing in magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and Life, and there was going to be a news clip about the band on CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. The date was November 22, 1963, and US president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas that afternoon. Not surprisingly, the clip with The Beatles was cut. Now their upcoming live performance on The Ed Sullivan Show was more important than ever.
Appearing on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’
Watching television 60 years ago was a totally different experience than it is today.
With the recent passing of TV sitcom producer Norman Lear at age 101, it has been repeatedly mentioned how in the 1970s, millions of Americans would gather every Saturday night to watch his hit TV series, All in the Family. If you didn’t view the show that evening, there would be no other opportunity to watch it. There was no way of recording the program and viewing it the next day. Basically, one had just that one chance and then had to wait until who knew when for possible reruns.
It had been no different a decade earlier with the Sunday night television waves ruled by The Ed Sullivan Show every week at 8 p.m. on CBS. As the host always announced, it was going to be a “really big show.” Sullivan had started his show business career as the entertainment columnist for New York’s Daily News. In 1948 he got to host a new television variety show called Toast of the Town, which eventually became The Ed Sullivan Show. Acts that appeared on the program included musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats, magicians, impressionists, and sometimes entire casts of Broadway shows. To attract the younger teenage crowd, musical artists such as Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly made appearances on the show.
So, on February 9, 1964, The Beatles opened the program with “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You,” and “She Loves You.” During the second number, subtitles with the individual Beatles names appeared. Next to John Lennon’s name they added, “Sorry girls, he’s married.” The sounds of entire songs were almost drowned out by the screams of hundreds of young girls sitting in the studio audience.
In between the band’s two music sets were performances by a magician, an impressionist, a singer, a comedian, and the original cast of the Broadway show Oliver!. This group included original cast members from the musical that had premiered in London. Playing the part of the Artful Dodger that evening was 18-year-old Davy Jones, who had appeared in numerous West End productions. After finishing the number “I’d Do Anything” with the show’s star, Georgia Brown, and receiving quiet applause from the audience, Jones went backstage to catch The Beatles’ second set.
“I watched The Beatles from the side of the stage. I saw the girls going crazy, and I said to myself, ‘This is it. I want a piece of that.’”
Less than two years later, Jones was starring on the American weekly television series The Monkees as the lead singer of a popular rock group.
For their second set, The Beatles sang “I Saw Her Standing There,” and then their number one hit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” After taking their bows, they ran to the front of the stage to shake hands with their host, Ed Sullivan.
The Beatles conquer America
With The Beatles set to appear a week later in Miami – from where the next Ed Sullivan Show was to be broadcast – the days in between were filled with numerous events. On Monday morning after their appearance was viewed by the largest audience in television history, the band woke up to find their hotel, The Plaza, surrounded by hundreds of teenage girls. Their entire day was spent at the hotel attending various press conferences. The first was with Capitol Records, with the band receiving gold records for the sales of their single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and their album Meet the Beatles.
The next day, Tuesday, The Beatles went to Washington, DC, for their first US concert. The group appeared onstage that evening at the Washington Coliseum, which at the time was a boxing arena. After opening sets by acts including Tommy Roe and Jay & the Americans, The Beatles performed a dozen songs.
On Wednesday, they headed back to New York for their evening performances at Carnegie Hall. Just like their appearance in Washington the previous night, this show was being presented by impresario Sid Bernstein, who had produced shows by Dion and the Belmonts (“Teenager in Love”) and Chubby Checker (“The Twist”). Both concerts were sold out, with 6,000 tickets purchased, including 100 seats set up on the stage behind The Beatles. Just before the first show was to begin, The Beatles were awarded a gold record for “She Loves You” from Swan Records.
A couple of days earlier, Bernstein had brought Epstein to the old Madison Square Garden, which had a seating capacity of 17,000. The venue had an open date the following week, just before the group was set to fly back to England. Epstein politely asked Bernstein to wait for a future tour before trying to fill such a large venue. The promoter didn’t have to wait too long. In the next two years, he booked Shea Stadium, with a 55,000 seating capacity, for The Beatles’ 1965 and 1966 tours. And the rest, as we say, is history!
On Thursday, The Beatles flew to Florida for what was supposed to be a long weekend in the Sunshine State. It started with rehearsals for The Beatles’ second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, with a show scheduled for Sunday evening at 8 p.m. to be transmitted from the Deauville Hotel. Additional songs played in their two sets that evening were “This Boy,” “Twist and Shout,” “Boys,” and “From Me to You.”
Once the show was over, The Beatles members were able to relax for the remaining four days in this warm paradise replete with palm trees (which they admitted they had never seen before).
The following weekend, The Beatles made their third and final appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The program was not actually “live” that evening, since the group had recorded their set in New York for the afternoon audience at the rehearsal for their first appearance on February 9. The only song not broadcast before on the final show was their hit “Please Please Me.” And so ended the three performances of The Beatles, which now fulfilled the contract that Epstein had signed with Ed Sullivan just months before.
The British invasion begins
Beatlemania had landed on American shores, and nothing could stop it now. Just two months later, The Beatles had the first five spots on the Top 10 record charts and were then joined by a number of other British acts managed by Epstein. These included Gerry and the Pacemakers; The Fourmost; Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas; and Cilla Black. This now became a full-blown phenomenon that was eventually called the “British Invasion.” That same month, The Beatles topped the charts with their five hits, and 30 of the Top 100 songs on the list were performed by British acts. The following month, seven out of the Top 10 records were produced in the UK.
In 1964 alone, the following British acts had hit records on the US record charts: The Animals; Manfred Mann; Peter and Gordon; The Zombies; The Dave Clark Five; The Rolling Stones; Dusty Springfield; The Kinks; Chad and Jeremy; Herman’s Hermits; and The Searchers. The following year, they would be joined by Freddie and the Dreamers; Petula Clark; Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders; The Yardbirds; The Moody Blues; Tom Jones; The Troggs; Donovan; The Hollies; and Lulu. It was almost as if any British band or singer who was able to make a trip to the US could have a hit record. The Beatles had broken the curse of English groups not making it in America.
Most American artists from that era just disappeared from the record charts, never to be heard from again; but in 1965, a Tex-Mex band from Texas calling themselves the British-sounding Sir Douglas Quintet had a Top 20 hit with “She’s About a Mover.”
There’s no question that the impact of The Beatles changed the music scene in the US, as well as in the rest of the world, forever.
While there might be some who say, “If you can remember the ’60s, you weren’t there,” hopefully for the Baby Boomers among us, this has been a fun trip down memory lane. For those readers born after that time period who enjoy listening to The Beatles’ music, this is how it all got started exactly 60 years ago today.
Part II of this piece, “The Beatles come to Israel?”, will appear in the upcoming Magazine.
The writer is a musician and educator living in Jerusalem with his wife, whom he married 44 years ago today.