Capitol rushed to get legitimate copies pressed and into the stores. The single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” finally became available in January of 1964, and by Feb. 1st, topped the charts in America. The Beatles made their first of three appearances on the “Ed Sullivan Show” on February 9th, which turned out to be the highest rated episode in the show’s history. Crime in New York City stopped dead in its tracks for twenty minutes. Boomer girls went nuts and fell hopelessly in love. Boomer boys dug the beat, but laughed at those silly haircuts. After a couple of weeks, the girls continued to scream and the boys grew long hair and bought electric guitars.
In the Beatles’ first hit 45 in America, “the middle eight” (bars), as they called the break, contained the line, “It’s such a feeling that, My Love, I get high, I get high.” By 1964, Dr. Timothy Leary had already published the formula for lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), as Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters tripped across America in a psychedelic bus, but very few Boomers ever used the expression “get high”. That would soon change. The “B” side, “I Saw Her Standing There” began: “Well, she was just seventeen…” Then, “she” was a Baby Boomer. The Beatles sang to, for, and about Boomers their entire career, because we were (and, still are) the market.
The Beatles ruled the charts by April 1st, claiming the top five positions with several other Lennon/McCartney tunes on the way up. Parents prayed that those Liverpool boys would fade away, or at least be deported, but instead, the Beatles became legitimate in August, as their film, A Hard Day’s Night opened to critical, as well as popular good favor. Many skeptics had to at last admit that the boys possessed a bit of talent, and were fun to watch… much more than a fad… Just ask the casualties:
Bam! The Beatles shot down the Beach Boys and the Suburban Myth. Boomers grew tired of “driving up and down that same old strip”, and now, they turned to a group who could harmonize with a real beat.
Bam! They shot down Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound. Boomers suddenly realized that the “wall” separated us from the backbeat. These four guys, ala Buddy Holly, made more and better sound than Phil and a whole studio full of musicians…so much for Spector’s bigger-is-better concept of Rock & Roll.
Bam! They shot down the Brill Building hit factory. Lennon/McCartney wrote most of their songs, and assembly-line music sounded shallow and dull by comparison. Boomers realized that artists should create their own authentic sound.
Bam! They shot down Dick Clark and the world of American Teen Idols. The Fab Four had the look and talent, the latter quality honed in marathon gigs in Hamburg, Germany (8 hours a night/ 7 night a week). The boys knew how to play, and Boomer teens approached an age when they could appreciate musical skill. The worst local garage bands began to sound better than the phonies on Bandstand.
Bam! Folk Music took a direct hit. Too serious. Boomers weren’t in the mood.
The Beatles had that certain something, just like Elvis in his day… But, what was “it” exactly? The Black Magic of a Rhythm & Blues backbeat, performed by poor working-class Caucasian boys. As children, Boomers didn’t remember the First Golden Age of R & R, before Rock was suppressed in the United States. But, the beat continued in Britain; in fact it flourished and developed during our awful Teen Idol and Beach Party eras. Who knows how America would have reacted to the Beatles had Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, little Richard and Elvis been allowed to keep on rocking? The sound (with backbeat) was new to Boomer ears and they loved it… exciting, invigorating, rebellious, loud, outrageous and, most of all, fun… just when fun had been designated to the endangered species list. The Beatles brought it all back home to the USA, right where it belonged.
The one sad note, barely audible during the Beatles’ meteoric Top 40 takeover during the summer of ‘64, was heard as the last dinosaur of the First Golden Age received a fatal blow. It almost seemed as if the American government blamed poor Alan Freed for the resurrection of Rock & Roll. After all, the noise went away the last time they knocked him down (during the payola hearings). It was only logical that they hit him again; this time with the IRS acting as executioner.
But, the cacophony continued, and the Beatles proved to be only a vanguard of an overwhelming British Invasion: the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, the Zombies, the Dave Clark Five, the Swinging Blue Jeans (with “Hippy, Hippy Shake”), Manfred Mann (“Do Wah Ditty Ditty”) and countless others.
Parents complained about the dissonance and the constant, pounding R & R beat, just as they had in the Fifties. TV didn’t listen to their whining. The networks were too busy converting pounds into dollars. They cancelled Folk wannabe, “Hootenanny” and launched “Shindig”, featuring all the hot new British groups, plus American regulars, the Righteous Brothers, and “Shindogs”, Leon Russell, Delaney Bramlett and Billy Preston.
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