Ed Sullivan another started revolution within the turbulent 60s when he made this presentation: “Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles.”
With the count rising from 1 to 5 in Paul McCartney’s voice, “All my Loving” became the gateway to the most important disruptive episode in the history of modern music, the beginning of the first English Invasion at the hands of the global rise of the beatlemania.
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By 60 years, all of us who were born after that “canonical moment”, as they call it now, know and conceive of the world with and without rock; with The Rolling Stones making eternal tours and the exponents of britpop making the sound of the end and beginning of between centuries; We know the new wave, synthpop and new romantic artists as heroes of the 80s who seem to never come to an end; most of us know Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, The Kinksbut some have already forgotten Manfred Mann, The Seekers, Herman’s Hermits, The Moody Blues or Lulu; we all place The Beatles as a group that has always been there, of which there have always been references, in science, on television, in cinema, in politics, with other musicians from other genres, from other generations.
And all this that we have mentioned and more, It began on Sunday, February 9, 1964 on the Sunday broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show.
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One of the most important moments in TV history
According to a list of US TV Guide in 1996the year in which the Liverpool Quartet had its second golden age thanks to the project Anthology, the two most important moments in the history of the television of the American Union are, in the first place, the arrival of man to the Moon in 1969, and in the second, the first presentation of The Beatles with Ed Sullivan.
According to the chronicles of the time, there were so many people in front of the televisionthat even the New York Police Departmentreported a significant drop in the crime incidence in the City during the broadcast of the program; many people like for example Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel or Steven Tayler, have mentioned, paraphrasing them, the following premise: “We all remember the day Kennedy was killed.” or when we reached the Moon, but we all know exactly where we were on the day we The Beatles They were for the first time in the television.”
In fact, the three previously mentioned have publicly stated that that day changed their lives and they decided to become musicians.
After that transmission where The Beatles they executed “All My Loving”, “Till There Was You”where they presented each one, with the plus for John Lennon “Sorry girls, he’s married; “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” super success responsible for having led to The Beatles for the first time at USA, because it reached No.1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, breaking a curse that was imposed on British musicians prior to this event: they all failed in their attempts to penetrate the American market. Even the most successful ones like The Shadows and Cliff Richards They had failed in the United States.
“Overnight the Beatles were everywhere, on the radio, in the newscasts in the cinemas, in the billboardsin the magazines”
John Lennon was the toughest opponent in touring the United States and infected the rest so that they refused to come to the country without having at least one success. At that time, even the subsidiary record label EMII mean Capitol Recordshad refused to release the singles of the Liverpool Quartet during 1963. Independent labels as Swan and Vee Jayhad been the ones who understood the relevance of the phenomenon of beatlemania and how it expanded Europethey knew that it was a matter of time before the local market was infected.
With the growth in sales of copies published by independents and the pressure from the chairman of EMI in England, Alan Livingston, CEO of Capitol, He had to give in to pressure and the explicit request of Brian Epstein, the group’s manager, to spend no less than a million dollars on promotion. Then an entire advertising campaign was generated that had never been seen in the media and entertainment, not even for cinema, not for Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra.
Overnight The Beatles were everywhere, on the radio, in the newscasts in the cinemas, in the billboards, in magazines. The campaign served as an accelerator of what was already happening on both coasts of the United States. Every day the group’s singles were more requested from local DJs in Los Angeles and New York. It was not a synthetic or forced fact that The Beatles became a meteoric success in USA. The campaign of capitol amplified it to levels never seen before.
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After the success of Liverpool Quartet, a whole group of English artists arrived and conquered the American market, the largest and most influential in the world. From overnight rockabilly, the Beach Boys who were on the rise, the balladeers, even the singers of R&B, except those of Motownwere replaced from the musical tastes of youth by all the new groups and singers of the Britain.
Six decades ago, a moment, as they call it today, canonical, took place that changed the world. At that time the inhabitants of the Land They were not aware of the real impact of what their eyes were looking at (except for Ed Sullivanwho called the Beatles like the four Elvis). 60 years later we are still experiencing the effects of that night in the winter of 1964, the night that the entire planet met John, Paul, George and Ringo.