There is no underestimating the seismic change in the cultural values of the young baby boomer set in America, no better way of understanding the sea change that occurred in American youth in the early and mid 1960’s than through examining the impact on American music due to the advent of the Beatles, arguably the most influential rock band of all time… When their music first hit the American continent, spearheading the so called “British Invasion” of rock and roll, it changed the fabric of American society forever….
For the first time ever, American teenagers had their own distinctive musical choices, far different from their parents set of individual crooners like Frank Sinatra and Perry Como, and they even eclipsed the iconic Elvis Presley, the god father of American rock and roll….
Elvis was a true innovator, and the Beatles John Lennon publicly acknowledged that “Without Elvis, there would have been no Beatles.” But Elvis Presley was one of a kind, and his flat, one dimensional pale imitators like Fabian, Ricky Nelson and Frankie Avalon, all Elvis look-a likes, were instantly blown away when Beatlemania exploded across the American landscape… The Beatles music irrevocably bonded together an entire generation…
Never before in history had a music group benefited from being the subject of such an unprecedented advertising buildup….Already a chart topping band in England and Europe, their skillful and clever management team had American teenagers literally foaming at the mouth in nerve wracking anticipation of their arrival, and rumors of “Beatlemania” in England soon had American teenagers following suit here in America long before they first arrived on our shores…
For months before they released their first song for the American market and then made their triumphal tour throughout America, there were frequent and continuous buildups on the American radio stations, all AM radio in those dimly remembered days… Every few hours, some disk jockey on some popular big beat station, like Murray the K in New York or Dick Biondi in Chicago would announce on their shows “The Beatles Are Coming, The Beatles Are Coming” to a rapt and ever more curious and constantly growing audience of young teenagers, who were whipped into a fever pitch by this clever merchandising and manipulation….
In January of 1964, their first American release “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (their best selling single worldwide ever) was released here and became a #1 hit song in America on February 1, followed by “She Loves You” which became a #1 hit seven weeks later….On February 7, 1964 on their first American tour, they first landed at JFK airport to adoring throngs of fans, mostly young teenage girls, and their irreverence, wit and charm in handling the skeptical, cynical, hard boiled and mostly unfriendly American media made them even more popular to their young fans…
When they first appeared on the most influential American television variety show of the day, the very popular, but decidedly mainstream “Ed Sullivan Show,” it was one of the most highly rated shows of all time, and after their brief appearance, America would never be the same…Their shaggy unbelievably long hair, (by the crew cut, or pompadour male haircut standards of the time), these never before seen or dreamed of Beatle haircuts, their identical suits, their crooning uptempo harmonizing and infectious smiles and radical pop beats amazed, energized, captivated and entranced the youth of America! Things would never be the same again in the music world….
The Beatles also radically changed the very concept of popular music music, because they rejected the monopoly of “Tin Pan Alley” and were the first successful pop group to compose their own songs….John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with their seemingly endless stream of original, catchy, effervescent bubbly pop songs truly set in motion revolutionary changes in the music publishing business….
They seemingly had a boundless sense of energy, and they had come up the hard way, playing grueling gigs several hours long 7 nights a week in Germany, honing their skills for 3 years before they ever became popular in England. It was in Germany they grew bored with just covering other people’s songs and started writing their own….
When they returned to England, they strongly encouraged other bands, like the Rolling Stones, to also write their own material, and they even found time to write popular hit songs for their friends, like Peter & Gordon…Until then, most English bands had been slavish imitators who admired and copied songs by the great American pioneers, extremely talented black rhythm and blues artists like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, Muddy Waters and Little Richard, all mostly under appreciated in America at the time but wildly popular in England….
The Beatles were able to successfully incorporate these early American black rhythm and blues influences with the bouncy, uptempo beats of the jazz, skiffle and folk music that was popular in England when they were growing up and fused these seemingly disparate styles into their own unique style of music…
Coupled with their raw, grueling exposure night after night in the German clubs, all these influences merged and they created a blend of music that was unique, overwhelming and irresistible, and what soon grew out of all this early seasoning from such disparate sources came together and rose to take America by storm….
The timing of the Beatles arrival in America was also fortuitous to their ultimate success, coming as it did so quickly after the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy…. Grief stricken, shocked to the heart American young people were desperate to move on and submerge their grief and sublimate their angst with something new, something positive, something upbeat, and the Beatles were in the right place at the right time….
But Beatlemania was a phenomenon in it’s own right, and you really had to be there to understand and appreciate the full depth and impact of the whole glorious experience…
An interesting side note to the Beatles fabulous first impression on America and the hysterical youthful rise of irrepressible Beatlemania in the US was the Beatles musical and psychological maturation and evolving impact on the American youth movement as a whole as the years went by….
From the tragic shock of the Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations, through the black civil rights movement, and the Vietnam war, their own personal involvement with transcendental meditation with the maharishi as Americans looked inward for answers, the Beatles always managed to stay in touch with their fans….
In fact, they produced some of their greatest work in their later years as a studio band with the “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “The White Album”…Their music has withstood the test of time, and many people who had never even been born while the Beatles were a band are also among their most ardent followers today…
The Beatles always were, and always will be relevant, and nobody can deny them, now or ever, their unique role in American musical history….I am proud to be a member of the boomers, an original Beatles fan, and as MC Ed Sullivan always used to sign off with his catchphrase question, “I certainly have enjoyed the show”…