Chapter 3 (1964-1966)

Chapter 3 (1964-1966) Beat Boy On Wednesday, February 5 th , 1964, The Knickerbockers News headline read, “New York Braces it self – Beatles Are Coming on a Wave of Rave ” The Associated Press story continued “A gear group with fringes that are fab crosses the Atlantic Friday on the crest of a rave wave. All of which, in British teenage jargon, the Beatles are headed for New York .” The article went on to describe the young British phenomenon including their hair cuts (“bell shaped black thatches that end in fringes nudging the eyebrows” , their Liverpool origins, their success on the British charts and of course, girls screaming and fainting whenever they appeared. The AP story finished with, “ In America, they will appear on Ed Sullivan’s television show for three weeks and will give two performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall.” America had been in a funk since the dreadful day in Dallas, November 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated around 1:30 on a gray Friday afternoon. A little over two months later, things began to look up. Something new was happening. “The Beatles” were coming to the U.S and this was something an eleven year old boy could get excited about. A nonstop barrage of Beatle music rocked and jangled over radio airwaves. The major network nightly newscasts, watched religiously by Dad, began to report the Beatlemania hysteria erupting in England..Now households across America were primed for the Beatle debut on the Ed Sullivan show in a few short weeks. On Friday, February 7 th , 1964, the Beatles landed at Kennedy Airport in New York to a horde of teenage fans. Again the Knickerbockers News ran an AP story the very next day , “Girlish Shrieks and Signs Welcome Mop-Top Beatles” read the head line. “At Kennedy Airport yesterday, about 3,000 delirious, shrieking, hooky- playing youngsters, many of them carrying Beatle banners, strained against police barricades to welcome the singing-guitar-strumming quartet.” Beatlemania had arrived and the excitement was building on Mason Street as well. The usual Mason Street gang gathered to talk over “this Beatles thing”. Everyone had heard their music on the radio but Steve’s older sister, Rita had recently purchased the new Capitol album, “Meet the Beatles”. Rita purchased the record at the Family Bargain Center enticed by an advertisement that read: “Rock to the sound of The Beatles The Group that Sold Over 3,000,000 Records in England in 1963 Now they are here! A new Capitol album Meet the Beatles introduces these great new singing sensations to the U.S.A. Be the first one in your group to own the first American Beatles album. As a matter of fact, you will probably want to start a complete collection of every album by the Beatles.” The advertisement was accompanied by a picture of those cute smiling Beatles. The hi-fi album was priced at just $2.77… “Regular price $3.98” it added. What teenage girl could resist? We quietly slipped into Steve’s living room and all sat around the record player. He carefully placed the disc on the turntable and we all listened to “Meet the Beatles”. When it was finished, we repeated the process and listened again. The album cover was passed from “man to man” to study closely. This solemn ritual went on for at least three hours until the thoughtful group was chased out of the house. We gathered outside to confer, sitting in a circle on the porch; we each set forth our deliberations. A consensus was reached. The Beatles’ music was great but final judgment on the group would be withheld until after their live performance on Ed Sullivan. Then we would determine if they were indeed, real. We would regroup on the following Monday after their first appearance. 2 The Ed Sullivan Show aired every Sunday evening from 7:30 till 8:30 and viewing it had become a ritual in the Acquesta household….the final bit of fun before bedtime and school on Monday morning. Usually we had to be satisfied with “Topo Gigio”, the talking mouse or some acrobats spinning plates but now there was much excitement about seeing the “fab MopTops”….life was good. Finally 7:30 arrived and good thing because my brother Mike and I had already devoured one bowl of popcorn waiting. Mike and I sat anxiously upright on the floor in front of the Emerson black and white television waiting for Sullivan to introduce the group. Mom and Dad were snuggled on the couch with the other two younger siblings. “I don’t know what the fuss is all about”, Dad muttered. “They will never be as good as Frank Sinatra…in a month nobody will remember them!” My brother and I looked at him in disbelief. My Mother, however, was enjoying the evening. She knew something was happening and even made another large bowl of popcorn …popped over a gas stove burner …no microwaves in 1964. After suffering through the usual corny acts, shortly after 8:00, Ed Sullivan announced, “Ladies and Gentleman….the Beatles!!” Ed waved his hand in a sweep and the young girls in the audience burst out in a loud scream. The Beatles opened with Paul singing, “All My Loving”. This was followed by “Till There Was You” and then the band rocked through, “She Loves You”. 3 Immediately I noticed the array of the Beatles on stage with Paul’s Hofner pointing to the left, John’s Rickenbacher to the right and George in the middle with his Gretch. Ringo sat behind his drum set a bit back on a raised platform. The camera swung around for close ups on each Beatle and I studied each of their unique facial features and hairstyle. They wore dark black suits with tight stove pipe pants and Cuban heeled pointed boots. At the end of the show, the Beatles appeared once again and performed “I Saw Her Standing There” and the finale “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. “Strummm…strumm….strumm”, the guitars pounded the intro, Paul stepped up to the microphone, “Oh yea, I’ll tell you something..”And the band ripped into their hit song. On Tuesday, February 11 th , the Geneva Times Newspaper ran an Associated Press story by Cynthia Lowry, titled , “Beatles Set Record in TV Audience ”. Lowry wrote, “Those incredible Beatles probably have rolled up a television audience record on Sunday night’s Ed Sullivan Show. According to Nielsen sampling so taken in only the New York Metropolitan area, a massive 72.7 per cent of all sets in use during the hour were tuned to CBS. A rival rating service, Arbitron, fond that Sullivan’s normal Sunday night audience had just about doubled. National ratings won’t be available for a couple of weeks.” When the National ratings were published, it reported 73 million Americans watched the Beatles debut that evening. This represented over sixty percent of American television sets in the U.S. It was just seventy seven days since the assassination of John F. Kennedy. No doubt the Beatles were a welcome distraction to the mourning Nation. It was astonishing. The following Monday, the Mason Street Gang, reconvened to discuss the Beatles Sullivan performance. The jury was in and the Beatles were the “real deal”. Something we all could get behind. However, the Beatles first Sullivan appearance had left most adults scratching their heads. Who and what are these Beatles? What does it mean? What do they represent? In the following weeks as the Beatles performed in Washington, D.C., Miami and New York and Beatlemania seemed to sprout everywhere, adults tried to make sense of what might be happening. On Tuesday, February 11 th , the Beatles performed their first live concert at the Washington Coliseum in D.C. In front of 8,600 jelly bean pelting teenagers, mostly girls. The next day the Evening Press from Binghamton reported, “Dressed in tight gray suits with black Chesterfield collars, they twanged away on their electric guitars to the pounding drums of Ringo Starr. All in all, it was deafening.” The article also noted, “ Every time one of the boys shook his shaggy locks – which resemble Moe of the Three Stooges – the audience shrieked .” On February 12, three days after the first Sullivan appearance, a rather long article appeared in the Geneva Times written by Jean Brell entitled, “Trinidads vs. 4 Beetles – Just What Is Rock – and – Roll?” The Trindads were the local popular rock and roll band in Geneva and the surrounding Finger Lakes. They had just cut a record getting some regional play called “Blues in the Closet” with the flip side called “Supercar”. In all honesty, I remember the Trindands but never heard their “hit record”. The article was a mishmash of trying to explain the Beatles, promoting the Trindads and dissecting the essence of Rock & Roll. My Father liked to read the paper out loud when he thought something would interest us. This was one of those occasions, but this time Mike and I listened as Dad read the article: “The Beatles are devastating the U.S. They descended upon New York over the weekend and in their wake left an unestimated number of teenage victims. These particular Beatles are, of course, the sensational English quartet of young musicians who don’t play long hair; they just wear it that way. Their tousled tops are their trade mark, along with a reputation as the best rock and roll band on any continent .” So far so good, Dad continued reading, “The older generation, if you will pardon the expression, had just reached a point where it had to quit blaming the Cuban situation, smog and the high cost of living on rock and roll – when along came the Beatles and stirred the whole mess up again.

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