[a fool in paradise]

Beatles hit radio fall/winter of 1963 in the wake of JFK’s assassination. They didn’t just waltz on Ed Sullivan in February 64. There was a build up.

“The Beatles’ American television debut was on November 18 1963 on The Huntley-Brinkley Report, with a four-minute long piece by Edwin Newman.”

[SamAdams76]

It was a pretty quick build-up. The Beatles were first played on American radio on December 17, 1963 when WWDC (Washington DC) played "I Want To Hold Your Hand", a record that hadn't even been released yet in the U.S.

The phones lit up and Capitol Records rushed the single out.

The Beatles hit like a nuclear bomb. Within a few weeks, all of U.S. Top 40 radio was playing anything Beatles they could get their hands on.

Then quickly came the rest of the British Invasion groups: Herman's Hermits, Dave Clark 5, The Animals, The Zombies, The Hollies and an up-and-coming "bad boy" band called The Rolling Stones. Among many others.

Even the Gilligan's Island TV show got into the act, featuring a Beatles-like band called "The Mosquitoes" in one of their episodes.

What was funny about the early days of The Beatles was how all the older people at the time dismissed them as unserious musicians who apparently couldn't even tune their guitars properly and wouldn't last very long. "Beatles go back to England" was the refrain.

Yet The Beatles were incredibly sophisticated and seasoned musicians who not only turned pop music upside down but knew how to handle the press as well. The press conference they gave when they arrived at JFK (to do the Ed Sullivan shows) was shocking at the time. After it was done, the clueless media had no idea what just hit them.

[murron]

I remember seeing them for the first time in late 1963 on the Jack Paar show, It was a film of them from England and they were singing She Loves You. I was 15 and I’ve loved them ever since.