60 years of Beatlemania, triggered by the first visit to the Fab Four in the USA. After her appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th, the pop world was no longer the same.
The longer the flight dragged down, the quieter John Lennon became. Which is why Paul McCartney-who, according to his own statement, was convinced of the success of the Beatles since the band’s debut single, “Love Me Do”, had also entered the British charts in December 1962. would have denied. It was Friday, February 7, 1964. The Beatles had left England a few hours earlier to play their first appearances in the USA and to give their premiere on American television in Ed Sullivan’s extremely popular Sunday evening show.
Telegram of Capitol Records
Only a year after her early successes in the UK, the American audience had also become aware of the Beatles, but events suddenly overturned in the past few weeks. On January 17th, when they were giving a three-week guest performance in Paris, Lennon and McCartney had gathered in their hotel suite after a show with George Harrison, the band’s lead guitarist, and Ringo Starr, their drummer, as their manager Brian Epstein informed them that he had received a telegram of Capitol Records: “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, her first single for the label, was listed in the cashbox charts as number one after she was in the three days since its release has sold a quarter of a million.
“The Beatles lacked the words … like little kittens they crouched on Brian’s feet on the floor,” remembered DED DED Hoffman, the band’s house photographer. The arranger and producer Quincy Jones, who was also present, bet with Epstein and McCartney that the Beatles would take America in the hand. Lennon, Harrison and rigid held against it. In September 1963, Harrison visited his sister Louise in Benton, Illinois. “Nobody knows us over there,” he said after his band buddies about America. “It will be really hard for us.”
Lennon, Harrison, McCartney and rigid always left the places during the flight
But now, while the Beatles approached the United States, their US debut single “I Want To Hold Your Hand” also won the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts-and it should only be a week left passing until “Meet the Beatles”, her first long-playing plate for Capitol Records, would lead the album charts on February 15, 1964. Lennon, Harrison, McCartney and Starr left the places again and again during the flight to speak to friends and companions such as Epstein or producer Phil Spector.
“There is nothing that does not exist in America,” McCartney made a breath of his doubts about Spector, “Why should we make money over there? They have their own bands. What can we offer you that you don’t already have? ”Lennon, who sitting next to his wife Cynthia, fluctuated between uncertainty and arrogance. “During the flight I thought:” Oh dear, we will never pack it there “… but that’s just one side of me,” he later says Jan S. Wenner from Rolling Stone. “We knew that we could flatten you if we had your hook on you.”
When the machine landed on New York John F. Kennedy International Airport, who had just been renamed in honor of the murdered president, the pilot informed the band that they were expected by a large number of fans. Human runs were nothing new for the Beatles. Treizing teenagers have been part of everyday life at their shows in England for over a year. The London “Daily Telegraph” even compared the unconditional dedication of her fans to the Nazis in the Nuremberg party parliament. Nevertheless, the passengers reacted irritated to the incredible noise that was awaiting them when the machine approached the gate.
Girls tried to climb over the barriers
“We could hear this shrill, loud roar,” said Cynthia Lennon later. “We thought it was the turbines, but it was the screeching of the fans.” When the Beatles went off board, McCartney saw the tumult and asked: “Who are they here?” And it was incredulous the spectacle: 4,000 young people out of the edge and band crowded against window panes, hung about the parapet of viewing platforms, grew on building roofs, waved to them cheerfully, and welcomed the band with large, homemade signs, while long ranks of police officers struggled to keep the swirl crowd in check. Tom Wolfe, who reported on the Beatles’ arrival for the “New York Herald Tribune”, wrote that some of the girls tried to climb over the barriers.
McCartney, who had an inimitable talent for controlling his facial expressions with a maximum effect, looked dazed. “On a shock scale from one to ten,” he later said about the scenery at the JFK Airport, “was that a smooth 100th”