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How the Beatles Went Viral: Blunders, Technology & Luck Broke the Fab Four in America

Six weeks is all it took for the Liverpool foursome to go from unknowns to the biggest pop stars in the USA. Here's an exhaustive look at how it happened

Consider the following: At the end of 1963, virtually no one in America had heard of the Beatles. Yet on Feb. 9, 1964, they drew the largest TV audience in history-73 million viewers-when they appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show." How could such a conquest have occurred so quickly? I once asked my friend Lenny Kaye that question, and he answered: "Everybody was ready for the '60s to begin." There's some truth to that, but of course there's much more to the story. The explosion of the Beatles in America was the result of combined forces-artistic, social and technological-as well as persistence, showbiz rivalries and more than a bit of luck. So how did it happen that the Beatles came out of nowhere to become the biggest cultural sensation ever, in six weeks?

FAB AT 50: THE BEATLES ON THE COVER OF THE JAN. 11, 2014 BILLBOARD

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Of course the Beatles didn't really come out of nowhere. They came out of England. And England was where the frenzy that was Beatlemania began. Unlike its blitzkrieg-like arrival in America, Britain's obsession with the Beatles emerged during the course of nearly a year. The band was huge locally in its native Liverpool, even before the group had begun to make records. After the Beatles signed to EMI's Parlophone label, a series of singles appeared beginning in late 1962: "Love Me Do," "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You"-each a bigger hit than the previous one. The first whispers of mass hysteria wafted out of the north of England in late spring, just as Please Please Me moved into the No. 1 position on the U.K. chart, a spot that a succession of Beatles albums would hold for almost a year.

With the Beatles touring relentlessly, the screaming girls, the frenzied chase scenes, the whole carnival spread steadily, town by town. In late August, the band released its biggest hit yet-"She Loves You," which became the all-time best-selling single by a U.K. act.

Pop hadn't been a subject to which the major newspapers paid much attention. In fact, it took John Lennon's involvement in a fistfight at a birthday party for Paul McCartney in June to garner the band its first national headline: "Beatle In Brawl-Sorry I Socked You" read the back page banner of the Daily Mirror.

But by late summer of 1963, the press couldn't have been more eager for the story of four young outsiders from the hinterlands who had the power to arouse young British womanhood to heights of hysteria. In the wake of the Profumo sex scandal (at that moment in the midst of bringing down the government) and concurrent revelations of outrageous sexual escapades involving Britain's upper crust, the U.K. press were newly fascinated by, and emboldened in covering, sexually charged topics. This new raciness, the precursor to Britain's subsequent sex-crazed tabloid press, found an eager audience with the British public. The Times of London opined: "On the island where the subject has long been taboo in polite society, sex has exploded into the national consciousness and national headlines." Stories about the Beatles craze, a phenomenon viewed as overtly sexual (and rightly so), became a daily presence in the tabloids.

The Beatles' 50 Biggest Billboard Hits

At first, the press took a bemused stance. In September, the Daily Mirror ran a story about the Beatles headlined "Four Frenzied Little Lord Fauntleroys." But then, on Oct. 13, the frenzy hit London itself: The Beatles appeared that evening on Val Parnell's "Sunday Night at the London Palladium," the biggest TV variety show in the country, and thousands of screaming fans descended on the venue, closing off streets and clashing with the police for hours. Coincidentally, on that same day the Daily Mirror coined the term "Beatlemania" to describe a similar scene at the band's concert the previous day in Cheltenham. (The term itself was a play on Lisztomania, the 1840s frenzy that had accompanied the concerts of Franz Liszt.) It wasn't long before the more serious broadsheets were weighing in with pseudo-psychological analyses. The Sunday Times of London got straight to the point, quoting a young girl who answered a BBC interviewer's question regarding why she screamed at the mere mention of the group by confessing, "It's not something I could say on the radio."

CAPITOL TO THE BEATLES: 'DEAD IN THE WATER'

Meanwhile, America was oblivious to what was transpiring across the ocean. Throughout 1963, Capitol Records, which as a sister EMI-owned label held the U.S. rights to Parlophone's product, showed no interest in the band. This was largely due to the tastes of the man in charge of the label's international A&R, Dave Dexter, whose responsibilities included sifting through EMI's international product searching for potential U.S. hits. Capitol's track record in international A&R was quite good: In June 1963, for example, it released a record from EMI Japan titled "Sukiyaki" by Kyu Sakamoto that went to No. 1. But rock'n'roll was American music-Capitol already had the Beach Boys-and no English act had ever sustained a career as a U.S. hitmaker.

Besides, Dexter just didn't like rock. A 20-year veteran of the label who had joined Capitol shortly after it was founded, he'd condemned rock'n'roll as "juvenile and maddeningly repetitive" in an internal memo several years earlier, decrying a music biz increasingly driven by the tastes of children. Dexter's preferences ran toward jazz, and he'd had a good run signing Peggy Lee, Nat "King" Cole and Stan Kenton.

The first two No. 1 Beatles singles that Parlophone offered to Capitol, "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You," were turned down by Dexter and licensed instead to Chicago independent label Vee-Jay Records, whose attorney Paul Marshall happened to be EMI's U.S. attorney as well. Vee-Jay might have been a good home for the Beatles, as it was having considerable success at the time with the Four Seasons, another Marshall client. But by early 1963, the label was short of funds due to its president, Ewart Abner, having dug into Vee-Jay's operating budget in order to cover personal Las Vegas gambling losses.

Upon Vee-Jay's February 1963 release of "Please Please Me," Dick Biondi-a DJ at top 40 WLS Chicago and a friend of Abner's-became the first DJ to play a Beatles record in the United States. Due primarily to airplay on Biondi's show, the song (mistakenly credited to "The Beattles" on the 45 label and in trade ads) made it to No. 35 at WLS in March, although it didn't chart nationally.

By late May, when Vee-Jay released the Beatles' next single, "From Me to You," Biondi had been fired by WLS. He was back on-air a month later at KRLA Los Angeles. Although no longer working in Vee-Jay's hometown, he continued to be supportive of the label's Beatles releases, and by the end of June convinced KRLA to add "From Me to You" to its playlist, even though the record hadn't gotten any national traction in the month since its release. The song charted for six weeks on KRLA's survey in July and August, peaking at No. 33, which was enough to crack Billboard's Bubbling Under Singles chart, where it reached No. 116. Still, it had sold fewer than 15,000 singles by the end of 1963.

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Faring slightly better with "From Me to You" was American rocker Del Shannon, who had toured with the Beatles in England that spring. Shannon's version spent four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 77 in July and marking the first appearance of a Lennon-McCartney song on the Hot 100. Shannon's cover may have eliminated any chance of the Beatles' original spreading nationally off of Biondi's support. A letter from the PD of KXOK St. Louis to George Â-Harrison's sister Louise-who lived in Benton, Ill., and had been trying to drum up support for her brother's band-cited the station's earlier support for Shannon's single as reason for not playing the Beatles' version.

Meanwhile, Abner was dismissed from his post at Vee-Jay when his malfeasance was discovered. This aroused the suspicion of Marshall, who quit as Vee-Jay's attorney, opting to cast his lot with EMI. In August Marshall, acting on behalf of EMI's U.S. licensing agent Transglobal, accused Vee-Jay of non-payment of royalties, ordered Vee-Jay to cease and desist in distributing the Beatles' music and revoked the label's options for future singles. Total royalties owed on Beatles sales at that point were less than $1,000, but Vee-Jay wasn't particularly bothered about losing the unsuccessful band. The label was far more concerned with Marshall's efforts to get the Four Seasons out of their Vee-Jay contract, also for failure to pay royalties, which he successfully did.

At the same time, "She Loves You" was beginning its record-breaking asÂ-cent on the U.K. chart and, having canceled the Vee-Jay deal, Marshall approached Dave Dexter at Capitol with the hot new single. In spite of British buzz growing to deafening levels, Dexter turned down the Beatles yet again, reasoning that the Vee-Jay flops proved he was right to have passed on them in the first place. "Dead in the water" was how he described the band's U.S. prospects.

Transglobal licensed "She Loves You" to a tiny indie, Swan Records of Philadelphia, which released it stateside on Sept. 16. Swan had even less success with the Beatles than Vee-Jay: The song failed to chart at any station, and was roundly rejected by audiences when it was played at all. DJ Murray the K at WINS New York spun "She Loves You" on Sept. 28 in a five-way "battle of the hits," where it came in third. He continued to play it every night for a week solid, but got no reaction. Swan convinced "American Bandstand," which broadcast from the label's hometown, to play the song in its "Rate a Record" segment, where it received a score of 73 out of 100. Worse, the teens on "Bandstand" laughed when host Dick Clark held up a photo of the moptopped Beatles. After that incident, Clark recalled, "I figured these guys were going nowhere."

On the same September day that Swan released "She Loves You," Harrison came to the States to visit his sister in Illinois, where he remained totally anonymous. Louise took her brother to a radio station in West Frankfurt, Ill., that had played "From Me to You" at her urging. The station spun a copy of "She Loves You" that Harrison had brought with him, and he was interviewed on-air by the 17-year-old daughter of the station owner, all to no discernible listener response. And when Harrison jammed with a local band called the Four Vests, playing '50s rock songs at a dance, no one even thought to ask for his autograph. (Perhaps the most productive thing he did while in Illinois was purchase an album by R&B artist James Ray, which included "Got My Mind Set on You." Harrison's cover of the song would become the last No. 1 Hot 100 hit to date by any Beatle when it topped the summit nearly 25 years later.) Harrison returned to England feeling despondent about the Beatles' chances in America.

WINNING OVER THE ROYALS, AND ED SULLIVAN

After the band's performance on "Sunday Night at the London Palladium" on Oct. 13, the tabloid press hysteria in the United Kingdom reached a fever pitch, and the American press began to take notice. On Oct. 29, the Washington Post published the first U.S. story on the phenomenon, written by London correspondent Flora Lewis. Titled "Thousands Of Britons 'Riot,'" the story reported on the need for riot squads to calm the crowds in four British cities where the band had recently played. Lewis' article was dismissive of the music (declaring that the beat was the same "over and over"), and she compared the Beatles' look to "limp, upside-down dust mops."

Britain got a respite from the madness for a few days in late October while the band toured Sweden. Upon their return on Oct. 31, the Beatles were met at a rainy London Airport by more than 1,000 screaming fans. The New York Times reported that even the sound of the taxiing jets was no match for the screams of the crowd. Ed Sullivan, also at London Airport that day, assumed the ruckus was for a member of the British Royal Family. When informed it was for the Beatles, he asked, "Who the hell are the Beatles?" Sullivan, a former gossip columnist, had a nose for a good story and something about the scene reminded him of the early days of Elvis Presley, whom he had famously presented on his variety show years earlier. He began to contemplate booking the Beatles, perhaps as a novelty act.

On Nov. 4, the Beatles performed as part of the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium. In the British press, it was the moment they morphed from the objects of a barbarous throng's coarse obsession into lovable moptops. As with all acts on the bill at the annual charity event, the Beatles performed at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth, although the Queen herself stayed home that evening, pregnant with Prince Edward. The Queen Mother, best-loved of the Royal Family, was in attendance, however, and was reported to have been clapping along on the off beat during the Beatles' set, while Princess Margaret snapped her fingers.

Famously, Lennon introduced the band's finale that evening, "Twist and Shout," with the quip, "Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry." It was a display of cheekiness that heretofore one simply didn't exhibit before the Royal Family. And yet, by narrowing the distance between the monarchy and the working-class foursome onstage, Lennon brought down the house-and in the process managed to make the band all the more beloved in an England where notions of one's proper place were evolving rapidly. Even the Queen Mother came away a fan, calling the Beatles "so young, fresh and vital."

From then on, the Beatles were treated as something akin to national heroes. While the Nov. 2 Daily Telegraph had compared a Beatles concert to Hitler's Nuremberg rallies, the morning after the Royal Variety Performance the band achieved a new legitimacy from a love-struck press. As the Daily Mirror put it, "You have to be a real square not to love the nutty, noisy, happy, handsome Beatles." Victory was total: By December, London Sunday Times music critic Richard Buckle was comparing their music to Beethoven.

Despite the undeniable phenomenon of the Beatles in England-which was growing by the day-Capitol U.S. dealt yet another blow to the band in early November when Dexter again turned down its latest single. This one, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," had advance orders in the United Kingdom of more than 1 million singles. The day after the Royal Variety Performance, the band's manager Brian Epstein headed to New York. Ostensibly the trip was to promote one of his other acts, Liverpool singer Billy J. Kramer, who was signed to Liberty Records and who accompanied him on the journey. But more importantly, Epstein was determined to figure out how to get the Beatles' U.S. career on track.

Part of Epstein's efforts in New York would focus on securing the Beatles a spot on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Sullivan's European scout, Peter Pritchard, had taken the show's talent coordinator Bob Babb to see the band perform earlier in the year and was regularly updating Babb on the group's progress. Pritchard called Sullivan and encouraged him to meet with Epstein. The reception the band had received at London Airport was intriguing, but it was Pritchard's report of how the group wowed the Royal Family that made Sullivan agree to a sit-down with Epstein.

After two meetings, the deal was set: The Beatles would appear on two episodes of "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9 and Feb. 16, and a third appearance would be taped for broadcast at a later date. (The three episodes would ultimately be broadcast on consecutive weeks.) Sullivan had done something similar with Presley in 1956, when he booked the singer for three appearances in a four-month period. But the Beatles were flying in from England, and the time frame for their appearances was condensed to avoid the expense of repeatedly flying them in and out.

Sullivan had quite a reputation for being budget-conscious, but in the case of the Beatles he was particularly parsimonious. While performers on his show regularly received $10,000 or more for a top-billed appearance-a red-hot Presley had received $50,000 in 1956 for his three appearances-Sullivan held the upper hand in his negotiations with Epstein, who represented a group unknown in America. Thus, Epstein settled for $10,000 total for the three appearances. But he'd gotten what he wanted: a top-billed performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," plus two more. For an unproven act, such a commitment from Sullivan was unprecedented, but, as Sullivan later recalled in a New York Times interview, "I made up my mind that this was the same sort of mass hysteria that had characterized the Elvis Presley days."

Sixteen seasons into his unparalleled 23-year prime-time run on CBS, Sullivan was just now reaching the zenith of his own fame and his show's star-making power. A few months earlier, he'd been lionized in the film version of the stage musical "Bye Bye Birdie," in which he played himself and which featured an eponymous musical number-performed cathedral-choir style-devoted to just how monumental it was to appear on the show: "Ed Sullivan," the choir sang. "We're going to be on Ed Sullivan!" A single appearance on the show could be a ticket to the top for a lucky performer. Getting three made Epstein feel like it was a lock.

THE U.S. MEDIA MEETS THE BEATLES

In the case of the Beatles, mere word of Sullivan's agreement to feature them on three episodes was enough to change the band's fortunes in America. With Sullivan booked, Epstein set out to address Capitol's indifference. While there is considerable debate about what happened next, it appears Epstein paid a visit to Capitol East Coast chief Brown Meggs to plead the band's case-and came away with a release commitment. Unknown to Epstein, EMI managing director L.G. Wood had already greased the skids for the band's U.S. release on Capitol after Dexter had passed for the fourth time. Wood, furious that Capitol wouldn't license the Beatles, flew to New York and met with Capitol president Alan Livingston, who was summoned from Los Angeles. Armed with a mandate from EMI chairman Joseph Lockwood to break the logjam, Wood demanded that Livingston agree to a Beatles release on Capitol.

Livingston was offended by EMI's demand, as the understanding with EMI was that Capitol would merely have the first right of refusal on EMI product, with no obligation to license. A highly successful record man whose prior accomplishments ranged from signing Frank Sinatra to creating Bozo the Clown (and who later in life would own the production company that signed Don McLean's "American Pie"), Livingston was used to running Capitol as his own fiefdom. But the truth was, EMI owned 96% of Capitol and Livingston was an employee. Wood refused to let Livingston leave the meeting until he'd agreed to a Beatles release. Livingston grudgingly agreed to press 5,000 copies of the next single. Only later, after word came in that Epstein had secured three appearances for the Beatles with Sullivan, did Capitol get onboard in a big way, committing to a $40,000 marketing budget (about $300,000 in today's dollars), a then-unprecedented sum for a new act.

The Beatles' 50 Biggest Billboard Hits

Livingston's version of the story differs entirely: In his recollection, he received a call in November from Epstein, who wanted to know why Capitol hadn't released any Beatles records. Livingston responded that he'd never heard a Beatles record, which seems implausible given that the band was, by this time, a bona fide phenomenon, to which Capitol held U.S. rights, and Livingston was in regular contact with Wood, who presumably had been encouraging him to release the group's records. That this decision would remain entirely in the hands of Dexter, with no oversight, in spite of all the mounting pressure, doesn't make sense. Livingston further contends that upon speaking with Epstein, he asked Dexter to bring him some Beatles records, and after hearing them he immediately sensed the band's U.S. potential and agreed to put them out with the $40,000 marketing budget.

(Amazingly, Dexter kept his post as head of international A&R in spite of having turned down not only the Beatles but also Gerry & the Pacemakers, the Hollies, the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits and the Yardbirds, not to mention Epstein's Billy J. Kramer. In fact, Dexter remained in charge of A&R'ing the Beatles' records for the American market and was responsible for the reconfiguration of the U.K. albums on Capitol. Years later, upon Lennon's death, he wrote a fairly mean editorial in Billboard about the late Beatle, for which the magazine later apologized.)

Epstein's New York visit was jam-packed, including an interview with the New Yorker that would be published the following month, visits to music publications, plus the Kramer promotion, which culminated in a TV performance of Kramer's cover of the Beatles' "Do You Want to Know a Secret" on "The Joe Franklin Show." But besides the Sullivan meetings, his most significant encounter was with General Artists Corp. agent Sid Bernstein, who was hell-bent on booking the still-unknown Beatles at New York's Carnegie Hall.

Bernstein had discovered the Beatles while taking an evening Western civilization course at the New School, in which one of the requirements was reading British newspapers to better understand the parliamentary system. As a booking agent by day, his eyes inevitably drifted to the entertainment pages, where the hysteria the Beatles were causing was mentioned with increasing frequency. He tracked down Epstein and in early autumn pitched his Carnegie Hall idea over the phone. Epstein was hesitant to commit to anything before the Beatles were famous in the States, out of fear of playing before an empty house. For its part, GAC was equally hesitant to book an unknown pop group.

Bernstein thus made the audacious offer to rent Carnegie Hall at his own expense, leaving out GAC, with a proposed concert date of Feb. 12. As fate would have it, that was when the Beatles were set to perform on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Bernstein was confident that with the Sullivan deal sealed, ticket sales would be assured. While Epstein didn't formally agree until after Jan. 1 to do the concert, Bernstein took their conversation as a yes and proceeded to rent Carnegie Hall. When the booker at Carnegie asked him what kind of an act the Beatles were, Bernstein, who knew that the venue didn't tend to book pop bands, replied, with more truth than he'd intended, "They're a phenomenon."

Simultaneously, the American media was becoming fascinated by Britain's fascination with the Beatles. Within the course of a week in mid-November, the band experienced intense U.S. press and TV attention: On Nov. 15, Time magazine published an account of "The New Madness," and Newsweek followed three days later with an article simply titled "Beatlemania." And all three U.S. TV networks sent camera crews to cover the Beatles' Nov. 16 concert in Bournemouth, which was marked by the usual clashes between fans and police.

Once again, timing worked to the Beatles' advantage: Just two months earlier, both CBS and NBC had expanded their evening news shows from 15 minutes to a half hour. This left them with airtime to fill, allowing for the kind of light features the evening news had never previously aired. NBC was first out of the gate, running a four-minute Beatlemania story on the top-rated "Huntley-Brinkley Report" on Nov. 18. Correspondent Edwin Â-Newman's piece was about fan hysteria, although he did include 30 seconds of the studio recording of "From Me to You," as well as a snippet of the live Bournemouth performance of the same song, which was nearly drowned out by audience screams. "One reason for the Beatles' popularity," Newman quipped, "is that it's almost impossible to hear them."

CBS' story followed on Nov. 22, the same day With the Beatles was released in England. (ABC, whose newscast still stood at 15 minutes, never aired its story.) As a teaser for the four-minute piece set to appear on Walter Cronkite's evening news show, an abbreviated version aired on "CBS Morning News" with Mike Wallace. But the full piece didn't run that evening. Instead, everything came to a standstill with the news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.

A 15-YEAR-OLD GIRL SETS RADIO IN MOTION

The Kennedy assassination sent all of American society into a depressed stupor. And perhaps no societal group was more crushed than the nation's youth, for whom JFK embodied idealism and optimism. To be a young American right after the assassination was to be afflicted by shock, giving way to sadness and disillusionment.

The spell weighed heavily and cried out to be broken. But the top 40 airwaves were no place to find respite in the wake of the Â-assassination. By some strange coincidence, a folk ballad about the founder of a Roman Catholic religious order, sung in French, sat poised to ascend to No. 1 on the chart just as the nation's first Catholic president was killed. No song could have captured the nation's mood at that moment more precisely than "Dominique," written and recorded by the Belgian Sister Luc-Gabrielle, billed as the Singing Nun. The austere "Dominique" remained atop the chart for the rest of the year, reinforcing America's somber tone.

In the weeks after Kennedy's death, Cronkite began to feel the weight of the nation's collective lack of joy, with one heavy item following another on "CBS Evening News." Finally, he decided it was time to air something fun to break things up, but when surveying the cultural landscape, there was nothing cheery to be found. Then, someone remembered the story that was supposed to air the day of the assassination, the one about kids in England going bonkers over a group of long-haired rock'n'rollers.

On Dec. 10, "CBS Evening News" ran a four-minute piece on the Beatles. Due to the assassination, CBS was late to the story. In addition to Time, Newsweek and NBC, Life magazine had already published a feature with a picture of Princess Margaret meeting the "Red Hot Beatles," which ran next to a story on the Singing Nun-pop Â-music's present and future abutting each other in America's most popular magazine. Even the staid New York Times Magazine had already run a lengthy article, "Britons Succumb To Beatlemania," which, like the CBS piece, had been filed before the assassination but shelved until the beginning of December.

The CBS piece, reported by London bureau chief Alan Kendrick, offered more of the same: screaming teens, the Royal Variety Performance and eye-rolling on the part of a bewildered correspondent. But it also contained two elements not found in NBC's report: an interview with the band by correspondent Josh Darsa and a live performance of "She Loves You" from the Bournemouth show. Although Kendrick's reporting was patronizing, concluding that the Beatles "make non-music and wear non-haircuts," the live footage of "She Loves You" was raw and compelling. And Kendrick's tone let teen viewers in on the fact that the Beatles were as annoying to adults as they were appealing to British teens-yet another selling point, bound to whip up curiosity.

While Cronkite's show was second in the ratings behind NBC's "Huntley-Brinkley Report," it still pulled in 10 million viewers a night. One of those viewers that evening was fellow CBS star Ed Sullivan, who phoned Cronkite after the broadcast and asked the news anchor what else he could tell him about "those bugs, or whatever they call themselves," as Cronkite later recalled. Although Sullivan had already committed to featuring the Beatles, he still viewed them as a bit of a joke. Seeing them on Cronkite's news program conferred more status upon the group in his eyes.

Three days later-a month after the meetings with Epstein-CBS announced in a press release that the Beatles, a "wildly popular quartet of English recording stars, will make their first trip to the United States Feb. 7 for their American television debut on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' [on] Sunday, Feb. 9 and 16." The release went on to recount the considerable press the band had already received stateside, and included the by-now obligatory mention of how the group won over the Royal Family. It also noted that "their first record release is scheduled for January," an acknowledgement of Capitol's trade announcement of the previous week, which had in fact already spilled the beans about the upcoming Sullivan appearances.

Also watching the Cronkite telecast that evening was a 15-year-old girl named Marsha Albert of Silver Spring, Md., who wrote a letter to local DJ Carroll James of WWDC Washington, D.C., asking, "Why can't we have music like that here in America?" James, who had also seen the Cronkite broadcast and been intrigued, called a friend at BOAC (now British Air), who arranged for a stewardess to bring a copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to the station two days later. As an extra treat, James invited Albert to the studio. And so, on Dec. 17, Albert announced on WWDC, "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States, here are the Beatles singing 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'"

By the time the song finished, the station's switchboard was lit up with calls from listeners who wanted to hear it again. WWDC put it into heavy rotation, with a voice-over in the middle of the song announcing it as a "WWDC exclusive" to keep the other D.C. station from recording it off the air and broadcasting it. By the next day, area record stores were deluged with requests for this record they'd never heard of-and which wasn't in fact available. James then sent a tape of the record to friend who DJ'd at a station in Chicago, who got the same reaction and then sent it on to a friend in St. Louis, where "I Want to Hold Your Hand" received a similarly ecstatic response.

Why was it that the Beatles connected so powerfully when James gave them one spin on Dec. 17, while their previous releases received no such response? For one thing, the Beatles appeared to have been a remedy for those dark days after Kennedy's death. As Lester Bangs has written of that winter, "We needed a fling after the wake." Something different, exotic, joyful,, euphoric even, was just the remedy. And in retrospect, it's clear that it needed to come from outside America, beyond the borders of a country still very much in mourning.

Additionally, the U.S. media attention already given to Britian's Beatlemania made it easy for American teens to know exactly how to respond to the band. The first few Beatles singles had appeared in a vacuum and flopped. But to call the level of U.S. media attention the Beatles had achieved by the time of the first spin on WWDC out of the ordinary would be a vast understatement. By way of the Cronkite and "Huntley-Brinkley" appearances alone, more than 20 million Americans watched news features about Beatlemania.

It's hard for today's pop culture consumer to imagine a world prior to the saturation coverage of all things pop on the Internet, let alone prior to MTV, E!, "Entertainment Tonight," People and Rolling Stone. But in 1963, radio airplay, coverage in the teen magazines and the occasional wire service feature were the most that pop acts could hope to receive. TV was limited to "American Bandstand" or local imitators of it, and, if an act's single was big enough, a performance on one of the networks' prime-time variety shows.

Yet the Beatles were suddenly everywhere. Tales of British Beatlemania were becoming common knowledge stateside, priming the U.S. public for its own hysteria. A cartoon that accompanied the New York Times Magazine piece on Beatlemania summed it up: A girl is shown playing a Beatles record on her phonograph, while explaining to her bewildered father: "But naturally they make you want to scream, daddy-o; that's the whole idea of the Beatles' sound."

When you hear the Beatles, you scream. Fans were learning how to react to the band before they'd ever heard the music. And when it turned out that the music was actually terrific, the choice between American depression and British Beatlemania became a no-brainer.

TECHNOLOGY LIGHTS THE FUSE

Everyone, that is, except Capitol. The label had scheduled "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for release on Jan. 13, 1964, and James' early airplay on WWDC, with no records in stores, was seen as potentially harmful to the project. The music business was still many years away from releasing singles to radio in advance of the retail date in order to build demand. Airplay without records in stores was seen as the equivalent of an uncapped gusher spewing wasted oil. And so, Capitol called in its lawyers, who sent a cease-and-desist letter to WWDC, demanding it pull the record off the air. The station responded with an emphatic refusal-this was the hottest record in ages, and WWDC had an exclusive. James, meanwhile, kept circulating tapes of the song to more and more DJs in other cities, with every station getting the same unprecedented reaction. Finally, Capitol relented and decided to move the release up to the earliest date possible, Dec. 26.

By this point Capitol understood it was sitting on a monster and that it would need to manufacture far more than the 200,000 singles the label had originally planned. Factories workÂ-ed overtime as Christmas approached. Capitol even did third-party deals with manufacturing plants owned by rival labels.

Moving up the release date would prove to be the key decision made by Capitol in the entire campaign, making possible everything that followed. Had Albert not written to James, setting this acceleration into motion, the conditions wouldn't have existed for the fan hysteria that accompanied the band's trip to the States and the Â-record-shattering ratings for the Beatles' appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9. But now it all unfurled very quickly.

FAB AT 50: THE BEATLES ON THE COVER OF THE JAN. 11, 2014 BILLBOARD

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On Dec. 23, Capitol national album merchandising manager Paul Russell sent a staff memo outlining the Beatles marketing plan. As was standard in those days, almost all marketing efforts targeted the industry, not consumers: A two-page ad set to run in the Dec. 30 Billboard titled "Meet the Beatles!" would be reprinted and distributed to radio stations and retailers. It would be reproduced as an easel-backed cardboard point-of-purchase item, intended for placement on record store checkout counters. Also for distribution at retail and radio, Capitol created a motion display diorama, with the heads of the four Beatles shaking back and forth in unison. The display was quite elaborate, and can be seen in action in the Maysles brothers' documentary film about the Beatles' first U.S. visit.

Some of Capitol's marketing tools seem quaint by today's standards: All members of the sales and radio promotion staff were instructed to wear Beatle wigs during business hours and to encourage retailers and DJs to do the same. "Get these Beatle wigs around properly, and you'll find you're helping to start the Beatle Hair-Do Craze that should be sweeping the country soon," the memo read. Further, millions of stickers reading "The Beatles Are Coming!" below a picture of the four Beatle hairdos were distributed to the staff, with the following instruction: "We literally want your salesmen to be plastering these stickers on any friendly surface as they walk down the street or as they call on radio or retail accounts ... Make arrangements with some local high school students to spread the stickers around town. Involve your friends and relatives."

By the time the marketing plan was set in motion, however, it was hardly needed. Livingston later reported that Capitol never even made it through the entire $40,000 budget. From the moment "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was released on Dec. 26, it simply sold itself.

Suspending all sales and promotion staff vacation during Christmas week, Capitol sprung into action on Dec. 26, its promotion men hand-delivering the Beatles' 45 single to key stations by 9 a.m. Before the morning was over, top 40 stations around the country were hammering the record. Record stores were immediately besieged, as teens rushed to spend their Christmas money. As one New Jersey retailer told Billboard, "Sales started out like an explosion."

Moving the release date up had an unexpected benefit. In 1964, the average American teen listened to the radio for more than three hours per day. With kids out of school for Christmas week, that number was undoubtedly even higher. And, equally important, the most common stocking-stuffers received by teens that Christmas were transistor radios, which had become cheaper than ever.

Although popular since the mid-'50s, the Japanese-made transistor radio experienced exponential sales growth in the mid-'60s, as inexpensive off-brands proliferated. While 5.5 million radios had been sold in the United States in 1962, by 1963 that number nearly doubled to 10 million. So ubiquitous was the transistor radio as a holiday gift in 1963 that the popular comedy songwriter Allan Sherman recorded a "12 Days of Christmas" parody keyed around having received a Japanese transistor radio "on the first day of Christmas," with more details about the radio piling up with each successive verse: "It's a Nakashuma/It's the Mark 4 model-that's the one that's discontinued/And it comes with a leatherette case with holes in it so you can listen right through the case/And it has a wire with a thing on one end that you can stick in your ear."

The transistor radio was the technological spark that lit the fuse of teen culture in the '60s. Like the Internet in the last decade, it was a vehicle of public music discovery and sharing. Like the Walkman in the '80s, it made music portable and private in new ways that energized listeners. One could take it anywhere-the schoolyard, the beach, wherever-and share music with friends. But one could also listen through an earplug while walking down the street, sitting in the back of the class or lying in bed at night, under the covers, so parents wouldn't know.

Prior radios had neither portability nor the earplug. Subsequent technologies-the boom box, Walkman, iPod-enhanced the public or private listening experience, but not both. The Maysles' documentary shows the Beatles taking their Pepsi-branded transistor radio everywhere, listening both collectively and through earplugs to top 40 stations. In a meta moment, they do a face-to-face interview with a DJ in their hotel suite while simultaneously listening to the interview being broadcast live on their radio.

So imagine, if you will, teenagers across America turning on their new transistor radios during Christmas vacation in 1963, listening for hours, everywhere, alone and with their friends, and hearing -over and over again-a new sound that excited them even more than their new piece of hardware.

Within its first three days of release, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sold 250,000 copies and the Beatles were immediately the most talked-about group in the country. DJs were quick to inform their listeners that the band would be coming to America in February, heightening the sense of excitement.

THE BACKLASH JUST FEEDS THE FRENZY

A backlash from adults was just as immediate. On Dec. 29, the Baltimore Sun, dreading a replication of Beatlemania on U.S. shores, summed up the grown-up position by editorializing: "America had better take thought as to how it will deal with the invasion. Indeed a restrained 'Beatles go home' might be just the thing."

"They look like four of the Three Stooges with a hairy measure of Ish Kabibble," Donald Freeman quipped in the Chicago Tribune, referencing some of the most unkempt performers of the 1940s. "And if they ever submitted to a barber who loves music-snip, snip!-that would be the end of the act."

The condescension was just one more reason for teens to love the Beatles: "This annoys the grownups! It's something that's ours, that's not part of the whole messed-up adult world." Capitol understood the value of adult condemnation in whipping up teen frenzy, and noted the Sun's comments in its own press release.

The Beatles' 50 Biggest Billboard Hits

Of course, in those days, rock'n'roll was still, to quote Sullivan's typical on-air introductions of rock acts, "for the kiddies." And so, the sudden rise of the Beatles naturally caused nearly all the adult pundits to cover their ears and complain. The king of the complainers turned out to be NBC TV host Jack Paar. And by his attempt to mock the group on his Friday night variety show on Jan. 3, 1964, he managed to send Beatlemania into an even higher orbit.

Paar had been in attendance at the Royal Variety Performance in November and thought the hullabaloo over the Beatles was ridiculous. Like so many adults, he found rock'n'roll to be juvenile and had never booked a rock act on his show. Still, once his rival Sullivan announced the band's February appearances, Paar decided to scoop him. He licensed Beatles footage from the BBC and issued a press release announcing that he'd be the first to present the band. (This actually caused Sullivan to consider canceling the Beatles' appearances, although he quickly thought better of dumping the by-now hot act.) Top 40 DJs throughout the country breathlessly conveyed the news to their listeners that the Beatles-who had never been seen by most of their U.S. fans, except in the photo on their single sleeve-would be making their TV debut on "The Jack Paar Show."

The Paar appearance, when it is remembered at all, is generally considered a footnote. NBC doesn't brag about the appearance, being that Paar turned out to be on the wrong side of history, with Paar himself admitting he showed the Beatles "as a joke." But outside of radio airplay, the taped performance on Paar's show on Jan. 3 was the single most important event leading to the frenzy surrounding the band's "Ed Sullivan Show" appearance the following month. As Beatles producer George Martin commented to Variety in May 1964, it was Paar who deserves credit as the one who "aroused the kids' curiosity."

Paar's weekly program, which aired at 10 p.m., drew an average of 17 million viewers, most of whom were an older crowd. But with the Beatles set to appear, viewership swelled that week to 30 million. To put these numbers in perspective, Paar's show typically wasn't among the top 30 shows in the country, but his Jan. 3 episode had a viewership almost as large as the week's No. 1 show, which drew 34 million viewers.

The show's Beatles segment started with footage of fan hysteria at a U.K. Beatles concert, with Paar's mocking interjections-"I understand science is working on a cure for this"-eliciting laughter from his studio audience. Then, as promised, he presented the first full-song performance by the Beatles on American TV. The song was "She Loves You," and it was an in-studio performance shot for a BBC documentary. Paar's staff intercut the performance with footage of fans screaming at the Bournemouth show. Just a week after "I Want to Hold Your Hand" exploded into the marketplace, millions were now encountering "She Loves You." For the Beatles' American fans, the Paar performance was a revelation.

It was also a revelation for Swan Records. According to label president Bernie Binnick, "The record exploded the following Monday," and Swan rushed a proper rerelease. If "I Want to Hold Your Hand" took off in the marketplace based on radio play, Swan's rerelease of "She Loves You" had the advantage of an incredible-if unplanned-setup: The Paar performance turned the song into an instant hit, rivaling "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as the most-played song in the country.

Capitol wasn't amused, as the Paar broadcast brought attention to a song on a rival label. In a Jan. 20 press release, Capitol condescendingly referred to the Paar performance as "an obvious attempt to scoop arch-foe Ed Sullivan." The rollout of Beatlemania had never really been under Capitol's control, but this development ensured it never would be.

FOUR SONGS TO HOLD YOU

As it turned out, Capitol's having passed on the Beatles' early singles served to make the initial wave of Beatlemania more intense than had the band been rolled out in an orderly fashion by the label, one single at a time. On the same day as the Paar broadcast, Vee-Jay rereleased "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You" as a double-sided single, with both songs making their presence felt on the air. Having four Beatles singles in heavy rotation on the radio all at once in January 1964 made the band's impact on audiences exponentially more powerful. It was the Beatles with whom teens fell in love, not just a Beatles single.

A week after Paar, Vee-Jay also released the first U.S. Beatles album, Introducing The Beatles, which was originally intended for the summer of 1963, but shelved in the wake of the label's financial crisis. Capitol responded by obtaining an injunction against the indie, claiming that Vee-Jay had lost rights to the Beatles' masters when its license was revoked. The injunction kept the 45 and LP out of stores, but couldn't keep DJs from spinning the songs. A court ruled in Vee-Jay's favor on Feb. 5, at which point the label was able to get its releases back into the market. As a result of the delay, "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You" were already huge radio hits by the time they debuted on the Hot 100 in early February. "Please Please Me" would peak at No. 3, trailing only "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" on the chart.

FAB AT 50: THE BEATLES ON THE COVER OF THE JAN. 11, 2014 BILLBOARD

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By the time Vee-Jay was able to get Introducing. The Beatles back on store shelves, Capitol was already there with Meet the Beatles!, which it released on Jan. 20. Thus, within a three-and-a-half-week period, the market had been deluged with three singles and two LPs. Introducing ... The Beatles quickly rose to No. 2 on the albums chart, behind only Meet the Beatles!, which had already sold more than 500,000 copies by the time the Vee-Jay album returned to the market.

It's clear that virtually upon its release on Dec. 26, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was the biggest-selling single in the country, but chart lag time kept this fact from being reflected in Billboard and Cashbox for several weeks. Cashbox listed it at No. 1 on its Jan. 24 chart, reflecting actual sales for the week of Jan. 5-11. This was the first week since the release of the single that was not interrupted by a holiday, and for which full data was reported and processed. (Billboard listed it atop the Hot 100 the following week.)

Back then, publications like Billboard and Cashbox were strictly for the trade, and consumers weren't generally exposed to their chart rankings. Teens were more familiar with the countdown on "American Bandstand." However, just five days before the Capitol single arrived, "Bandstand" stopped broadcasting from Philadelphia and the show went on hiatus until February 1964, when it began originating from Los Angeles. By the time the show resumed, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was already in the midst of its stay at No. 1.

Therefore, the only way teens were able to follow the rise of the record was on their local radio station charts. By the first week of January, WABC New York listed the song at No. 1, the first station to do so. (WABC had a nighttime reach that covered much of the county, helping the record spread like wildfire.) The following week, it debuted at No. 1 on KRLA and the week after that it did the same at KFWB Los Angeles.

The pace of the chart rise at any given station had more to do with chart methodology than the song's actual popularity in the marketplace. Basically, stations placed the song at No. 1 as soon as they figured out that it had defied all precedent and was already the most popular song in the market.

The instant ubiquity of an unknown band, which had yet to set foot in America, defies all accepted precedent. In the United Kingdom, the band had toured incessantly, playing live in 34 cities in the fall of 1963 alone; released numerous singles; hosted its own weekly radio show; and appeared numerous times on TV, all before Beatlemania erupted. In America, the group reached the same heights upon the release of the first Capitol single.

Pop histories often suggest that the Beatles were welcomed by U.S. consumers because they brought rock'n'roll back to the radio after it had been rendered toothless by a combination of a payola scandal and the loss of many of its major stars to tragedy (Buddy Holly), the draft (Presley) and incarceration (Chuck Berry). But this isn't quite true. Of course, the Beatles' sound was fresh, but it's not as though there weren't other rock'n'roll artists on the radio. Motown was becoming ubiquitous, the Beach Boys had already begun to rack up hits, and, at that very moment, "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen-a record that would have sounded at home on the first Rolling Stones album a few months later-was in the midst of a six-week run at No. 2 on the Billboard chart.

As the Beatles' U.S. arrival on Feb. 7 approached, TV and print coverage intensified. Sullivan had started hyping on-air the Beatles' upcoming appearance in mid-January, right after their Paar performance. Late-night talk show hosts were peppering their monologues with Beatles jokes. And Life magazine, which reached up to 40 million readers per week, ran a seven-page photo-filled essay in the Jan. 31 issue titled "Here Come Those Beatles," which reported, "First England fell, victim of a million girlish screams. Then, last week, Paris surrendered. Now the U.S. must brace itself. The Beatles are coming."

At radio, everyone wanted to be the station listeners most associated with the group. In late January, Capitol distributed a prerecorded interview with the Beatles to stations. The discs contained no questions, only the Beatles' answers, allowing local DJs to pretend they were conducting their own interviews. Searching for more Beatles records to play, stations turned to the flip side of "I Want to Hold Your Hand"-"I Saw Her Standing There"-and also the flip sides of the Vee-Jay and Swan singles. So across the board was the demand for the band's music that WYNR Chicago, which had recently abandoned pop for an R&B format, decided to make an exception and add Beatles records to its playlist. Other R&B stations and some middle-of-the-road (MOR) stations began doing the same.

No doubt about it, the Beatles stood at the white-hot center of the culture. By the end of January, they had already sold 2.6 million records. And then things really took off.

D-DAY ARRIVES

In the days leading up to the Beatles' visit, New York stations battled to be the home for teens who wanted up-to-the-minute information on the band's arrival at the newly renamed John F. Kennedy Airport. Regular updates on the Beatles' flight from London were broadcast on each of the city's three top 40 stations, with promises that correspondents would be on the tarmac to greet the Fab Four and provide live coverage. Capitol made sure to provide specific information to the DJs in advance, with scheduled arrival time and gate number. In those pre-airport security days, it was no wonder that fans began to flock to the airport as the Pan Am jet drew closer to the Eastern Seaboard.

At 1:20 p.m. on Feb. 7, the Beatles arrived stateside on Pan Am flight 101, greeted by the high-pitched squeals of approximately 4,000 teenagers, plus more than 200 reporters and photographers and 100 police officers. The crowd was larger and louder than that which Sullivan had chanced upon three months earlier at London Airport. At the famous press conference conducted inside the airport, defying the low expectations journalists had of rock'n'rollers in that era, the Beatles' charisma and wit wowed the skeptical crowd. If anything, it was the reporters who appeared to be the dullards, asking banal questions-"What do you think of Beethoven?"-which the Beatles fielded with their patented cheekiness-"Great," Ringo Starr replied. "Especially his poems."

The press conference done, the band headed to Manhattan, chased by rabid fans shouting at the foursome from the windows of moving cars on the expressway. Upon arriving at the Plaza Hotel, they found thousands more fans waiting for them, once more tipped off to the band's whereabouts by DJs who'd gotten their information straight from Capitol.

The arrival of the Beatles received major coverage on that evening's news. Cronkite's report on CBS showed much more respect than the first time around. "The British invasion this time goes by the code name Beatlemania," Cronkite said. "D-Day has been common knowledge for months, and this was the day." Whether because he felt invested in the band due to his role in bringing them to America's attention, or because the band was about to appear on Sullivan's CBS show, Cronkite was now a believer. In stark contrast, NBC had de facto positioned itself as the anti-Beatles network, and in the spirit of the Edwin Newman piece in November and the Paar broadcast in January, Chet Huntley went out of his way to be demeaning to the group. He explained to his viewers that NBC had "sent three camera crews to stand among the shrieking youngsters and record the sights and sounds for posterity... the pictures are very good, but someone asked what the fuss was about and we found we couldn't answer. So, good night from NBC News." The broadcast ended without Huntley bothering to show any of the footage.

The next day, every newspaper covered the Beatles' arrival. During the course of the band's visit, the New York Times printed at least one article about the Beatles every day. New York's Daily News, which then had the largest daily circulation in America, ran enough photos of the group throughout its visit to cover the bedroom walls of countless girls, top to bottom. A visit by President Lyndon Johnson to the city, which was just wrapping up, was relegated to the newspaper's inside pages.

Throughout their historic Kennedy Airport press conference, the Beatles had been peppered with private questions by a strange man in a straw hat who had squirreled his way to the front of the crowd, sticking his own microphone up to the band at the podium. The man in question wasn't a journalist at all, but rather DJ Murray the K (nee Kaufman) of WINS New York. Murray managed to hijack the band's attention, getting exclusive sound bites for his radio show. Finally, someone shouted, "Would somebody tell Murray the K to cut the crap out?," at which point the Beatles all looked down at him and yelled, "Cut that crap out," with McCartney adding, "Hey, Murray!" in a fake New York accent, granting him the greatest sound bite of all. Thus was born Murray the K's brief career as the Fifth Beatle.

It was something of a fluke that Murray the K was broadcasting on WINS at all in 1964. Having taken over as the station's evening DJ four years earlier, replacing Allen Freed, who was fired in the wake of a payola scandal, Murray had known great success-Tom Wolfe called him "the original hysterical disc jockey" in a famous profile published after the Beatles' visit-until the station was sold to Westinghouse in 1962. The new owner inched its format away from top 40, but was required to keep some of the old broadcasters due to an existing labor contract. Murray's popularity had fallen ever since, and by the time of the Beatles' arrival his ratings lagged behind those of his rivals Jack Spector on WMCA and "Cousin Brucie" Morrow on WABC.

Luckily for Murray, he was close with Veronica Bennet of the Ronettes, whose group had just returned from a U.K. tour where they'd made the Beatles' acquaintance. As soon as the press conference ended, Murray called Bennet (the future Ronnie Spector) and asked if she and the Ronettes would take him to the Plaza to meet the band. Bennet obliged Murray, who managed to exploit the situation to the fullest, becoming the Beatles' unofficial guide to America, getting exclusive interviews and causing a general escalation of Beatles hype among the three stations during the next few days.

WMCA managed to spirit Harrison's sister Louise off to its station, where she was persuaded to call him in his sick bed at the Plaza (he had tonsillitis and didn't go to rehearsals for the Sullivan performance) for an exclusive on-air chat. WABC went so far as to rebrand itself "WABeatleC." All three stations had DJs encamped by the Plaza, reporting on any Beatles sighting, and all three battled to see which could raise its audience's excitement the most. But it was Murray whose show became required listening for Beatles fans during the band's New York visit, as a Beatle-or all of them-could appear on the air with Murray at any time. (Murray's newfound popularity was short-lived. After the Beatles returned home, he lasted less than a year at WINS, before it switched formats to become the nation's first all-news station.)

40% OF AMERICA TUNES IN

Every media outlet in the country gave major coverage to the hysteria that was occurring in New York that weekend. And they all made clear that the reason for the band's visit was its scheduled appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Sunday night. By Sunday, there was no one in America in close proximity to a TV, radio or newspaper who could have not known that the Beatles were going to be on Sullivan that night.

On the day of the show, further pandemonium reigned in front of the Sullivan Theatre, egged on by the local top 40 DJs. The show had received 50,000 ticket applications for 728 tickets. Thousands mobbed the streets, shutting off Broadway for eight blocks, everyone carrying their transistor radios and reacting in unison to the prompts of the DJs.

The Beatles were slated to perform five songs on the first Sullivan broadcast: "All My Loving," "Till There Was You," "She Loves You," "I Saw Her Standing There" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Among the other announced guests on the program was the cast of the stage production of "Oliver!," including future Monkee Davy Jones as the Artful Dodger. Jones later recalled that it was the reaction of the girls in the Sullivan audience to the Beatles that made him decide to leave musical theater and pursue a career in rock'n'roll.

Epstein had envisioned the Beatles' first U.S. visit as a means by which the band could conquer America. But by the time of its arrival, America already lay at the group's feet. It's doubtful whether the intensity surrounding the visit could have materialized had the chain of events begun by Cronkite, Albert and James not occurred. Without it, the release date of "I Want to Hold your Hand" would have remained Jan. 13, radio listeners wouldn't have heard the record incessantly during Christmas break, teens wouldn't have tuned in to "The Jack Paar Show" to watch the band perform, Swan wouldn't have rush-Â-rereleased "She Loves You," the airwaves wouldn't have been jammed with multiple Beatles records in January, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" wouldn't have been No. 1 by the time of the band's arrival, the media frenzy wouldn't have reached a fevered pitch before Feb. 7, and the Beatles would have arrived in New York to do the Sullivan show without the airport scene, the press conference or the screaming fans at the Plaza.

But it all had unfolded as if in a fairy tale, and when the evening of Feb. 9 arrived, the Beatles had the attention of the entire country. (The next week, when the Beatles played the Washington Coliseum, Albert got her own fairy tale ending to the story when she got to meet the Beatles, who showed their appreciation by saying, "Thank you, Marsha," on the air on WWDC.)

During the first half of the 1963-64 season, Â-Sullivan's show drew a weekly audience of 21.2 million. And while those numbers didn't make him the overall ratings champ-sister show "The Beverly Hillbillies" was pulling in a whopping 35 million viewers a week-his was, by far, the biggest variety show on the air.

On the night of Feb. 9, 1964, his audience jumped to 73 million, the largest TV audience for an entertainment program in history to that point. In a country with a population of 180 million, that represented 40% of all Americans. Significantly, in 1964, 40% of all Americans were age 18 or younger, with that year acknowledged as the final one of the baby boom. Of those, 35 million were between the ages of 8 and 18. And it would appear that virtually all of them were watching.

The Washington Post went so far as to quip that on the night of the Beatles' Sullivan appearance "there wasn't a single hubcap stolen in America," which was meant as a dig on the character of the Beatles' core audience, but which went on to be accepted as fact when it was reprinted in Newsweek. This urban legend was even repeated as truth in Hunter Davies' 1968 authorized Beatles biography and by Harrison in the Beatles' "Anthology" documentary.

However, soon after the Sullivan broadcast, the Washington Post's Bill Gold followed up to make clear it had been meant as a joke: "It is with heavy heart that I must inform Newsweek that this report was not true. Lawrence R. Fellenz of 307 E. Groveton St., Alexandria, had his car parked on church property during that hour-and all four of his hubcaps were stolen. The Washington Post regrets the error, and District Liner Fellenz regrets that somewhere in Alexandria there lives a hipster who is too poor to own a TV set."

Crime statistics aside, what isn't in dispute is the fact that virtually every young person in America-and plenty of their parents-sat glued to their TV set just after 8 p.m. EST when Sullivan took the stage to introduce the band: "Yesterday and today our theater's been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation, and these veterans agreed with me that the city never has witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool, who call themselves the Beatles." Amid the escalating screams from the crowd, Sullivan continued: "Tonight, you're going to twice be entertained by them. Right now, and again in the second half of our show. Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles. Let's bring them on."

仅仅六周，这个来自利物浦的四人乐队就从无名小卒变成了美国流行音乐最大的明星。下面本文将详细回顾他们的成名过程。

请参考以下情况：1963年末，美国根本没人听说过披头士（the Beatles）。然而，1964年2月9日，披头士参加《艾德苏利文秀（ The Ed Sullivan Show）》时吸引了7300万观众，创造了电视节目史上的最高记录。他们是如何闪电般征服了美国观众呢？我曾问过我的朋友莱尼•凯（Lenny Kaye）这个问题，他的回答是：“人们早就对60年代翘首以待了。”这话不无道理，不过还有更多原因促成了披头士的迅速成名。披头士在美国的火爆是多种因素共同作用的结果：艺术因素、社会因素、科技因素，以及乐队的坚持、娱乐圈的竞争和好到爆的运气。那么披头士是如何从天而降，然后在六个星期内变成了文化界最轰动一时的乐队的呢？

当然披头士并非真的从天而降，他们来自英格兰，而英格兰也是披头士热（Beatlemania）的发源地。英国人对披头士的推崇经过将近一年的发展才形成势头，不像美国人的狂热那般迅雷不及掩耳。在披头士的家乡利物浦，乐队名气很大，他们没发行唱片的时候就很有名了。自从披头士签了百代唱片公司（EMI）旗下的 Parlophone公司，1962年末就开始发行一系列的单曲：Love Me Do(《爱我吧》), Please Please Me（《请取悦我》），以及From Me to You（《让爱蔓延》），这些歌一首比一首卖的火。次年春末，Please Please Me在英国单曲榜上排名第一后，英格兰北部的人们对披头士的痴迷最先崭露头角，之后披头士的专辑几乎稳居榜首一整年。

披头士不断地巡演，从一个城镇到另一个城镇，到处都是女孩的尖叫，粉丝的追逐，到处都演绎着狂欢。8月末，披头士发行了单曲 She Loves You (《她爱你》)，这是乐队所有歌中最火的，也是世界最畅销的英国艺术家单曲。

那时的主流报纸对流行音乐还不怎么关注。事实上，6月份在保罗•麦卡特尼（Paul McCartney，披头士乐队成员）的生日聚会上，约翰•列侬（John Lennon，披头士乐队主唱）参与了一次斗殴，才使乐队首次成为英国的新闻头条。 “披头士成员参与斗殴--抱歉打了你”，《每日镜报（Daily Mirror）》的副刊上如是写道。

但是到了1963年夏末，媒体就迫不及待地想挖掘这四个年轻人的故事，毕竟来自英格兰穷乡僻壤的这四个人把年轻的英国女人们迷到了歇斯底里的地步。普罗富莫性丑闻（当时的政府因此而处在垮台的风口浪尖）发生后，又传出一连串令人发指的英国上层社会性出轨越轨事件，英国媒体沉浸于这种充满性事的话题，报道起来肆无忌惮。这种低俗内容很受英国大众的欢迎，而且成就了后来对性话题趋之若鹜的通俗小报。伦敦《泰晤士报（The Times of London）》如是描述道：“在本岛的上流社会，性一度是个禁忌话题，如今却变得举国皆知，占据着新闻头条。”披头士热的故事作为一种明显的性暗示（并无不妥），自然就免不了每日登上通俗小报。

起初，媒体的立场有些暧昧。9月份，《每日镜报》刊登了一篇关于披头士的新闻，标题是《令人痴狂的四个特洛小男爵（Four Frenzied Little Lord Fauntleroys）》（译者注：特洛男爵是可爱的小正太）。但是随后，在10月13日披头士热就席卷伦敦了。那天夜晚，披头士参加了瓦尔•帕内尔（ Val Parnell）主持的《伦敦帕拉丁剧院周日之夜（Sunday Night at the London Palladium）》节目，这是英国最大的电视综艺节目，节目现场挤满了成千上万尖叫的粉丝，他们阻断了道路，与警察争执，混乱持续了数小时。巧合的是，也是在这天《每日镜报》创造了新词“披头士狂热（Beatlemania）”，用以描述头一天乐队在切尔滕纳姆（Cheltenham）举行音乐会时的相似场面。（19世纪40年代出现了“李斯特狂热（Lisztomania）”一词，指的是人们对匈牙利作曲家弗朗兹•李斯特（Franz Liszt）的狂热，“披头士狂热”正是受了该词的影响。不久之后，就有严肃大报提出刊伪心理学论调。《星期日泰晤士报（Sunday Times of London）》直奔主题，它引用了一个少女接受BBC采访时的回答，当时BBC问该少女为什么仅仅是提到披头士就能令她疯狂，少女的回答是“这种事在广播上是没法说的”。

国会唱片于披头士：遥不可及

与此同时，美国对大洋彼岸发生的事还不以为意。1963年间，国会唱片公司（ Capitol Records，美国主要的唱片公司，Parlophone唱片公司的姐妹公司，同在百代唱片公司旗下，但国会唱片有权在美国签约Parlophone名下的产品）对披头士毫无兴趣。国会唱片公司国际艺术与作品部负责人戴夫•德克斯特（Dave Dexter）的品味很大程度上影响了这点，德克斯特负责筛选国会唱片的国际产品，寻找可能在美国热销的歌曲。国会唱片公司国际艺术与作品部的业绩相当出色：比如，1963年6月，它发行了百代唱片公司日本分处的一个唱片，即坂本九的Sukiyaki（《寿喜烧》），这首歌在美国的排名达到第一。但是摇滚乐是美国的音乐，况且国会唱片已经成功推出了海滩男孩（Beach Boys，美国乐队组合），而之前从来没有英国乐队能在美国市场站住脚。

此外，德克斯特本人不喜欢摇滚。作为在国会唱片成立之初就签了进来，在它名下待了20年的元老，他在多年前的一次内部会议上他就指责摇滚乐不过是“幼稚、过度重复的”内容，报怨音乐行业在被小孩子的品味牵着鼻子走。德克斯特偏爱爵士乐，成功签下了佩姬•李（Peggy Lee，20世纪40年代班尼•古德曼大乐队旗下的当红女星，美国爵士及流行乐坛最具代表性的女声之一），纳京高（Nat "King" Cole，美国抒情歌王），和斯坦•肯顿（Stan Kenton，美国横跨古典、流行、爵士乐的音乐大师）。

http://bcove.me/5ufm99ao

Parlophone 推荐给国会唱片的前两个最畅销单曲是Please Please Me和From Me to You，这两首歌都被德克斯特否决了，但被芝加哥独立唱片公司维杰伊唱片（Vee-Jay Records）签了下来，维杰伊唱片的律师保罗•马歇尔（Paul Marshall）也是百代唱片的美国律师。维杰伊唱片本该是披头士不错的归宿，因为它与四季乐队（Four Seasons，也是马歇尔的委托人）的合作取得了巨大成功。但是1963年初，维杰伊唱片公司董事长尤尔特•艾伯纳（Ewart Abner）在拉斯维加斯（美国城市）赌输了钱，就对公司财务做手脚，拿公款还私债，导致公司资金短缺。

1963年2月，维杰伊唱片发行Please Please Me之际，迪克•比昂迪（Dick Biondi）--芝加哥WLS电台TOP 40节目的DJ、艾伯纳的朋友--成为在美国播放披头士歌曲的首个DJ。比昂迪在节目上的播放也是三月份这首歌在WLS电台排名上升到35名的主要原因（乐队在45转唱片和商业广告上被误写作“The Beattles”，即多了个“t”），虽然这首歌还没有进入全国性榜单。

但是五月末，当维杰伊唱片发行下一首披头士单曲From Me to You时，比昂迪已经被WLS电台解雇了。一个月后，他在洛杉矶KRLA电台开始节目。虽然比昂迪已经不在维杰伊唱片所在的城市工作了，他仍继续支持着该公司发行的披头士单曲，而且在6月末说服了KRLA电台把From Me to You放在播放单上，尽管这个唱片在发行后一个月内并未引起全国性反响。这首歌在KRLA电台7月和8月份的调查榜上挂了六周，最好的排名是第33名，这也足以使它挤进Billboard的Bubbling Under Singles榜单，在这个排行榜上，From Me to You位列第116名。尽管如此，到1963年底，这首歌的唱片销量还不到1.5万。

美国摇滚歌手戴尔•夏侬（Del Shannon，1964年春曾与披头士一起在英格兰巡演）翻唱的From Me to You要比披头士版的表现好。夏侬的翻唱版在Billboard Hot 100榜上挂了四周，最好的排名是7月份的第77名，这也是约翰•列侬与保罗•麦卡特尼合创的歌曲首次登上该榜。要是没有比昂迪的帮助，夏侬的翻唱版也许会令披头士的原唱版永无出头之日。圣路易斯KXOK电台的节目制作导演给乔治•哈里森（George Harrison，披头士主音吉他手）的姐姐路易斯（KXOK电台DJ，住在美国伊利诺伊州本顿市，曾努力推广宣传弟弟的乐队）寄了封信，阐述了电台早期对夏侬的支持，并要求路易斯不再播放披头士的版本。

与此同时，由于渎职行为被揭发，艾伯纳被维杰伊唱片解雇，而这引起了马歇尔的怀疑。当时马歇尔刚从维杰伊唱片离职，并想在百代唱片那儿碰碰运气。8月，马歇尔作为百代唱片的在美授权公司——环球公司(Transglobal)的代理，指责维杰伊唱片没有支付版权税，并责令其暂停并终止发行披头士乐队的专辑，并撤销了该唱片公司未来对披头士的单曲销售权。此时维杰伊唱片欠披头士的销售版权税总共不到1000美元，但公司并不怎么在乎失去这支失败的乐队。相比之下，维杰伊唱片更担心由于马歇尔的游说，四季乐队会结束和维杰伊唱片的合同——因为他们同样欠四季乐队版权税，但马歇尔后来还是成功了。

与此同时，单曲She Loves You开始横扫英国金曲榜。由于已经和维杰伊唱片撤销合同，马歇尔带着火红的最新单曲去和国会唱片的戴夫•德克斯特接洽。尽管英伦乐团之声已经风靡于世，德克斯特仍再一次将披头士拒之门外，他推测维杰伊唱片的跳票正好证明了他最开始的拒绝是正确的。他形容这支乐队在美国的前途为“一潭死水”。

环球唱片将She Loves You授权给独立音乐制作公司费城天鹅唱片（Swan Records of Philadelphia），并于9月16日在美国本土发行。天鹅唱片甚至比维杰伊唱片更不走运：这首歌不但没能进入任何榜单，在播放时听众还怨声不绝。纽约文斯（WINS）广播电台的DJ默里•K（Murray the K）在9月28日的节目《热门单曲排行（battle of the hits）》中推荐了5首歌，She Loves You排在第3位。在随后一整周，默里•K每天晚上都播放这首歌，但反响甚微。天鹅唱片说服位于独立唱片家乡的美国《音乐台（American Bandstand）》在其节目《为唱片评分（Rate a Record）》中播放这首歌，最终仅得73分（100分制）。更糟的是，当音乐台主持人迪克•克拉克（Dick Clark）拿出一张留着披头士专有“蘑菇头”的乐团照片时，青少年们只觉得好笑。事已至此，克拉克回忆道：“我觉得这些人走投无路了。”

9月，天鹅唱片发行She Loves You的当日，哈里森前往美国伊利诺斯州去看望妹妹路易斯（Louise）。在当地，哈里森依然还完全是个普通路人。路易斯领着他的哥哥去了西法兰克福市的一家广播电台，还说服他表演了From Me to You。电台翻录了哈里森随身携带的From Me to You，而且让电台老板的17岁女儿在线上采访哈里森，但最终听众还是反响甚微。后来当哈里森混在当地一个名为Four Vests的乐团中，在舞会上演奏50年代摇滚歌曲时，甚至没人动念去找他要签名。【也许他在伊利诺斯州做的最有影响的事情就是买了R&B歌手詹姆斯•雷（James Ray）的一张专辑，专辑中收录了Got My Mind Set on You（《心有所属》）。将近25年后，哈里森翻唱的此曲成为迄今为止最后一首登上最热百首金曲榜首的披头士歌曲。】哈里森随后返回英格兰，觉得披头士在美国前途渺茫。

赢得皇室与埃德•苏利文的心

10月13日当乐队结束在《伦敦帕拉斯剧院周日之夜》的表演后，英国小报们陷入了歇斯底里的狂热，这同时引起了美国媒体的注意。10月29日，《华盛顿邮报》（ Washington Post ）的伦敦通讯员弗罗拉•路易斯（Flora Lewis）发布了首篇针对此风潮的文章，题目是《千万英国人的“骚乱”（ Thousands Of Britons 'Riot）》。文章指出在乐团近期表演的四个城市，都需要出动防暴警察来稳定群众情绪。路易斯在文中对乐团的音乐不屑一顾（他声称节奏不过是同样的“重复再重复”），同时把披头士的外形比作“倒挂的瘸腿扫把”。

10月底，由于乐团去瑞典巡回演出，英国人的狂热有所缓解。10月31日，当乐团雨中返回伦敦机场时，一千多个疯狂尖叫的粉丝将他们淹没。《纽约时报》称即使是喷气机的轰鸣也无法与粉丝的尖叫声相匹敌。那天同样在机场的埃德•苏利文还以为是某位皇室成员引起了骚动。当得知是披头士时，他问道：“披头士到底是谁?”。苏利文曾是八卦专栏作者，对好故事有敏感的嗅觉。而眼前的这番景象让他想起早年的猫王，多年前他曾在他的综艺节目上隆重推出猫王。或许是出于猎奇，他开始酝酿专访披头士。

11月4日，披头士作为皇家汇演的表演嘉宾在伦敦帕拉斯剧院登台。对英国媒体而言，这是个观念变革的时刻。他们笔下的披头士从野蛮大众迷恋的粗俗小生变成了可爱的“蘑菇头”少年。在万众瞩目的年度慈善宴会中，披头士应伊丽莎白女王的邀请登台表演，遗憾的是伊丽莎白女王因为怀着爱德华王子没能出席。但是最受爱戴的皇室成员，王太后出席了表演。据报道称她在披头士的演出中还因一直打错拍子而被玛格丽特公主伸手制止。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rvBCmY7wAAU

在令人陶醉的气氛中，列侬引出乐团结束曲Twist and Shout（《青春岁月》），他嘲讽道：“买低价票的观众给我点掌声好吗？至于其他人，玩你们的珠宝就行了。”迄今为止，还从没有一场直面皇室的表演这么莽撞冒失。然而，由于在台上拉近了君主和4人平民乐团的距离，列侬将贵族拉下神坛，并且让乐团更受英格兰人爱戴。彼时，英格兰群众对个人地位的观念正在迅速转变。甚至王太后也变成了披头士的粉丝，感叹他们“如此年轻、清新、有活力。”

从此以后，披头士几乎被追捧为国民英雄。11月2日，《每日电讯报（Daily Telegraph）》把披头士的音乐会和希特勒的纽伦堡党代会（Hitler's Nuremberg rallies）相提并论。在皇家汇演结束后的清晨，乐团被有爱的新闻媒体所认可，就像《每日镜报》所说的：“除非你是个彻底榆木脑袋，否则无法不爱上古灵精怪、聒噪无比、兴高采烈而又英俊潇洒的披头士。”成功是全方位的：在12月，《星期日泰晤士报》评论员理查德•巴克尔（Richard Buckle）还将他们的音乐和贝多芬相提并论。

尽管英格兰的披头士风暴与日俱增有目共睹，但美国出版商们在11月早期仍然看衰披头士。与此同时，德克斯特再一次拒绝了乐团的最新单曲。而这首I Want to Hold Your Hand（《执子之手》）在英国的预购销量则超过了100万张。皇室汇演的隔天，乐团经理布莱恩•爱普斯坦（Brian Epstein）前往纽约，从表面上看此行旨在推广他手下的另一个利物浦哥手比利•J•克拉默（Billy J. Kramer），后者已和自由唱片公司签约并陪同前往。但更重要的是，爱普斯坦已经下定决心要让披头士的美国事业走上正轨。

爱普斯坦纽约之行的部分工作重点将会是确保披头士能登上艾德苏利文秀。苏利文在英国的星探彼得•普理查德（Peter Pritchard）在今年年初就邀请了节目的演员统筹鲍勃•巴伯（Bob Babb）去观看披头士的表演，并持续向后者通报披头士乐团的最新进展。普理查德鼓励苏利文去和爱普斯坦会面。虽然披头士在伦敦的欢迎场面夺人眼球，但还是因为普理查德报告了皇室激赏披头士的事，苏利文才同意和爱普斯坦面谈。

两次会议后，他们做出了决定：披头士将会于2月9号和16号在《艾德苏利文秀》表演两集，节目会预录第三场表演用于日后播出。（这三次表演最后连续三周在电视上进行了播放。）在1956年，苏利文曾用类似的手段造就了猫王，在一个月内为他安排了三场演出。然而披头士从英国远道而来，时间紧张，为了避免来回机票的反复开销，就需要压缩披头士的亮相时间。

苏利文向来精于控制成本，而他对披头士尤其吝啬。他主持的演出秀上，一线艺人通常获得1万多美元的报酬，1956年炙手可热的猫王的三场表演则收入5万美元。由于披头士在美国尚属无名小卒，苏利文在与经纪人爱普斯坦的谈判中处于优势，并最终只为这三场演出支付1万美元。不过爱普斯坦也达到了既定目标：让披头士凭苏利文秀得到顶级宣传——三次。就这些安排而言，苏利文做出了前所未有的冒险，但是，正如苏利文之后在《纽约时报》采访中回忆的那样：“我当时下定决心告诉自己，当时也正是同样的疯狂举措造就了猫王风光。”

苏利文秀在CBS的黄金时段创造了连播23年共计16季的节目神话，凭借这一无人能及的成功，苏利文的个人名望如日中天，其名下节目的造星能力更是有目共睹。几个月以前，舞台音乐剧《欢乐今宵（Bye Bye Birdie）》的电影版就已经让苏利文名声大噪，他在里面饰演了以他为原型的角色。该片取材于表演过多次的同名音乐剧，以大教堂唱诗班风格，重点着墨于艺人亮相苏利文秀的里程碑意义。“埃德•苏利文”，电影里唱到，“我们马上就要参加埃德•苏利文秀了！”仅仅参加一次节目也许就能让一个幸运儿一炮而红，而参加三次则让爱普斯坦坚信披头士的成功将指日可待。

美国媒体初遇披头士

就披头士而言，仅靠在苏利文秀上的三次亮相并不足以改变他们在美国的运气。借助苏利文秀的宣传，爱普斯坦打算趁热打铁，反击国会唱片的漠视。然而接下来的事情众说纷纭，似乎是爱普斯坦主动找到国会唱片东海岸总监布朗•梅格思（Brown Meggs），与他商讨乐队的事宜，希望他能为披头士发行唱片。然而爱普斯坦不知道的是，在德克斯特第四次拒绝发行披头士的唱片后，百代唱片的总经理L.G.伍德（L.G. Wood）已经在默默地帮助披头士在国会发行唱片了。伍德担心国会唱片不愿意为披头士发行歌曲，便把国会唱片总裁阿兰•利文斯顿（Alan Livingston）从洛杉矶召来，并亲自飞去纽约会见。伍德以百代唱片董事长约瑟夫•洛克伍德（Joseph Lockwood）的名义，打破了僵局，要求利文斯顿同意在国会发行披头士的唱片。

利文斯顿被百代唱片的要求激怒了，心生不悦，因为他明白国会唱片对百代产品仅有优先取舍权，而没有许可权。作为一个相当成功的唱片公司人，他最大的成就包括签约弗兰克•辛纳屈（Frank Sinatra）和马戏团丑角（Bozo the Clown）【利文斯顿后来创办了唱片公司，并签约唐•麦克林（Don McLean）的American Pie（《美国派》）），利文斯顿已经习惯独裁管理国会唱片公司。然而事实是，百代拥有国会唱片96%的股份，利文斯顿只是一个雇员。伍德一直坚持到让利文斯顿同意发行披头士的唱片才散会。利文斯顿只答应为下一支单曲发行5000张唱片。直到后来，有消息称爱普斯坦成功让披头士参加了三次《苏利文秀》，国会唱片才开始大规模支持披头士，答应给4万美元的市场预算（相当于现在30万美元），这在当时对于新人来说是前所未有的待遇了。

然而这件事的来龙去脉在利文斯顿那里却截然不同：据他回忆，11月他收到了爱普斯坦的电话，问他为什么国会唱片不发行披头士的任何歌曲。利文斯顿说他从来没听过披头士的唱片，但考虑到当时的披头士正如日中天，其实这不太符合常理。此时，其实国会唱片持有披头士在美国发行唱片的权利，利文斯顿也经常和伍德联系，伍德大概挺支持利文斯顿发行这个乐队的唱片。决断权完全落入德克斯特手中，德克斯特顶住各方压力并且无人能干涉，这说法其实并不太可能。在与爱普斯坦聊天后，利文斯顿立场更加坚定，他让德克斯特给他带一些披头士的唱片来，听了过后，他立即意识到这支乐队将在美国大有市场，并且同意支付4万美元的市场预算。

（令人惊讶的是，尽管德克斯特不仅拒绝了披头士，还拒绝了格里与佩斯梅肯斯乐队（Gerry & the Pacemakers）、赫里斯合唱团（The Hollies）、动物乐队（The Animals）、戴夫•克拉克五人组（the Dave Clark Five）、赫尔曼的隐士们（Herman's Hermits）以及雏鸟乐队（the Yardbirds），更不用说爱普斯坦手下另一位艺人比利•J•克拉默了，但他依然稳坐国际A&R的第一把交椅。事实上，德克斯特依然负责 A&R对披头士美国市场的推广，并兼管英国唱片在国会唱片的重新编排。多年过后，列侬逝世了，德克斯特在Billboard上发表了一篇关于披头士后期情况的相当刻薄的文章，后来这个杂志社还为此道了歉。）

爱普斯坦的纽约之行刺促不休，包括接受《纽约客（New Yorker）》即将在下月出版的访谈，参观唱片公司，另外还要为克拉默作宣传，克拉默在《乔•富兰克林秀（The Joe Franklin Show）》上翻唱了披头士的Do You Want to Know a Secret（《你想知道一个秘密吗》），并且大放异彩。除了与苏利文的会谈，他最重要的事则是和来自大众艺术家公司（General Artists Corp）出经纪人希德•伯恩斯坦（Sid Bernstein）会面，此人执意预约那时尚未出头的披头士在纽约的卡内基音乐厅演出。

伯恩斯坦在纽约新学院上西方文明史专业的夜校时无意间注意到披头士，当时校方要求学生阅读英国报刊以便更好地了解议会制。如今他已是一名演出经纪人，必然会关注各种娱乐消息，那时披头士引发的群众热潮被媒体越来越多地报道。于是他联系到爱普斯坦，并在初秋时通过电话告诉他想让披头士在卡内基音乐厅举办演唱会。基于披头士在美国尚且籍籍无名，爱普斯坦对此犹豫不决，担心演出无人问津。对于举办一场无名小卒的演唱会，大众艺术家公司同样踌躇不前。

http://bcove.me/5ufm99ao

伯恩斯坦做了一个大胆的决定，他抛开大众艺术家公司自掏腰包为披头士租下了卡内基音乐厅，将演出日期定为2月12日。好像是命中注定，那正是披头士参加苏利文秀时间。伯恩斯坦确信一旦参加了苏利文秀，门票的销量将不成问题。然而爱普斯坦直到1月1日后才正式同意举办演唱会，伯恩斯坦将他们的谈话视作同意，并开始着手租下卡内基音乐厅。当音乐厅的工作人员问他披头士是什么样的人物时，伯恩斯坦意识到这个地方可能不太愿意租给流行乐队，便说“他们是一个时代的标志。”他并未料到，事实更胜如此。

与此同时，美国媒体逐渐被英国人的披头士狂热所感染。11月中旬的某一周，乐队被美国新闻和电视节目大量报道：11月15日，《时代杂志》出版了《全新的疯狂（The New Madness）》，三天后，《新闻周刊》发表了一篇标题为《披头士狂热（Beatlemania）》的文章。美国三家电视广播公司全都派遣了摄影组来报道披头士11月15日在伯恩茅斯的演唱会。和往常一样，粉丝们因为太疯狂而和警察发生了冲突。

再一次，好运降临在了披头士的头上：在两个月以前，CBS（美国哥伦比亚广播公司）和NBC（美国全国广播公司）就双双把夜间新闻节目从15分钟时长加长到半小时。这使得他们有了多余的时间来报道有关披头士的消息，在此之前，晚间新闻从未播报过这种轻松的娱乐新闻。11月18日，NBC首次打破惯例，在著名的《亨特利-布林克利报道（Huntley-Brinkley Report）》里用了4分钟的时间专门报道披头士狂热现象。与之相应的是，爱德温•纽曼（Edwin Â-Newman）的节目则更侧重于狂热的歌迷，尽管他还是用了30秒的时间来播放From Me to You，以及这首歌在伯恩茅斯演唱会上的实况片段——歌声几乎被听众的尖叫声所覆盖。“披头士之所以这么红，”纽曼打趣道，“是因为你几乎听不到他们在唱什么。”

披头士的第二张录音室专辑 With the Beatles 于11月22日在英国发行，同一天CBS报道了披头士16日的那场伯恩茅斯演唱会。（ABC的新闻播报时长还是原来的15分钟，也就未曾播放这场演唱会的新闻。）CBS这天早上做了这篇报导的预告，放在由迈克•华莱士主持的《CBS早间新闻 (CBS Morning News)》里。完整的4分钟报导将会出现在沃尔特•克朗凯特主持的《晚间新闻秀》上。但那晚的晚间新闻里却没有这篇报导的身影。随着约翰•F•肯尼迪（John F. Kennedy）总统遇刺的消息，一切仿佛都停滞了。

15岁女孩开启电台披头士热

肯尼迪遇刺身亡让整个美国社会陷入了情绪低迷的恍惚状态。也许再也没有其他哪一个社群比这个国家的年轻人更受打击，对他们而言肯尼迪代表了理想和乐观。这场刺杀之后的美国年轻人，无一不感到震惊，悲伤，幻灭。

符咒般的悲伤沉重地笼罩这个国家，急需被打破。但刺杀行动后, 各地的Top40排行榜里同样充斥着悲痛，无法慰藉人心。巧合的是，就在这个国家首位信奉天主教的总统遇刺之后，一首歌颂某位罗马天主教修会创始人的法语民谣，稳稳地坐上了Billboard的冠军宝座。这首名为 Dominique (《多明尼克》) 的民谣由艺名为“歌唱修女”（the Singing Nun)的比利时修女路卡碧修女（Sister Luc-Gabrielle) 创作并录制而成。彼时，再无任何一首歌能如此直击美国人民的内心。这首朴实无华的民谣在那一年里持续称霸Billboard，也加深了国民的抑郁。

在肯尼迪身亡的随后几周里，《CBS 晚间新闻（CBS Evening News)》一条接一条地播着坏消息，克朗凯特开始觉察到了国民整体郁郁寡欢的氛围。最后他决定，是时候播放些好玩的东西来打破这种沉重了。但放眼整个文化产业都找不到任何振奋人心的内容。这时，有人想起了那篇本该在刺杀当晚播放的，关于英国小屁孩们是如何为一群长发摇滚乐手的疯狂新闻。

12月10日，《CBS 晚间新闻》终于播放了披头士这篇四分钟长的报导。由于总统遇刺，CBS 延后了这篇报导。而继《泰晤士报》、《新闻周刊》和NBC之后，同样先行报导披头士的还有《生活杂志（ Life magazine）》。这份全美最受欢迎的杂志将歌唱修女和披头士的两篇专题紧挨着编排在一起，讲述着流行乐的现在与未来，并附上玛格丽特公主接见 “当红炸子鸡”披头士的照片。就连一向古板的《纽约时报》也发表了一篇名为《不列颠人向披头士热潮臣服（Britons Succumb To Beatlemania）》的长篇文章。同CBS那篇报导一样，这篇文章在刺杀前就已写成，一直搁浅至十二月初。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ehNn4v9QxB0

CBS这篇由伦敦分社社长艾伦•肯德里克（Alan Kendrick）报导的新闻跟其他媒体的差不了多少：尖叫的青少年，11月4日的皇家大汇演，以及翻着白眼对此现象大惑不解的记者。但它同时也包括NBC所没有的两个亮点：记者乔希•达尔萨（Josh Darsa）对披头士的独家访谈，以及伯恩茅斯演唱会上披头士She Loves You的现场版。虽然肯德里克的报导方式带着对披头士的不屑，认为他们“无论从音乐还是发型上都很不伦不类”，但是那段She Loves You的影片真实而又引人入胜。而肯德里克傲慢的语调也让美国青少年们意识到，披头士有多受英国年轻人的欢迎，美国的那些大人们就有多烦披头士——而这恰好又是一大卖点，注定要激起美国青少年的好奇心。

尽管此次克朗凯特的《CBS 晚间新闻》在收视率上输给了NBC的《亨特利-布林克利报道》，但这篇披头士的新闻还是在晚间时段吸引了1千万观众。那晚的观众之一便是CBS的另一位名嘴艾德•苏利文。克朗凯特回忆说，当晚放送结束后苏利文马上给他打电话, 问关于“那几只甲壳虫，还是什么虫的”，他还知道些什么。虽然此前苏利文已经承诺要做披头士的专题节目，但他只是把这支乐队当成个笑话。而现在看到披头士上了克朗凯特的节目，他终于对这个乐队另眼相待。

三天后——也就是是CBS与爱普斯坦会面一个月后 ——CBS发布了一篇新闻公告，宣布披头士，这个“极受欢迎的四人乐队，英国的唱片之星，将于2月7日第一次来到美国，并在2月9日及16日的这两个星期天进行他们的美国电视首秀，亮相艾德苏利文秀。”公告接着回顾了披头士在全美所受到的大量媒体报导，包括每次都必提及的英国皇室对披头士的喜爱。它也提到“披头士的唱片将于一月首次在美国发行”，证实了一周前国会唱片的一则业内公告，这则公告其实已经透露了披头士将出演艾德苏利文秀。

观看了克朗凯特那晚的节目的还有来自马里兰州银泉(Silver Spring, Md.)的15岁小女孩，玛莎•艾伯特。她给华盛顿特区WWDC电台的DJ卡罗尔•詹姆斯（Carroll James）写了一封信，问他 “为什么美国不能有那样的音乐呢？” 同样看了那期节目的詹姆斯和艾伯特也有着一样的困惑，他致电给在英国海外航空公司(现在的英国航空公司)工作的一位朋友。两天后这个朋友请一位空姐从英国带回一张 I Want to Hold Your Hand 的唱片，并送到了詹姆斯的电台。詹姆斯随即邀请艾伯特来上他的节目，作为额外的款待。于是在12月17日这天的WWDC电台节目中，艾伯特宣布，“女士们先生们，以下是全美电台首播，请欣赏由披头士演唱的 I Want to Hold Your Hand 。”

音乐结束时，电台的接线机上亮满了来电提示，听众们纷纷表示想再听一次。WWDC电台开始循环播放这首歌，并在歌曲中间插入“WWDC独家”的旁白，以免特区的其他电台盗录播放。第二天，这个地区的唱片店被询问的声音淹没，为的就是这张唱片商们连名字都没听过，更没有进货的唱片。之后詹姆斯翻录了一盘磁带，寄给芝加哥一家电台的DJ朋友，经他播放后芝加哥同样反响热烈。这名朋友便也翻录一盘寄给圣路易斯市的另一名DJ，I Want to Hold Your Hand 一如既往的反响空前。

为什么詹姆斯在12月17日那天只放了一遍披头士，便让他们如此受欢迎，而披头士之前在美国发布的那些单曲反响却没有如此热烈呢？原因之一就是，在肯尼迪遇刺之后的那段黑暗时期里披头士恰好成了一剂良药。就如莱斯特•班斯（Lester Bangs）那年冬天所写的，“守丧之后我们需要好好纵情玩乐一番。” 一个与众不同、令人欢欣鼓舞甚至欣喜若狂的东西，便是这剂良药。现在回想起来，显然这剂良药必需来自这个仍沉浸在哀悼中的国度之外——来自美国以外的异域。

原因之二则是，美国媒体对英国的披头士热潮的大量关注恰恰暗示了美国青少年应如何看待这支乐队。虽然披头士的前几首单曲都凭空冒出而且以失败告终，但如果要说自WWDC电台播放披头士以来，披头士得到的美国媒体关注只是不同寻常，便是大大低估了披头士。单单是通过上克朗凯特的节目和《亨特利-布林克利报道》，他们便能在随后吸引超过2千万的美国人观看披头士热潮的新闻。

现今流行文化的消费者已经很难想象被网络信息充斥到饱和前的世界是个什么样子，更别提MTV、《今晚娱乐(Entertainment Tonight)》、《人物杂志（People）》、和滚石乐队（Rolling Stone）之前的了。但是在1963年，电台放送、青少年杂志的报道和偶尔的连线采访就是流行乐者可能获得的全部。就算是上电视也只限于《美国音乐台》节目, 或是各州各市的类似节目。只有一首单曲足够火，才有可能在三大电视台的黄金档综艺节目上登台表演。

但披头士却能在一夜之间风靡大街小巷。披头士在英国掀起热潮的故事在美国几乎家喻户晓，而这也更加激起了美国人民对于他们狂热的喜爱。在纽约时报上介绍披头士热潮的文章中，有一幅漫画将这种狂热表现了出来：画面上，一个女孩用留声机播放着披头士的唱片，她边听边对大惑不解的父亲说：“听听，老爹，待会儿你就会尖叫了。这就是披头士声音的魔力啊！”

只要你听到披头士的音乐，就一定会尖叫。粉丝们在听见音乐前，就已经对乐队抱以极大的反响了。而当你发现，他们的音乐也极其优秀时，关于国民抑郁症和英国披头士热潮之间的抉择，就完全变成了一个不用思考的问题。

科技点燃导火线

除了国会唱片，全民都选择了披头士热潮。唱片公司本预计在1964年1月13日发行I Want to Hold Your Hand。而在唱片上架前，詹姆斯就在华盛顿WWDC电台上播放这首单曲的事情成了本次唱片发行的潜在危机。那时的音乐行业还未像多年后一样，在唱片发行前就先在电台公布单曲以拉动需求。在当时，唱片发行前泄露单曲，就犹如从一口忘记盖上盖子的油井喷涌出的石油——全部浪费了。于是，国会唱片公司召集律师，向WWDC发出了勒令停止通知函，命其停止播放该唱片。而电台明确拒绝了——他们说,这是当代最火的唱片，WWDC有权独家播放。与此同时，詹姆斯还将唱片翻录成磁带寄给其他城市的DJ们播放。而且在每一个电台都得到了出乎意料的反响。最终，国会唱片公司妥协了，并决定将唱片发行日期尽可能地提前至 12月26日。

做了这个决定后，国会唱片公司已经骑虎难下，他们估计需要加紧订制的唱片量比预计的20万张还要多得多。随着圣诞节的临近，工厂一直加班加点的赶制唱片。国会唱片公司甚至聘请了一些竞争对手旗下的工厂来参与制作。

后来证明，将发行日期提前是国会唱片公司在这次发行活动中做出的最关键的决定，它使得之后的一切都有了可能。假如艾伯特没有给詹姆斯写信，加速故事的发生，就不会有窗口让粉丝们了解披头士，然后疯狂地爱上他们，乐队也就不会去美国，更不会有在二月份的艾德苏利文秀上，披头士取得的让人震惊的好成绩。而现在，一切都进展得如此之快。

12月23日，国会唱片的国内专辑销售经理保罗•罗素（Paul Russell）发出一份职员备忘录，上面概述了针对披头士的营销计划。这份计划在当时是很典型的一份唱片营销计划，几乎所有的营销策略都是针对业界人士，而非听众的。一个预计在12月30号刊登在Billboard上，足足两页的名为“遇见披头士！（Meet the Beatles）”的广告，将被复印成多份并分发给各个电台和零售商们。这份广告将以易拉宝的形式出现在各个唱片商店的收银台位置。分发给电台和零售商们的，还有披头士四位成员的动态模型显示屏，模型上四个成员一起前后晃着脑袋。这个模型制作得非常精美，我们还可以在梅索斯兄弟执导的关于披头士第一次美国之行的纪录片中看到它。

以今天的标准来看，当时国会唱片的营销手段似乎有些奇怪：他们要求所有的营业员和电台工作人员在工作时都要戴上披头士的假发，就连零售商和DJ们也不例外。职员备忘录上写道：“适时地戴上披头士经典假发，你会发现你正在推动披头士发型热潮，它马上就要快速席卷全国。”他们甚至还制作了无数张贴纸，上面打着大标题“披头士要来啦！”上面的图片上，员工们都顶着和披头士一样的发型。贴纸下方还有说明：“让披头士出现在每一条街，让披头士出现在电台中，让披头士出现在零售商店里，我们非常希望营业员们可以将这些贴纸贴在任何可以贴的地方。你可以请当地的高中生让这些贴纸传播起来，或者叫上你的亲朋好友来帮忙。”

当时，国会采用了这个营销计划，但其实，这种营销是完全没必要的。利文斯顿后来报道称：“国会唱片公司都没怎么花那4万美元的预算。自I Want to Hold Your Hand于12月26日发行之日起，这张唱片完全是靠自身实力在卖。”

圣诞节假期，国会唱片不允许员工休假。12月26日，国会唱片突然行动，早上9点前，公司将披头士的45转唱片单曲碟交给了几个重要电台。还不到中午，各地的Top40节目都纷纷开始播放这张唱片。唱片商店立刻被围得水泄不通，青少年们蜂拥冲进商店想花掉自己的圣诞节零花钱。一位纽泽西的零售商告诉Billboard：“一开店就像炸开了锅一般。”

将唱片发行日期提前有一个出乎意料的好处。在1964年，美国青少年每天平均会听3小时以上的电台节目。而因为圣诞假期的关系，孩子们都返校回家了，那么收听时间就更长了。另外一个同样重要的原因就是，当时收音机价格非常低，圣诞夜里，孩子们床头的长袜里塞的礼物往往就是一台收音机。

尽管收音机从50年代中期开始流行，但日产收音机出现了很多便宜的山寨货，随着便宜山寨货的出现，日产半导体收音机的销售在60年代中期爆炸式地增长。1962年，美国销售了五百五十万个收音机，到了1963年，这个数字就翻倍至一千万。收音机作为一个节日礼物盛行在1963年，当时一位流行的喜剧音乐家艾伦.谢尔曼（Allan Sherman）录制了一首诙谐的改编曲目《12 Days of Christmas(圣诞节12天)》，歌曲主要围绕着“在圣诞节第一天，收到一个收音机”的故事展开，在每一节歌词中又详细描述了这个收音机：“这是一只中岛牌收音机/它属于马克4型号。就是停止生产的那一款/它还有一个人造革的皮套，皮套上有洞，带上了皮套也能收听/它还有一根长长的线，线一端的小东西可以放在你的耳朵里。”

收音机就是点燃60年代青少年文化导火索的星星之火。就像近十年的互联网一样，是一种传递与分享音乐的载体。就像80年代的随身听，它让音乐变成了一种可以随身携带的私人物品，激起了无数听众的兴趣。你可以带它到任何地方——学校、海滩，只要你愿意，哪都可以——然后和你的朋友分享好音乐。你也可以戴着耳机走在街道上，坐在教室最后或者夜晚时分躺在床上，躲进被子里，这样爸爸妈妈就不知道了。

之前的收音机不能携带，也没有耳塞。此后随着技术发展，音响、随身听、iPod相继出现，或增强分享性，或增强私人性，但却没有两者兼顾的。在梅索斯（The Maysles）的纪录片中，披头士们到哪里都带着自己的百事牌收音机，有时公放，有时通过耳机收听各地的Top40节目。有一次，披头士在酒店套房里接受一个DJ的采访，并同时收听这次访谈的实时直播。

所以，尽情试想一下，全美国的青少年都在1963年的圣诞假期中打开他们的新收音机听上几个小时，在任何一个地方，或独自一人，或和他们的朋友一起，一遍又一遍地听着。这种全新的音乐甚至比他们的新收音机更吸引他们。

就在专辑发行的头三天，I Want to Hold Your Hand就卖出去了25万张，披头士也瞬间成为全国上下最具话题性的组合。DJ们纷纷向听众表示，乐队将会在二月份来到美国，让这兴奋持续升温吧！

抵制加剧狂热

与此同时，大人们的抵制也开始了。同年12月29日，《巴尔的摩太阳报（Baltimore Sun）》不想看到披头士狂热在美国得以复制而发表了一篇总结成年人观点的评论：“美国最好想清楚应该怎么应对这股入侵。答案也许就是简短的一句，‘让披头士滚回老家'。”

唐纳德•弗里曼（Donald Freeman）在《芝加哥论坛报（Chicago Tribune）》上嘲讽道 :“他们看起来像是留着伊什•卡比柏（Ish Kabibble，美国40年代喜剧演员）发型的四人版《三个臭皮匠》（the Three Stooges美国知名喜剧）”，并把他们跟40年代一些最不修边幅的艺人相提并论。“如果他们去一个喜欢音乐的理发师那里理发，理发师会气得“咔嚓咔擦”剪掉他们的头发，让他们再无法作怪。

受到成年人倨傲的批评正是青少年喜爱披头士的又一原因：“他们惹恼了大人们！这是属于我们的东西，和混乱的成人世界毫不沾边”。国会唱片很清楚成年人的非难对煽动青少年狂热情绪的作用，并把太阳报（the Sun）的评论写进了自己的新闻稿中。

当然，在那个年代，摇滚——引用苏利文在直播中对摇滚艺术的经典的评价——就是“小孩的玩意儿”。因此，披头士的异军突起自然而然地让几乎所有的成年砖家叫兽们捂耳痛斥了。其中批评的最厉害的当属NBC电视台主持人杰克•帕尔（Jack Parr）。由于他在周五综艺秀上嘲弄这个乐队的行为，他“成功地”将披头士狂热推向了一个新的高度。

帕尔参与了11月的皇室大汇演，并且认为关于披头士喧嚣实在荒诞。和很多成年人一样，他觉得摇滚很幼稚，也从未让摇滚表演上过他的节目。但是，当帕尔的竞争对手苏利文宣布披头士会在他二月的节目上出现时，帕尔决定抢得先机。他从BBC那里获得了披头士的影像使用权并发表了一篇新闻稿宣布他才将是第一个让这支乐队上台表演的人。（这个举动实际上让苏利文一度想取消披头士的节目，但他思虑再三，还是保留了这个当时最流行的乐队的演出。全美主持Top40节目的DJ们激动万分地向他们的听众表示：披头士这支大多数美国粉丝除了照片还没有见过真人的乐队，将要在杰克•帕尔秀上完成他们的电视首演。

说起披头士在帕尔秀上的表演，人们往往认为是不足道的。连NBC也不买账，因为历史证明帕尔错了，他承认他将披头士“像个笑话”一样展示出来。除了电台对披头士的疯狂宣传外，1月3日帕尔秀上披头士的表演成为了下个月艾德苏利文秀上披头士表演获得狂热关注的最主要原因。正如乐队制作人乔治•马丁（George Martin）在1964年5月《综艺（Variety）》的采访中所说的那样，帕尔才是那个“引起孩子们好奇”的人。

帕尔的节目每周从10点开始直播，平均能够吸引1700万观众，其中绝大多数是上了年纪的。但是由于披头士的表演，那一周节目的观众数量涨至3000万。以往，帕尔的节目收视率甚至都排不进全美前30，但是1月3号这期节目则吸引了3400万观众的目光，收视率几乎达到和全美第一持平的水准。

节目中披头士的演出部分从播放他们在英国的演唱会上粉丝歇斯底里尖叫的镜头开始，并辅以帕尔满是嘲弄的感叹“我想科学技术正在试图拯救这些人”，引发了演播室里观众的阵阵笑声。接着他就像承诺的那样，播出了披头士在美国电视上表演的第一支完整歌曲。这首歌就是She Loves You，表演从BBC的纪录片上截取下来，在演出中播放。节目工作人员让镜头在表演和伯恩茅斯秀上尖叫的粉丝之间来回切换。就在I Want To Hold Your Hand震惊市场一周之后，千百万人又受到了She Loves You的冲击。对披头士的美国粉丝来说，帕尔的节目简直具有启示录式的意义。

这对天鹅唱片公司来说也是启示录式的事情。据公司主席伯尼•比尼克（Bernie Binnick）所说：“唱片在第二周周一引发巨大反响”，天鹅唱片也顺应潮流，迅速发行了一批唱片。如果说I Want To Hold Your Hand依靠电台放送的优势在市场上大卖，那么天鹅唱片发行的She Loves You则有着一鸣惊人的优势，在帕尔秀上的表演让这首歌瞬间成为热门曲目，并与I Want To Hold Your Hand争夺全美播放次数最多的歌曲宝座。

国会唱片公司则笑不出来，因为帕尔的节目让一首竞争对手公司的歌曲受到极大关注。在那一年1月20号的新闻稿上，国会唱片批评帕尔的节目“很明显试图抢占其宿敌艾德•苏利文的先机”。披头士狂热现象的发生从来也不在国会唱片的掌控之中，不过他们的这一举动更加确保了披头士狂热永远不会出自国会之手。

四首夺人耳目的歌

于是，国会唱片原先拒绝发行披头士唱片的做法却歪打正着将原先在唱片公司一次一张单曲政策之下形成的披头士狂热之风煽动的更为猛烈。就在帕尔秀播出的当天，维杰伊唱片将Please Please Me和From Me To You作为双面单曲CD发行，并让它们在广播上首播。1964年1月，同时有四首披头士的单曲在电台里循环播放，这使乐队在听众中的影响力呈指数倍上涨。终于，青少年喜欢的不再是一首披头士的单曲，他们爱上了这支乐队。

帕尔秀结束后一周，维杰伊唱片又发行了披头士在美国的第一张专辑Introducing The Beatles（《介绍披头士》），这张唱片原本准备在1963年夏季发行，却由于唱片公司的经济危机而暂时搁浅。针对此举，国会唱片申请到了对该唱片公司的一纸禁令，宣称维杰伊唱片在运营执照被吊销之后就失去了对披头士作品的所有权。禁令使得维杰伊发行的这几张唱片都无法继续贩售，但却无法阻止DJ们不断循环播放这些歌。2月5日，维杰伊唱片赢得了法庭的有利裁决，公司得以继续售卖唱片。由于这一延迟，当Please Please Me以及From Me To You在二月上旬初次登上Hot 100榜时，他们已经成为了电台的当红曲目。Please Please Me排在榜单第三，紧随I Want to Hold Your Hand和he Loves You的脚步。

就在维杰伊唱片终于能够把Introducing The Beatles再次摆上货架之时，国会唱片已经在1月20号发行了Meet The Beatles！。于是，在这三周半的时间内，市场彻底被这三首单曲和两张唱片所占领。Introducing The Beatles仅次于 Meet The Beatles，后者在 Introducing The Beatles 下架的那段空白期里早已大卖50万张。

很明显12月26日发行的 I Want to Hold Your Hand 几乎在它发行的当日就成为全美最畅销的单曲，但是榜单的滞后性使得Billboard和Cashbox在数周之后才得以反映这一事实。Cashbox基于1月5号到1月11号的实际销量将其列为次年1月24号榜单的第一名。那一周是自单曲发行以来，首次没有被假期中断的一周，因此完整的数据得以上报并进行统计处理。这也是自单曲发行以来唯一没有被假期所影响销量，并且数据得以上报并进行统计处理的一周（Billboard在后一周也将这首歌列为Hot 100榜单的第一）。

那时候像Billboard和Cashbox这类榜单是完全给业内人士看的，听众基本上无法得知排名。青少年更为熟悉的是美国音乐台这个节目的排名。但就在国会唱片的这首单曲发行5天之前，费城电视台放送的美国音乐台停播了，直到1964年2月才在洛杉矶重新放送。至节目恢复正常时，I Want to Hold Your Hand已经稳居榜单第一名宝座有一段时间了。

因此, 青少年们只能够靠他们当地电台的排行榜去追随唱片潮流。到了一月的第一周，纽约WABC电台成为了第一家将I Want to Hold Your Hand"列为榜首的电台。WABC拥有一档覆盖全美大部分地区的夜间节目，使得乐队唱片的名声如野火般蔓延。接下来的一个礼拜，这首歌也首次排上了KRLA 电台榜单第一，再一个礼拜后又登顶洛杉矶KFWB电台榜单。

这首歌如此快速窜上榜单更多是因为电台的排名方法而不是歌曲在市场上的实际火热程度。基本上，电台只要发觉这首歌已经超越了排在前列的的歌曲，而且是市场上最火热的歌曲时，就会把这首歌排到榜首。

这样一支刚刚涉足美国市场的乐队，从默默无闻到一下子无人不知，超越了之前所有得到大众认可的乐队。在英国，这只乐队不停地巡回演出，仅在1963年的一个秋天就唱遍了34个城市；发布了许多的单曲；举办了自己的一周电台秀；并无数次出现在电视上，这一切都还是发生在披头士狂热潮爆发之前。在美国，国会唱片一发行他们的第一首单曲，组合就达到了他们在英国的顶点。

当时摇滚正因为贿赂丑闻和许多主要明星的陨落：巴迪•霍利（Buddy Holly）悲剧早逝（1959 年因飞机失事），猫王(Presley)被征入美国军队，以及查克•贝里(Chuck Berry)入狱（1962年，查克•贝里试图将一名14岁女孩偷渡过美国边境），而变得失去影响力。因此流行乐历史常常将美国消费者欢迎披头士的原因归于他们把摇滚带回了电台。但是这并不确切。披头士的声音当然是新鲜的，但是广播里并不是没有其他摇滚歌手的声音。摩城唱片（Motown）正变得无所不在，海滩男孩组合也不断创作出金曲，就在那时，金斯曼乐队(the Kingsmen)的《路易，路易》（Louie Louie）在Billboard榜单持续六周排名第二，那首单曲本可以收录到几个月后本土的第一张滚石唱片中。

当披头士在2月7日登陆美国时，电视和报纸媒体都癫狂了。就在乐队在帕尔秀上的表演之后，苏利文在直播中大肆炒作披头士即将在一月中旬亮相。深夜脱口秀主持人将他们的独白融入了披头士的笑话。还有，一周有4千万读者的《生活杂志》在1月31日发表了题为《披头士来了》的长达七页、图文并茂的文章。文中写道：“英国首先沉沦，成为了百万少女尖叫声的受害者。然后于上个礼拜，巴黎也投降了。现在美国必须做好准备，披头士来了。”

在电台中，每个听众都想对乐队更为了解。在一月末，国会唱片发布了为电台事先准备好的对披头士的采访。光盘中没有包含任何问题，只有披头士自己的回答，好让当地的DJ假装自己在进行采访。为了寻找更多的披头士的唱片，电台转向了I Want to Hold Your Hand 唱片的反面I Saw Her Standing There（《我看见她站在那里》），以及维杰伊和天鹅唱片的反面。每个电台都对需要披头士的音乐，以至于刚刚还为了 R&B版块放弃了流行乐的芝加哥WYNR电台，还打算为了将披头士的专辑加入播放列表而破例。另外的R&B电台和一些中立态度（MOR）的电台也开始这样做。

毫无疑问的，披头士就这样站在了文化的最狂热的中心。到一月底，他们就已经售出两百六十万张唱片。那时他们的事业真正起航了。

登陆日到来了

在披头士即将到来的那几天里，青少年们想时时掌握乐队到达刚刚重新命名的肯尼迪机场的消息，纽约各个电台互相你争我夺，试图成为这些青少年的选择。那些。每个城市的三个Top40电台都定时广播披头士从伦敦来的航班的最新情况，并承诺记者会在停机坪上迎接披头士四人组，提供实时报道。国会唱片公司保证提前给DJ们提供准确的信息，包括预定的到达时间和下机口号码。毫无疑问的，在机场安保开始的前几天，粉丝们随着泛美航空（Pan Am）飞机临近东海岸而不断蜂拥入机场。

在二月七日下午1点20分时，披头士终于通过泛美航空101航班到了美国大陆。受到了大约4000名青少年高分贝尖叫的欢迎，另外还有超过200名记者、摄像以及100名左右的警员。这些人群比苏利文三个月前偶然在伦敦机场看见的人群还要更多更激动。在机场内的那场著名的记者招待会中，披头士的魅力与智慧粉碎了在那个时代记者对摇滚乐手的不屑，也打消了人们对他们的疑虑。如果说发布会有不完美的地方，就是那些问迂腐问题的笨蛋记者们——“你们喜欢贝多芬吗？”——对此披头士耍起了了他们招牌的厚脸皮招数——“他很棒，”林格•斯塔（Ringo Starr）回答道，“特别是他的诗。”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1Df-LvrRcEo

记者招待会结束后，乐队前往了曼哈顿，狂热的粉丝们在高速路上一路追随，不停地从汽车窗外对乐队尖叫。刚抵达广场酒店，披头士们他们就发现了上千名粉丝们正在等待他们，而这些粉丝则是收听了DJ从国会唱片直接获得的披头士行踪的信息。

披头士的到来占据了那一天晚间新闻的主要版面。克朗凯特在CBS上的报道比第一次写的表现出了更多的尊重：“这次英伦入侵的代码是’披头士狂热’”克朗凯特说，“登陆日在近几个月中早已人尽皆知，而现在这一天到来了。”也许因为他是将这支乐队带入美国人眼球的人，觉得为乐队付出了心血，抑或是因为这个乐队将要在苏利文的CBS秀上出现，克朗凯特也成为了一名披头士的信徒。相反地，美国NBC电台是反披头士的，而且在爱德温•纽曼十一月的文章和帕尔一月的广播中，切•亨特（C het Huntley）不厌其烦地对披头士吹毛求疵。他对观众们解释道，NBC已经“派了三组摄像去站在尖叫的年轻人中为下一代录下此情此景。照片看起来很棒，但是当有人问这样的小题大做是为了什么的时候，我们却无法回答。好了，NBC新闻祝大家晚安。”这个节目结束时亨利也没展示任何镜头。

接下来的一天，每个报纸都报道了披头士到来的新闻。在乐队到访美国的过程中《纽约时报》每天至少发表一篇关于披头士的文章。美国发行量最大的《纽约每日新闻》刊载的关于披头士此次访美行踪的图片，足以让无数的女孩贴满她们的卧室。林登•约翰逊（Lyndon Johnson）总统到访纽约的新闻虽然已经被总结处理好了，却只被《纽约每日新闻》降级编入了内页。

在他们具有历史意义的肯尼迪机场记者招待会上，一个戴着草帽的陌生人举着麦克风挤到人群最前面，喋喋不休地询问披头士私人问题。这个人根本不是记者，而是纽约WINS电台的DJ默里•K，他想要通过抢夺乐队的注意力而为自己的电台获得独家披头士采访原声。最后有人大喊道：“谁可以让默里•K别废话了？”在这时，披头士都看向默里•K，喊道：“别废话了。”麦卡特尼还模仿纽约口音补充道：“Hey，默里！”给了他最好的独家原声片断。就这样默里开始了他短暂的作为“第五个披头士成员”的生涯。

默里•K能在1964年工作于WINS电台广播完全得于侥幸。4年前，电台的夜间DJ艾伦•弗里德（Allen Freed）由于贿赂丑闻而被开除，默里才接任了这份工作。1962年电台被西屋公司收购前，默里获得过巨大的成功，就像汤姆•沃尔夫（Tom Wolfe）在一篇披头士乐队来访结束后出版的著名特写中说的那样，他是“独创的歇斯底里风DJ”。新东家不再将此节目与歌曲榜单排名相关联，但由于一份现有的劳动合同而被要求保留了一部分老广播员，默里的名气就此一路下滑。而披头士到来时，默里的节目收听排名已经落后于他的两个对手，即WMCA电台的 DJ杰克•斯佩克特（Jack Spector）和WABC电台的DJ“布鲁斯表弟”•莫罗（"Cousin Brucie" Morrow）。

默里非常幸运，他与维罗妮卡•班纳特（Veronica Bennet）的罗尼特（Ronettes）关系密切，罗尼特的乐队刚从英国巡演回来，他们在英国认识了披头士。记者招待会一结束，默里就找到了班纳特【未来的罗妮•斯佩克特（Ronnie Spector）】，问她和罗尼特愿不愿意带他去广场酒店见一见披头士乐队，班纳特答应了他。默里最大可能地利用了这次机会，成为了披头士在美国的非官方向导，得到了独家采访，且在接下里的几天里在三个广播台逐步增加了宣传力度。

WMCA电台成功地将哈里森的妹妹路易斯争取了过来，说服她给正在广场酒店病床上的哈里森（他得了扁桃腺炎没有去苏利文秀的彩排）打电话约独家采访，WABC电台甚至将自己改名为“WAB头士C”电台（“WABeatleC”）。三个电台都派DJ们去广场酒店前扎堆露营，报道关于披头士的任何行踪，三个电台也在为谁可以激起听众最大的兴趣而斗争。而默里的秀却成了披头士粉丝在乐队纽约巡演时的必看新闻，因为起码有一个披头士成员，有时甚至是所有的成员都会随时在默里的直播中出现。（默里的爆红并不持久，披头士回国后，他在WINS电台待了不超过一年，电台就除去了他的节目,改变模式变成了国内首个全新闻电台。）

40%的美国人在关注

那个周末，美国的每一个媒体都用主要版面报道纽约的狂热事件，他们都表示披头士来美国是为了参加周末晚上的艾德苏利文秀。到了星期天，没有一个看过电视、报纸，纸，听过广播的美国人不知道披头士将要参加今晚的苏利文秀。

苏利文秀的当天，在当地Top40节目的DJ们的带领下,苏利文剧场前一片混乱。这场演出只发放了728张入场券但收到了5万个申请。几千人围攻了街道，堵上了百老汇的八个街区，每个人都带着他们的收音机，在 DJ们的带动下一致行动。

披头士计划在首场苏利文广播上表演五首歌：All My Loving（《我所有的爱》），Till There Was You（《直到爱上你》），She Loves You（《她爱你》），I Saw Her Standing There（《我看见她站在那儿》）以及 I Want to Hold Your Hand（《我想牵你的手》）。另外的现场嘉宾包括舞台剧《奥利弗》（Oliver!）的演出成员，包括后来扮演小扒手道奇（Artful Dodger）的猴子乐队戴维•琼斯（Davy Jones）。（译者注：奥利弗及小扒手道奇均来自小说《雾都孤儿》角色）琼斯后来回忆起他放弃音乐剧而从事摇滚事业还是因为在苏利文秀时姑娘观众们对披头士的反应。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5vVbIGR0Dkg

爱普斯坦曾预想过披头士会用他们的美国首秀来征服美利坚。但事实上，当他们刚到美国时，他们的歌曲就已经使无数美国歌迷所倾倒。如果克朗凯特，艾伯特和詹姆斯的一系列事件没有发生的话，也可能不会有这次如此热烈受欢迎的美国之旅。因为没有这些事件的话，I Want to Hold your Hand的发布时间还会是在1月13号，电台听众将无法在圣诞假期不断听到轮番播放的歌曲，青少年无法看到杰克•帕尔秀上披头士的演出，天鹅唱片就不会急于发布She Loves You，电视广播就不会在一月挤满了披头士的唱片，I Want to Hold Your Hand就不会在乐队的美国之旅前登上榜首，媒体的炒作就不会在二月七日前达到狂热的巅峰，披头士为了苏利文秀而现身纽约时也不会有在机场那么大的排场，不会有记者招待会和在广场酒店尖叫的粉丝们。

但是这一切都像神话故事一样的发生了，在二月九日晚上到来时，披头士乐队吸引了整个美国的注意力。（当披头士第二周在华盛顿露天体育场表演时，为表达对艾伯特的感谢，在见到她时通过WWDC电台直播向她说了“谢谢你，玛莎”，艾伯特也因此迎来了自己的奇迹。）

在1963年至1964年的前半个季度，苏利文秀每周平均吸引2120万的观众。但这样的数目并没有使他成为收视冠军，他的姐妹秀豪门新人类（The Beverly Hillbillies）获得了一周3500万的观众，这也是那时最大的综艺节目。

在1964年2月9日，苏利文秀的观众飞跃到了7300万，是当时历史上观众最多的电视娱乐节目。美国的人口当时是1亿8千万，这就意味着40%的美国人观看了这场秀。值得注意的是，当时美国十八岁及以下的人口正好占40%，那一年是生育高峰的最后一年。而3500万的人口是在8岁至18岁之间，可见其实所有这个年龄段的人都在看。

《华盛顿邮报》讽刺那晚的披头士的苏利文秀露面为“那一晚美国没有被偷一个轮毂盖”，本是意在揭露披头士的核心听众是什么样的人，但是在《新闻周刊》转载时这一讽刺说法却被当作了事实。在亨特•戴维斯（Hunter Davies）1968年披头士授权的传记以及哈里森的《选集（Anthology）》纪录片中，这一都市传奇也都被当做了事实。

但是在苏利文广播节目后不久，《华盛顿邮报》的比尔•戈尔德就澄清了这只是个玩笑：“怀着沉重的心情，我必须告知《新闻周刊》这个报道不是真实的。住在亚历山大市格罗夫顿街307E的劳伦斯•R•菲勒斯（Lawrence R Fellenz）那天把他的车停在了教堂，结果四个轮毂盖都被偷了。《华盛顿邮报》很遗憾犯了这样的错误，而菲勒斯很遗憾有一个买不起电视机的嬉皮士住在亚历山大市。”

先不谈犯罪统计，毫无疑义的是其实每一个美国年轻人以及很多的家长在晚上8点后紧紧守在电视前。苏利文当时站在舞台上，介绍了乐队：“我们的剧场昨天和今天都挤满了来自全国各地的新闻记者以及数百名摄影师，这些新闻老手们都同意我的看法，这个城市从来没有像现在一样被这群来自利物浦的年轻人们搅得如此激动过，他们就是，披头士乐队。”在观众愈渐响亮的尖叫声中，苏利文继续说道：“今晚，他们将为你们带来两次演出的愉悦。现在，以及下半场的演出。先生们女士们，让我们有请，披头士乐队。”

[Free Talk] 看披头士在六周内红遍美国