[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're joining us today. On the show, we have an hour devoted to thrifting. Two experts will join us to discuss thrifting clothing and furniture. We want to know your favorite secondhand and vintage shops. That's coming up. Plus, we have live from Studio 5, Helado Negro who will perform for us, and we'll talk about his forthcoming album Phasor. That is our plan. Let's get this started with Beatlemania.

[music]

Sixty years ago tomorrow, on February 7th, 1964, The Beatles landed at JFK. Two days later, John, Paul, George, and Ringo, performed for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Ed Sullivan: "Now, 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 this city never has witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves The Beatles. Now 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."

[cheers]

[applause]

[MUSIC - All My Loving: The Beatles]

Close your eyes and I'll kiss you

Tomorrow, I'll miss you

Remember I'll always be true

And then while I'm away

I'll write home every day

And I'll send all my lovin' to you

I'll pretend that I'm kissing--

Alison Stewart: That appearance to 73 million viewers with 60% of the nation's televisions tuned into the show. Beatlemania was rampant in the States. Many say that performance forever changed American pop music and pop culture. To commemorate the 60th anniversary week of The Beatles' arrival in New York City, and that first performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which is this Friday, actually, when to take your calls for memories, we're joined by Ken Womack, a Beatles expert and professor at Monmouth University. Hi, Ken.

Kenneth Womack: Hey, how are you doing today?

Alison Stewart: Doing great. Listeners, get in on this conversation. Do you remember The Beatles' performance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964? What do you remember about the show, and how it made you feel? Did you fall into Beatlemania? What did you notice about how music changed in the country after The Beatles hit?

Our phone lines are open. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, you can call in and join us on the air. You can also text to that number as well, 212-433-9692. Social media is available @allofitwnyc. Maybe you are a Beatles fan, how do you think about how The Beatles changed pop music and pop culture? 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. That's our phone number for calls and for texts.

Okay, so let's get a little context going. Ken, before The Beatles performed in Sullivan in the lead-up to 1964, what was their reputation in England?

Kenneth Womack: Well, in England, they were in the deep throes of British Beatlemania. Since the Palladium shows certainly in October 1963, they had been all the rage. They had gone from a regional act earlier in the year to a truly national act. They were quite frankly making pots of money and creating new fans by the bushel every second. It was quite incredible. George Martin, their producer in that year, had number-one songs or albums for 39 of the 52 weeks on their charts, which really gives you a sense of the level of domination that accrued over the year. Their latest single, which was very explosive and certainly propelled him in England was She Loves You. They were on an incredible winning streak.

Alison Stewart: At that time, how does one go from being a regional act to being a nationwide phenom?

Kenneth Womack: Well, in that case, it was the power of television. There were a number of hot music shows that were in programming at that time on the BBC and other channels, and that enabled The Beatles to get truly national exposure. They were regional act, of course, because they started in Liverpool, which then and perhaps even now is considered the Northern backwaters of the country. The scousers with their funny accent seemed even out of place in their home country. The Beatles were a bit of a tough sell given the classism that has always existed in the British Isles, but they broke through that barrier through this extraordinary music.

Alison Stewart: All right, so we've ascertained what was going on in the UK at the time. Let's talk about in the United States, what was the state of pop music before The Beatles penetrated the American market?

Kenneth Womack: Well, there are a couple of interesting stories embedded in that question. One is, why weren't The Beatles infiltrating the American market already? Capitol Records, and we'd all know was a subsidiary at that time of EMI, which was the largest media group in the world. Capitol had a vice president David Dexter Jr., who thought The Beatles sound would not sell in America, and he continually rejects them across the year.

Smaller labels were able to license The Beatles, but they're not getting the big exposure. Well, thanks to all that energy, we just talked about in England, the chairman of the EMI Group, Sir Joseph Lockwood, The Beatles called him "Sir Joe", called up the president of Capitol Records, Alan Livingston, and said, "It's over, you're putting The Beatles on. You're going to release their new single, I Want to Hold Your Hand", and of course, that was the great lead-up to this week's memorial and memories.

American music was very different. There was the Beach Boys, of course, which were a vanguard of things to come, but you had a lot of the crooners, you had a lot of the pop idols, the sort of created artists in the wake of the payola scandal late '50s, early '60s. There was a period of, I don't know how else to put it, but it was a softening of rock and roll. In the 1950s, you had Elvis with his hips, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry. In the early 1960s, there was a concerted effort to mute that rebellious nature of rock and roll, but of course, The Beatles are going to bring it roaring back.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Ken Womack, Professor of English and Pop Music at Monmouth University, the author of many books about The Beatles. He hosts a podcast about The Beatles called Everything Fab Four. We're reflecting on the 60th anniversary of The Beatles performing at The Ed Sullivan Show. It's happening this Friday. Tomorrow's the anniversary of them touching down in New York. We've got full phone lines, as you can imagine. Let's talk to Patrick on line 7, calling from Cragsmoor, New York. Hi, Patrick.

Patrick: Hello. I have an amusing story. My sisters and I were waiting to see The Beatles. I'm 71 years old, so I remember when they first came on. During their performance, my mom had a friend over who kept talking, and we really wanted to hear The Beatles. We asked her to please be quiet. My mother got mad and said, "We'll just see where The Beatles are five years from now." It was something I always remembered like The Beatles became the biggest thing that ever hit, so just wanted to share it.

Alison Stewart: Thank you for calling in. Let's talk to Bernadette from Dix Hills, Long Island. Hi, Bernadette.

Bernadette: Hi. My story is that I was 11, and my best friend's dad worked for The Ed Sullivan Show. We were supposed to go to the friends and family rehearsal on Saturday, and because of all Beatlemania and everything, they canceled that. They wouldn't let us go, so I cried the whole night, the whole night before when I found out we weren't going to go into the rehearsal. However, he did bring us back 8 by 10 glossies, that was signed by them.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Bernadette: Unfortunately, my dad got mad at me one time and threw it away, [chuckles] so I don't have it.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that hurt. That hurt me hearing that from you, Bernadette. Let's talk to Kate on line 2, calling in from Larchmont. Kate, you're on the air.

Kate: Hi. Well, I was eight on the night that it was on television, and I was completely unaware of The Beatles. I was stunned to see the audience and the teenagers, and the incredible hysteria. The next I was even more stunned to walk onto the playground, and everyone, everyone, had a big pen, and it said, "I love Paul. I love Ringo. I love John", and I love no one. I realized I had missed the boat, but it was moving without me, and I caught up eventually, quicker than I realized, but it was extraordinary.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling in. I want to get to Linda on line 7, because she's going to bring me to my next question for you, Ken. Linda, thanks for calling in.

Linda: Oh, thank you. You can put me on the radio.

Alison Stewart: You're on the air right now.

Linda: I am. Oh, wow. I remember watching Ed Sullivan, I was in Fifth Grade, and John F. Kennedy had been assassinated a few months prior, and we were all really down, and The Beatles came on and just lifted us out of our winter of depression. I'll just never forget it. I'm a lifelong Beatle fan, and I still have their albums, the very first ones. I still love them so much.

Alison Stewart: Linda, thank you for calling in. This brings me to my next question, Ken. President Kennedy had been assassinated months before and November. How do you think about The Beatles' arrival and the morale of the United States?

Kenneth Womack: This has been a very interesting historical debate for decades about, is there any nexus between the two? I think there just has to be. Simply because the nation was a smaller community, not just in terms of population, but people lived more locally, lived and consorted with your neighbors. People met up on their front porches, et cetera. There was a deep sense of sadness and mourning that was taking place. Suddenly, this other bright light comes along as our listeners have been telling us just now.

This paradigm shift has happened almost in the same moment. The Beatles are bringing songs that are joyful and happy about love and it's innocent love, I Want To Hold Your Hand, I Saw Her Standing There. To me, it's patently obvious that that connection exists. Time was different. There were only three channels in most networks, in most marketplaces. There were fewer of those kinds of distractions that we have 24 hours a day now in these days. There was no 24-hour sports, et cetera. People were just connected deeply. The blow from that moment in November 1963, extended and reverberated longer.

There was an interesting poll that was done a few years back where it was, they compared the power of the Kennedy assassination to 9/11, which we all know, particularly here in the metro area, how horrific that was. The reverberations from the Kennedy assassination were not surprisingly much deeper. We just have more distractions in modern life. It's not just a cliché. It's a reality. The Beatles showing up so early on the cusp of what had happened. They're on the radio by late December, not even barely a month after those horrible events in Dallas.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about February 7th, The Beatles land at JFK. Who was there to greet with them? We'll start there.

Kenneth Womack: Well, thousands and thousands of teenagers. The radio stations had really been stimulating the information about the arrival. There were a lot of very cheap, or even free t-shirts given out. People had a reason to go to JFK. Of course, it had only just been renamed. It was formerly Idlewild Airport in the wake of the assassination. Only 30, 40 days earlier, they had renamed it. There was a truly a lot of excitement.

These songs are now known on the radio, particularly in this region, back when radio was very regionalized. The New York City region was just ablaze with Beatles music. People are very quickly learning all of these songs that have existed since the early spring in England. Anyway, there were tons of folks there and absolutely excited. Of course, back in those days, you could get near the tarmac, right?

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Right. Let's actually listen to a news clip from the day that The Beatles landed, and we can talk about it on the other side.

News Announcer: There are rumors around that this is Britain's revenge for the Boston Tea Party. Three thousand screaming teenagers arrived New York's Kennedy Airport to greet, you guessed it, The Beatles. This rock and roll group has taken over as the kingpins of musical appreciation among the younger element. Some music critics call their harmony, "Unmistakably diatonic." Others say it's pandiatonic. Parents say it's just plain pandemonium.

Their first meeting with the American press brings forth an interview laced with quips and humor. You'd laugh too. With a gross of $17 million last year. New York City cops are hard-pressed protecting The Beatles at their hotel. On every side, there is hero worship that recalls the heydays of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.

Alison Stewart: Ken, why was this a news event?

Kenneth Womack: Because it was a paradigm shift. We didn't have the phraseology for it or the words for it, but this was a cataclysmic cultural moment. It's interesting that the broadcaster were referred to Elvis and the Bobby Soxers of the Sinatra era. They had nothing on what was happening. Your callers just now were fabulous, talking about parents being upset, et cetera. They were all just missing the paradigm shift. This huge change was happening. They weren't, even though they feared it themselves, I'm sure in their darker moments, going to be a flash in the pan. This was big stuff.

Alison Stewart: We got a really interesting text that says, "The Beatles gave a new generation of kids with war shock dads, someone who said, I love you, I want you, let's have fun."

Kenneth Womack: You bet. That was John Lennon's motivation, too. He was so tired of the war. Of course, in England, the war was even bigger, if you can believe it or not, than in America, where of course, they were bombing British oil. The Brits had much to recover from, and it took much longer to recover from it. Kids like John Lennon, who grew up predominantly in the '50s, were just a little tired of it. They wanted something sunnier to think about. They wanted brightness and light.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing the 60th anniversary week of The Beatles coming to JFK and then performing on The Ed Sullivan Show. My guest is Ken Womack, Professor of English and Popular Music at Monmouth University, and the author of many books about The Beatles. After the break, we'll take more of your calls, and we'll speak to someone else who teaches The Beatles, a professor who teaches The Beatles. This is All Of It.

[music]

You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We are reflecting on the 60th anniversary of The Beatles, coming to New York City and performing on The Ed Sullivan Show. The official anniversary of the show performance is this Friday. We're also taking your calls with Ken Womack, Professor of English and Popular Music at Monmouth University, and the author of many books about The Beatles. He also hosts a Beatles podcast, Everything Fab Four.

We have a colleague, actually, of you, someone else who's a professor. His name is David Gallant. He called in. He works at Suffolk University. David, you teach a popular freshman seminar on The Beatles?

David Gallant: Yes, that's what they say, Alison. It is popular. It's a pleasure to join you all. I've had the pleasure of having Professor Womack on my podcast, which I co-host with Cha-Chi Loprete up here in Boston, and have read many of his books, and have seen him lecture. Right away, compared to some of your other callers, I will out myself. I am not what they call a first-generation Beatles fan, but I tell my students I was the hippiest six-month-old on February 9th, 1964. If he doesn't mind, actually Professor Womack is a bit younger than I am.

I think the fact that we do what we do is another huge testament to the power of what The Beatles brought to the United States and to the rest of global culture, and musically as well as not only their message, but everything about the paradigm shifts that they initiated are certainly food for intellectual investigation and for students to learn about.

Students innocently will ask me if I saw them on television that day. I think that the power of it being one evening, well, it was several performances on Sullivan, but that first time on one channel, as Ken was mentioning, unlike the Kennedy assassination being on every network television and being a longer grieving process, it was one place in one time, which even outdid, when we think about what happened five years later, the Moon landing was all overall networks. This was just on one network. That type focus really had all of those eyeballs there to understand what was going on.

As much as February 9th was very important, it may pale in comparison to February 10th and 11th, and every day after that, up until today, in terms of everything that had compounded geometrically after that. It's really quite amazing in that sense. One example, I tell my students, you had played the clip of the newscast talking about The Beatles press conference at JFK, which we cover in class, which is also its own performance. Even compared to Sullivan and the music beforehand, where the obsession about their hair and the length of their hair, and what does that mean?

Basically, the American press trying to tell them, "Hey, you're going to grow up and get a haircut while you're here." They say, "No, no," and George quips, in his perfect deadpan way, "I just had one yesterday." They all agree that it's true, so I stopped that film, and I tell my students, "At the time, this is a young man who just got his hair cut." That's what was really shocking to everyone, and frightening some of them as well.

Bruce Springsteen, when he reminisces about that night would say, "Well, I came down, and I combed my hair forward after seeing The Beatles, and my dad laughed and laughed and laughed." Then his dad was really mad because he didn't comb it back the next day.

[laughter]

That was the first of one of those little statements of rebellion and self definition. It crossed so many different levels of society and gender and race. It's still with us. I'll steal or borrow a quote from Rolling Stone years ago, saying that every generation gets The Beatles that it needs, and that's true, that they are what we would say is equipment for living. If Professor Womack doesn't mind me quoting Kenneth Burke, an old literary scholar.

[laughter]

It's always a great time to stop and to really reflect upon these things, especially in light of the Grammy's last weekend where The Beatles did win an award for video of the year.

Alison Stewart: David, you covered soup to nuts. You got us from 1963 to Sunday night. Thank you so much for calling in, Dave Gallant. I want to go for a little trivia with you, Ken. There was an illness going on in the band at the time. Is that true?

Kenneth Womack: Well, it is true. George was quite sick. He was quite ill. He would miss the Saturday photo shoot on the edges of Central Park. In fact, there's quite a poignant shot of the three well Beatles, with the backdrop of Central Park and the Dakota, often the distance, which of course would be John's future home, and is quite poignant. George was quite ill. There had to be a stand-in during the rehearsals, but as you know, he acquitted himself very well. I guess adrenaline kicked in on that Sunday night. Every time I see him, they'll share a microphone with Paul or John. I think, "Oh my gosh, if they had masks now, right? They would've warned them such as our COVID days."

So many good observations there from David. The paradigm shift is amazing. What happens that's so interesting I think in the intervening years, is how kids discover The Beatles. It's not any different. They hear them on the radio, maybe they see a clip on YouTube. Whatever it is, is the same as those first generation fans. A fire is lit, and they're just in love. The first Beatles song I heard was Help, and I was done. It was, where has this been? Or one of my favorite quotes is from a good friend of our university, Steven Van Zandt of Bruce's band.

I had asked him about when he first heard I Want to Hold Your Hand. He was in his bedroom that he shared with his brother, and they heard the song, and they didn't know what to make of it. They just looked at each other and began laughing with pure joy. I think that's what The Beatles are doing right now for some kids who aren't even thinking about this being the anniversary of the Sullivan Week. They are going to reverberate for as long as people have ears and listen to music.

Alison Stewart: Got a couple of great texts. "The Beatles on Ed Sullivan was electrifying. I was eight, and I fell in love with the music and all The Beatles. The next day in school, it was all I talked about. I still remember those conversations and how thrilled we were. We eight-year-olds were smitten.

This text says, "My grandfather was the vice president of Pan Am at the time, and walked down the stairs, the plane behind The Beatles on that first visit." There's video of it you can watch on YouTube. It remains a really fun family story." That's amazing. Let's talk to Mark. [laughs] Mark has another angle. Hi, Mark.

Mark: Hi. Can you hear me?

Alison Stewart: Yes, you're on the air.

Mark: Oh, great. I was eight at the time also. I was just doing the math. I was asleep, and my mother came in the room and woke us up, me and my brother, and said, "You have to get up, The Beatles are on TV." I woke up and I was up and I went to the living room, and we were watching the TV, and I was disappointed because they weren't the real Beatles.

[laughter]

What's wonderful about this is that here we are, I'm 68, my mother's 88. We're pretty old now, but we look back. My mother was so young, my father was so young, and we were so young. It's a perfect moment, and it's a chance for me to think about that and reflect on that wonderful time.

Alison Stewart: Mark, thanks for sharing your story, gave me a chuckle.

Let's talk to Jean from Manhattan. Hi, Jean. Thanks for calling All Of It. You're on the air. Hi, Jean, are you there? Oh, I don't know. Jean, can you hear us? We'll see if we can get Jean back on.

My guest is Ken Womack, Professor of English and Popular Music at Monmouth University. The author of many books about The Beatles. He also hosts a Beatles podcast, Everything Fab Four. I wanted to follow up on something that David, the professor mentioned, was the look of The Beatles, how they looked, and why was that so rad?

Kenneth Womack: Well, remember this is the post-war America of the crew cut. Gender was far more specific than we can even imagine these days. The Beatles were wearing their hair by a lot of standards, distastefully long, although as David pointed out. Of course, by today's standard, it's nothing, but it seemed very radical, and the press came at them pretty hard in that Pan-Am Press Conference. What's fascinating to me, and it's such a good lesson for our students and everybody, is how The Beatles used humor to turn that pretty ravenous press into allies, and it was so important.

There's wonderful footage in The Beatles Anthology of The Beatles riding down on the train to Washington, DC for their first concert at the Coliseum. They're right in the heart of the press, and Ringo is clowning for the cameras. He's got all their cameras wrapped around his neck, clowning for the reporters, winning them over. Why does this matter? Well, one, it helped them in the short run, but two, they're going to have some problems. There's going to be the issue of John saying The Beatles are bigger than Jesus a few years later, and the anticipated fallout. Then, well, maybe he's going to have a cover in the nude with his wife Yoko.

There are going to be moments that they need a good press to help fathom and withstand, and they had a wonderful press. The press loved them. They had great access, and it really made all the difference, and is a key part of their success.

Alison Stewart: Real quick, let's take one last call, Christine from the Lower East Side. Hi, Christine.

Christine: Hi. My dad worked for Westinghouse, and he did all the lights for Idlewild Airport, so he knew how Beatle-crazy I was. A couple of my friends, we all went up to the VIP room where The Beatles were supposed to have their press conference, but because of the chaos, they skipped the VIP room and did the press conference downstairs. We saw them deplane, and we were pressed against those big, huge windows at Pan Am, and just screaming and crying. My dad was horrified, but I was so thankful for him for doing that for me.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling, Christine. Thanks to everybody who called and texted us. We couldn't get to everybody, which tells you how popular the time was, how popular this memory was for people. Also huge thanks to Ken Womack, Professor of English and Popular Music at Monmouth University. Check out his podcast about The Beatles, Everything Fab Four. Ken, thank you so much.

Kenneth Womack: Oh, thank you. This has been a great joy.

 

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