New EMP exhibit includes fascinating Beatles artifacts

Ever since it opened in 2000, visitors to Experience Music Project have asked, "Where're The Beatles?"

The fact that there was almost nothing about the biggest band in pop-music history, in a museum dedicated to rock 'n' roll, surprised many and was a source of embarrassment for some EMP officials.

"I hope we've made up for that," says Jasen Emmons, curator of a new EMP exhibit, "Beatlemania! America Meets The Beatles, 1964," which opened yesterday.

The fascinating exhibit includes artifacts that have never been publicly displayed before, including a set list John Lennon wrote for the band's first concert in America, in Washington, D.C., in 1964. The piece of paper can be seen in a photo of the concert, sitting on top of George Harrison's guitar amplifier.

Even older is a 1962 set list for a show in England and a receipt for payment of shows in Germany that same year, listing original drummer Pete Best.

Perhaps the most interesting, and valuable, piece in the exhibit is a large slab of material, ripped from the backdrop used when The Beatles first performed on "The Ed Sullivan Show" 40 years ago, on which each of The Beatles had drawn large caricatures of themselves and boldly signed. Harrison has a cigarette in his mouth, Ringo Starr drew his teeth sticking out all over the place, and someone (probably Lennon) wrote "Uncle" above Paul McCartney's name.

The piece, in the original frame in which it is now exhibited, was on view at a New Jersey restaurant for decades, Emmons said, until it was purchased by a group of investors a few years ago (the stagehand who had saved the piece from destruction gave it away to a neighbor kid; how much the kid sold it for is unknown).

"Serendipity brought us a lot of stuff," Emmons said.

The investors who lent the autographed piece of the Sullivan set put Emmons in touch with a collector who had tickets for every show The Beatles played on their two American tours in 1964. And he introduced Emmons to the person who had the Washington, D.C., set list, which had been languishing in a safe-deposit box.

The Beatles' Feb. 9, 1964, visit to Seattle makes up a major part of the exhibit. It includes photos and articles from local newspapers, including hysterical coverage in The Seattle Times ("Beatlemania Frightens Child Expert," reads one headline).

Black-and-white film footage from KOMO-TV plays on a TV set, including images of screaming fans inside and outside the Seattle Center Coliseum (now KeyArena), where the concert took place, and quick interviews of The Fab Four when they arrived at the airport.

Some of the many products associated with The Beatles are on display, including such oddities as a Beatles banjo, bongo drums, nylons, wallpaper and a board game called "Flip Yourself." Scrapbooks, button collections, handmade dolls and other objects made at the time by local fans take up one corner of the exhibit hall.

Perhaps the most personal item on display is one of the band's famous collarless suits, worn by Starr. Standing next to it, you realize how small and short he was.

Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312 or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com