Ladies and Gentlemen… the Beatles! And with those words Ed Sullivan – America’s unofficial Minister of Culture – introduced us to four exuberant Englishmen, unleashing a musical and cultural revolution. Seventy-three million Americans – the largest non-news audience at the time – tuned-in to Sullivan’s show that Sunday night, February 9, 1964, to experience the Fab Four perform five catchy songs: “All My Lovin’,” “Till There Was You,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” and “She Loves You.”
In just 13 ½ minutes, the 1960s – arguably the most important decade in the 20th century – began. So, twist and shout, fellow mop tops. I’m Joel Rhodes “Telling History.”
Individually and as a group, John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s genius and maturation elevated them to unrivaled musical heights, almost religious figures in our popular culture. Instrumentation, musicianship, arrangement… The Beatles were really good. But to appreciate their brilliance, consider how their timing in the winter of 1964 was absolutely perfect.
Rock and roll still drifted in a creatively fallow period after Elvis’ induction, Jerry Lee Lewis’ scandals, Little Richard’s religious conversion, and Buddy Holly’s death. Beatles’ music filled the void. By April 1964 the band had the top five songs on Billboard’s Top 40 and seven others in the Top 100.
The British were cool in the early sixties, and Beatlemania cashed in on the “Englishness” of James Bond, Lawrence of Arabia, and the Pink Panther movies. And since all British talk alike to American ears, the working-class Liverpudlians sounded sophisticated, witty, charming, in a word, fab.
At once subversive yet safe, that shaggy hair drove parents sufficiently crazy without the musicians themselves being overtly threatening, intimidating, or flaunting their sexuality. Whereas rock’s first generation often felt surly, fueled by adolescent angst and lust – owing to its Southern blues roots – the Beatles’ genuine mirth made teenage rebellion fun, and without racial tension. More Peter Pan than Chuck Berry really.
Beatlemania also gave adults the first real proof of the awesome economic and cultural power wielded by Baby Boomers. The band accounted for 60% of all American record sales in 1964 and launched unprecedented merchandising – bubble gum cards, jewelry, wigs, drinking glasses, bobble-heads. DJs billed every new British band as “the next Beatles.”
Moreover, the Beatles arrived on our shores just three months after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The mood and mind of a somber nation wandered in those weeks in-between. Let me offer you Exhibit A: the seven episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies airing immediately after the assassination remain amongst the most watched half-hour programs in TV history.
This period of national mourning hit youth exceptionally hard.
The Beatles offered the tonic. No American could have behaved so irreverently, but being British, the Beatles got a pass. Radiating the same excitement and “viga” JFK inspired, the Beatles cheerfully filled an emptiness in American hearts, their infectiously danceable music healing a damaged country.
Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead believed this to be the Beatles greatest impact initially.
Three years before their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album altered rock and roll’s landscape – the first serious artistic statement in a musical genre never regarded as art before – the Beatles gave us the first good news since Kennedy’s death.
That night on Sullivan, it was as if 73 million wondered if it was finally alright to smile again in America, and those lads from Liverpool responded – well, you know – yeah, yeah, yeah!
