A ticket to ride down memory lane: Beatles invaded U.S. 40 years ago
It was 40 years ago that The Beatles played on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Four-Oh! The largest TV audience in history up to that time — 73 million people — tuned in on Sunday, Feb. 9, 1964, to see the Fab Four in suits and ties singing "All My Loving," "Till There Was You," "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand," while girls, and some women, in the audience screamed.
With that broadcast, Beatlemania came to America. And it's never quite gone away.
For those of us old enough to remember, it remains a key moment in pop-culture history. It remains important to Beatles fans of all ages, as evidenced by the many celebrations of the event, nationally and locally.
Seattle was one of the first American cities bitten by the Beatle bug. Pat O'Day, then with KJR, is thought to be the first disc jockey in America to play The Beatles' debut American single, "From Me to You," in the summer of '63.
O'Day says that KJR is the only station in the country able to produce printed playlists documenting that it aired the single the day it was released. O'Day says he liked the song as soon as he heard it, and immediately put it on the air.
"We called it an 'ear pick,' " O'Day said from Friday Harbor, San Juan County, where he now heads a real-estate firm, "which was the best way to do it."
He was so intrigued with the song and the band's unusual name that he arranged through The Beatles' label to do phone interviews with John Lennon and Paul McCartney in London. They were among the first American radio interviews of The Beatles, well before their Sullivan show debut.
"Paul was just really 'gee-whiz' in those days," O'Day recalled. "And Lennon was always a guarded guy. There wasn't any great warmth or openness in talking to him."
O'Day introduced The Beatles from the stage both times the band played Seattle. He recalls "a cool Northwest connection" — George Harrison telling him backstage that he owned, and was influenced by, albums by The Wailers, the legendary Tacoma rock band.
"On 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' they brought a joyous aspect to rock 'n' roll," O'Day said. "I don't know whether it was the innocence of George Harrison's face, or the little-boy look of McCartney, or whether it was the back-and-forth of the head of Ringo and his funny haircut, but they brought happiness and fun to the business of rock 'n' roll that hadn't really been there before."
Zollie Volchok, the longtime Seattle-based impresario, brought The Beatles to Seattle in August 1964 and 1966, along with his partner in Northwest Releasing, Jack Engerman. Volchok made a deal with The Edgewater Hotel on the waterfront to have The Beatles stay there, for a special rate, for publicity purposes.
Volchok, now retired on Mercer Island, says The Beatles had their picture taken while pretending to fish out of their window.
"The hotel furnished the rods," Volchok recalls. "No fish were caught. Maybe they would have if they used bait."
A DVD reissue of The Beatles' Sullivan appearances has all four shows, including commercials. You can watch them just as you did back then, and show your kids, and grandkids, what Sullivan's variety show, on black-and-white TV, was like.
I remember watching that show. I was 19 and working late at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I ran across the street to my Aunt Betty's downtown apartment — she's 94 now, and still living in the same building — and watched excitedly, knowing it was a historic rock 'n' roll moment. Even my conservative aunt thought they were talented and charming.
But I didn't remember until watching it again on DVD that the name of each Beatle was flashed on the screen. When it got to John Lennon, a second line was included under "John," reading "Sorry, girls, he's married."
And I had forgotten that The Beatles appeared on the show three weeks in a row: Feb. 9, 16 and 23.
"The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit," a 1991 documentary newly reissued on DVD, opens with the group's arrival at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Feb. 7, 1964 (an event that will be recreated today at the Museum of Flight with a Beatles tribute band, Rain).
It includes parts of the airport press conference, at which the Beatles displayed their quick British wit, the band's visits with deejay Murray the K, the entire set of a Washington, D.C., concert, a visit to Miami (from which their second appearance on the Sullivan show was broadcast) where they met Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) and frolicked at the beach, and other scenes of the short visit.
In addition to the Clay meeting, highlights include Ringo dancing the Hitchhike and the Mashed Potato at the Peppermint Lounge, and George displaying a wacky sense of humor on the train to Washington. Paul was utterly charming whenever the camera was on him, while John was somewhat subdued.
Watching the old black-and-white footage reminds you how young and naive The Beatles were then, how the media made a big deal out of their haircuts, which would be considered short now, and of the innocence of the early '60s.
It seems like only yesterday.
Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312 or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com
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