Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show (1964): Beatlemania in America

The Beatles’ first live appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, on Sunday 9 February 1964, was one of the defining moments in the history of popular music and television. An estimated 73 million Americans, the largest television audience in the country up to that time, watched John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr perform five songs from CBS Studio 50 in New York. The broadcast turned the British band into a national sensation in the United States and opened the way for the “British Invasion” of American pop music.

Background: from Liverpool to Beatlemania

The Beatles formed in Liverpool around 1960 and built their reputation playing long sets in the clubs of Hamburg and at Liverpool’s Cavern Club. Managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George Martin at EMI’s Parlophone label, they released their first single, “Love Me Do”, in October 1962.

In 1963 they became the biggest act in Britain. “From Me to You” and “She Loves You” topped the British charts, “Please Please Me” reached number one on most of them, and their concerts drew screaming crowds. After the band’s appearance on the television show “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” in October 1963, the British press began to call the frenzy “Beatlemania”.

America, however, was slow to notice. Capitol Records, EMI’s American company, at first declined to release the Beatles’ records, which instead came out on small labels such as Vee-Jay and Swan with little success. That changed late in 1963, when Capitol agreed to release “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and back it with a large promotional campaign.

Booking the show

The Ed Sullivan Show, a Sunday-night variety programme on CBS, was the most watched entertainment show in the United States. Its host, the former newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan, was a powerful star-maker; Elvis Presley’s appearances in 1956 and 1957 had drawn huge audiences.

According to a story Sullivan often told, he witnessed the fans greeting the Beatles at London’s Heathrow Airport in late October 1963 and decided to book them. In November Epstein travelled to New York and negotiated three appearances. He accepted a modest fee, commonly reported at about 10,000 dollars in total plus expenses, but insisted that the Beatles receive top billing, an unusual arrangement for a band almost unknown in the United States.

Interest grew in the weeks before the broadcast. On 10 December 1963 the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite aired a report on Beatlemania, and on 3 January 1964 the television host Jack Paar showed film of the band. Capitol released “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on 26 December 1963. Radio stations played it heavily, and on the Billboard chart dated 1 February 1964 it reached number one, where it stayed for seven weeks.

Arrival in New York

On 7 February 1964 the Beatles flew from London to New York on Pan Am Flight 101. Several thousand screaming fans, commonly estimated at about 3,000, were waiting at the recently renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport. At a crowded press conference the band’s quick, irreverent humour charmed reporters.

The band stayed at the Plaza Hotel, where fans gathered outside. George Harrison was ill with a sore throat and fever, and missed the rehearsal on Saturday 8 February; the band’s road manager, Neil Aspinall, stood in for him while cameras and sound were tested.

CBS reportedly received more than 50,000 requests for the roughly 700 seats in the studio audience.

The broadcast

The programme went on air live at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday 9 February. Sullivan opened by mentioning a congratulatory telegram from Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. He then introduced the band, and over the screams of a mostly teenage audience the Beatles played “All My Loving”, “Till There Was You” and “She Loves You”.

During “Till There Was You”, captions on screen introduced each member by name. Under Lennon’s image the caption added that he was married, a reference to fans’ interest in the band members’ private lives.

The rest of the show followed the usual variety format. Other acts that night included a magician, an impressionist, a comedy duo, and members of the cast of the Broadway musical “Oliver!”, among them a young Davy Jones, who later joined the Monkees. Near the end the Beatles returned to play “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.

Audience, reaction and the rest of the visit

The ratings company A. C. Nielsen estimated that about 73 million people watched, in roughly 23 million households, a rating of about 45 per cent of homes with television. It was the largest audience recorded for an American television programme at that point.

Many critics were unimpressed. Some reviewers dismissed the music, the haircuts and the screaming as a passing fad. Young viewers reacted very differently, and many later musicians said the broadcast inspired them to pick up a guitar or form a band.

Historians and commentators have often linked the band’s reception to the national mood after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, suggesting that the cheerful energy of the Beatles offered relief to a grieving country. The idea is widely repeated but difficult to prove, and other factors, including Capitol’s marketing and the strength of the music, clearly mattered.

The Beatles’ visit was also a carefully managed media event. Everywhere they went they were followed by photographers, reporters and disc jockeys, and New York radio stations competed to be associated with the band. Merchandise, from Beatle wigs to toys and badges, followed quickly, and Beatles products became a substantial business in their own right during 1964.

On 11 February the Beatles played their first American concert at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, D.C., and the next day they gave two shows at Carnegie Hall in New York. On 16 February they appeared live on The Ed Sullivan Show again, this time from the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, to another huge audience. A third performance, taped before the first live show on 9 February, was broadcast on 23 February, after they had returned to Britain on 22 February.

Consequences: the British Invasion

The broadcast transformed the American music market. By the Billboard Hot 100 chart of 4 April 1964 the Beatles held all five top positions, with “Can’t Buy Me Love”, “Twist and Shout”, “She Loves You”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Please Please Me”, a feat unmatched for decades. Their film “A Hard Day’s Night” followed in the summer, and they toured North America in August and September 1964.

Other British acts quickly followed them across the Atlantic. The Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, the Kinks, Herman’s Hermits and others achieved American hits in what the press called the British Invasion. American performers, in turn, absorbed the Beatles’ influence, and the self-contained band writing its own songs became a model for rock music.

The appearance also confirmed the power of television, a medium first publicly demonstrated by John Logie Baird less than four decades earlier, to make musical stars almost overnight, a role it had played for Elvis Presley in the 1950s. The audience that grew up watching the Beatles would later fill festivals such as Woodstock in 1969.

Myths and facts

Myth: crime stopped across America during the show. It is often said that no crimes, or no crimes by teenagers, were reported while the Beatles were on air. The claim comes from anecdotes, not reliable national crime figures.

Myth: the Beatles were unknown in America before the show. By 9 February “I Want to Hold Your Hand” had already been number one for more than a week, and the band had received heavy radio play and press coverage. The show turned growing popularity into a national phenomenon.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1962, October: “Love Me Do”, the Beatles’ first single, is released in Britain.
• 1963, October: British newspapers begin to describe “Beatlemania”.
• 1963, 26 December: Capitol releases “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in the United States.
• 1964, 1 February: “I Want to Hold Your Hand” reaches number one on the Billboard chart.
• 1964, 7 February: The Beatles arrive at Kennedy Airport in New York.
• 1964, 9 February: First live appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
• 1964, 11 February: First US concert, at the Washington Coliseum.
• 1964, 16 February: Second live appearance, from Miami Beach.
• 1964, 4 April: The Beatles hold the top five places on the Billboard Hot 100.

Why it matters

The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan appearance marked the moment when a British band conquered the world’s largest music market, changing popular music on both sides of the Atlantic. It showed the power of television in the age of mass youth culture and began a decade in which British and American pop music influenced each other more closely than ever before. Few single broadcasts have had such a lasting cultural impact.