The Beatles första Ed Sullivan-show

Söndagen den 9 februari 1964 var dagen då The Beatles genomförde sitt första uppmärksammade liveframträdande, som också kom att slå rekord på Ed Sullivan Show. Grabbarna var tillbaka i Studio 50 på Manhattan I New York. Rekordet låg i att programmet hade haft inte mindre än 73 miljoner tittare som såg The Beatles första liveframträdande i Amerika! Det anses än idag vara en av de största tittarsuccéerna med den största tv-publiken någonsin i USA.

Paul McCartney har berättat följande från Antologin:
It was very important. We came out of nowhere with funny hair, looking like marionettes or something. That was very influential. I think that was really one of the big things that broke us – the hairdo more than the music, originally. A lot of people’s fathers had wanted to turn us off. They told their kids, ‘Don’t be fooled, they’re wearing wigs.’

A lot of fathers did turn it off, but a lot of mothers and children made them keep it on. All these kids are now grown-up, and telling us they remember it. It’s like, ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ I get people like Dan Aykroyd saying, ‘Oh man, I remember that Sunday night; we didn’t know what had hit us – just sitting there watching Ed Sullivan’s show.’ Up until then there were jugglers and comedians like Jerry Lewis, and then, suddenly, The Beatles!

I likhet med dagen innan, genomförde gruppen ännu en repetition inför studiokamerorna i studio 50 inför The Ed Sullivan Show. Även denna dag kände sig George Harrison krasslig så hans plats under repetitionerna togs istället av Neil Aspinall. George hade tyvärr fått halsfluss.

Det var tydligen inte bara Neil Aspinall som vikarierade som George Harrison utan även produktionsassistenten Vince Kalandra, som fick hålla i George Harrisons dyrbara gitarr, värd cirka 1 miljon dollar, utan att spela en ton. Han hade fått en Beatlesperuk på sig så att han kunde smälta in under repetitionen. Han var stand in för George under tre av låtarna som repeterades.

Neil berättar: I stood in for him so that they could mark where everyone would stand, and I had a guitar strapped round me. It wasn’t plugged in – nobody was playing anything – and it was amazing to read in a major American magazine a few days later that I ‘played a mean guitar’.

Under eftermiddagen spelade The Beatles in låtarna Twist And Shout, Please Please Me och I Want To Hold Your Hand inför en annan publik än den som kom att se deras liveframträdande samma kväll.

Denna inspelning sändes den 23 februari 1964 som gruppens tredje framträdande i Ed Sullivan Show, efter det att de hade lämnat Amerika.

Inför kvällens konsert passade Murray The K på att intervjua beatlarna på hotellrummet och via telefon sändes intervjun ut direkt i etern via radiostationen WINS1010.

Innan inspelningen presenterade Ed Sullivan gruppen med följande ord: All of us on the show are so darned sorry, and sincerely sorry, that this is the third and thus our last current show with The Beatles, because these youngsters from Liverpool, England, and their conduct over here, not only as fine professional singers but as a group of fine youngsters, will leave an imprint of everyone over here who’s met them.

Andra gästartister i denna inspelade tredje Ed Sullivan Show var Gordon and Sheila MacRae och The Cab Calloway Orchestra.

Ringo Starr minns:
The main thing I was aware of when we did the first Ed Sullivan Show was that we rehearsed all afternoon. TV had such bad sound equipment – it still has today, usually, but then it was really bad – that we would tape our rehearsals and then go up and mess with the dials in the control booth. We got it all set with the engineer there, and then we went off for a break.

The story has it that while we were out, the cleaner came in to clean the room and the console, thought, ‘What are all these chalk marks?’ and wiped them all off. So our plans just went out the window. We had a real hasty time trying to get the sound right.

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THE ’Ed Sullivan’ LIVE SHOW

The Beatles livedebut, som slog alla rekord, sändes mellan kl. 20.00 och kl. 21.00. I publiken, som satt i Studio 50, var det endast 728 åskådare. Men de som satt framför tv-apparaterna i landet var desto fler. Man räknar med att det var 73,7 miljoner tittare i 23,2 miljoner hem runt om i USA. Tidigare rekordsiffror slogs med lätthet under denna tv-sändning.

George Harrison har berättar i Antologin:
We were aware that Ed Sullivan was the big one because we got a telegram from Elvis and the Colonel. And I’ve heard that while the show was on there were no reported crimes, or very few. When The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, even the criminals had a rest for ten minutes.

I början av den timslånga föreställningen informerade Sullivan att han hade fått ett telegram från Elvis Presley och dennes manager Colonel Tom Parker som önskade gruppen lycka till.

Telegrammet löd: Congratulations on your appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and your visit to America. We hope your engagement will be a successful one and your visit pleasant. Give our best to Mr Sullivan. Sincerely, Elvis & The Colonel.

The Beatles framförde fem låtar i denna debut i Ed Sullivan Show: All My Loving, Till There Was You och She Loves You under föreställningens första del.

Efter ett reklamavbrott för Anadin (ett läkemedelsföretag) var det dags för Ed Sullivans andra gäster – Georgia Brown & Oliver Kidds, Frank Gorshin, Tessie O’Shea – varefter det åter var dags för The Beatles att inta scenen med låtarna I Saw Her Standing There och I Want To Hold Your Hand.

Under Paul McCartneys framförande av till There Was You panorerade tv-kamerorna på samtliga beatlar – en i taget – med namnskyltar inlagda i bilden. När kamerorna inriktade sig på John Lennon hade man lagt till texten Sorry Girls, He’s Married.

Denna upplaga av The Ed Sullivan Show skulle visa sig innehålla en stark betoning på det Brittiska. Här var förutom The Beatles även den engelska sångerskan och banjospelaren Tessie O’Shea och skådespelarna från New York-uppsättningen av Lionel Barts Londonmusikal Oliver, med Georgia Brown och den blivande medlemmen i bandet The Monkees – Davy Jones!

Dessutom uppträdde den amerikanske impressionisten Frank Gorshin, som senare kom att dyka upp i rollen som The Riddler i tv-serien om The Batman.

Denna firade upplaga av The Ed Sullivan Show sändes i repris söndagen den 12 juli 1964 mellan kl. 20.00 och kl. 21.00 östamerikansk tid medan höjdpunkterna från föreställningen med The Beatles ingick i Ed Sullivan Show: The Swinging Soulful Sixties som en tillbakablick på musikaliska händelser i The Ed Sullivan Show under det aktuella decenniet, vilket kom att sända på CBS söndagen den 21 december 1969 mellan kl. 20.00 och kl. 21.00 östamerikansk tid.

Efter föreställning tog radio-prataren Murray The K John, Paul och Ringo till the Playboy Club. Med hjälp av poliseskort promenerade de ett flertal kvarter till 59:e gatan, där de blev infösta i klubbens Penthous Lounge för att inta middag.

Den här kvällen uppträdde ett band som gjorde parodi på Beatles och deras låtar. De gick verkligen hem hos beatlarna.

New York hade sina egna Beatles – The Amazing Epic Band – som var husband på The Peppermint Lounge. Gruppen utförde en parodi på Beatles. De hade falska mustascher, peruker och falska instrument, inklusive kontrabas med dörrhandtag, backspeglar, handduksställ och till och med en inbyggd telefon som tog fjärrsamtal från England.

Här på the Peppermint Lounge, dansade och twistade de fram till kl. 4 på morgonen.

The Beatles får sin första listetta i USA

Så var dagen då äntligen här med den officiella listan över TOP 100-låtar i tidningen Cash Box, vilken förkunnar att förstaplatsen på listan innehas av låten I Want To Hold Your Hand med The Beatles. Detta var något som grabbarna kände till sedan några dagar tidigare, men nu kom tidningen ut i verkligheten i USA med sin TOP 100-lista.

Inne i tidningen kan man läsa att andelen amerikanska radiostationer som spelar I Want To Hold Your Hand med The Beatles hade ökat sedan förra veckan från 39 % till hela 98 % !

Live: Olympia Theatre, Paris

Innan föreställningarna på kvällen fick The Beatles bland annat ägna sig åt att ta del av alla brev från deras fans, som levererades dagligen till deras rum på George V Hotel.

Harry Benson: Varje dag levererades en stor påse med fanpost till deras rum på George V Hotel, och Beatles satte sig faktiskt ner och läste breven och tittade på fotografierna av tjejerna som fanns med i kuverten. Vem tror du fick de flesta beundrarbreven? Ringo! Det mest intressanta är att Ringo fick flest brev från fans. Sedan, i fallande ordning, George, John och den sista av de fyra, Paul.

Dezo Hoffman berättar: Ringo var faktiskt den mest populära Beatlen i Frankrike, kanske för att han såg mest ut som franska pojkar.

George Harrison: Vid ingången till scenen ropade killarna Ringo, Ringo! Sedan jagade de vår bil.

Ringo Starr: De här killarna jagade oss över hela Paris. Hittills har fler och fler tjejer varit intresserade av oss.

Paul McCartney: I Frankrike blev jag förvånad över att bara pojkar följde oss i massor.

George: Vi blev besvikna över att vi inte såg några av de vackra franska kvinnorna vi hade hört så mycket om.

Paul: De hade nog tjejerna hemma.

George: De hölls troligen inlåsta eftersom Frankrike har strikta katolska lagar.

Paul: Fans är konstiga.

Live: Olympia Theatre, Paris

Lördagen den 25 januari gav The Beatles två föreställningar på Olympia Theatre i Paris. Dag nio av 16.

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Denna dag sändes den intervju som The Beatles hade givit för American Forces Neetwork dagen innan. Den sändes i ett program som hette Weekend World.

Radio: American Forces Network

Förutom fredagens två konserter, spelade The Beatles in en intervju för the American Forces Network (AFN) radio service, som sändes dagen efter. Intervjuare var en militär instruktör, sergant Harold ’Hal’ Kelley (HK), som var radiokorrespondent för radiostationen. Intervjun ägde rum på George V Hotel på eftermiddagen. Han hade med sig en bandspelare av märket Nagra III.

Så här blev intervjun:

HK: This afternoon in our Paris studios we’re visiting with four young men. And if I just mention their first names, such as Paul and George and Ringo and John, I doubt if you’d know about whom we’re speaking. But if I said we’re here this afternoon with the Beatles, and if we were in England, I think we’d get a great big rousing ‘Hurrah!’ Wouldn’t we, boys?

Paul McCartney: Oh yeah.

HK: Well, let’s see. We have to my right here, Paul McCartney. Paul tell us, how did the Beatles get going? How did you start?

Paul: It’s a funny story, really. You know, it was back in the old days. We were all at school together, really, you know. We grew up as school teenage buddies, and things. It developed from there, really.

HK: Well, did you sing together around school, or…?

Paul: Yeah. George and I were at school together and John was at the school next door, and Ringo was at Butlins. And we just started playing guitars, and things. And it went on from there, really, as far as I’m concerned.

HK: Well you say those were the olden days. Now within the past year, you have mushroomed in tremendously… almost out of sight popularity. What was the click? What levered this great rage for the Beatles?

Paul: Well, it’s funny really. I think it was the Palladium show, you know, the television show in England. And then following hot in the footsteps we had the Royal Variety Command Variety performance.

Paul: It’s difficult to say that, actually. Royal Variety Command Performance for the Queen Mother, you know. And it all came up from there, really. The national newspapers got ahold of it. And they got ahold of Ringo.

John Lennon: And Mike Brown found out about it.

Paul: Mike Brown found out about it, yeah. A lot of columnists and things got onto the idea and started calling it Beatlemania.

HK: Lets ask a question here of George Harrison. George, what is the status of rock and roll in England today? Is that what you call your music?

George Harrison; No, not really. We don’t like to call it anything. But the critics and the people who write about it, you know, they have to call it something. So they didn’t want to say it was rock and roll, because rock’s supposed to have gone out about five years ago. And so they decided it wasn’t really rhythm and blues, so they decided to call it the Liverpool sound – which is stupid, really, because as far as we were concerned it was just, you know, the same as the rock from five years ago.

HK: Can you describe Liverpool’s sound?

George: Well, it’s more like the old rock, it’s just everything’s a bit louder. More bass and bass drum, and everybody sort of sings loud and shouts. And that’s it!

HK: Is the Liverpool sound, then, the sound in the UK today? In England?

George: Yeah, well, that’s, you know, all the records now… everybody’s sort of making records in that style.

HK: Let’s ask Ringo here. Now, you’re the drummer. We caught your act at the Olympia the other evening. How long have you been beating those skins?

Ringo Starr: Oh, about five years now. I’ve been with the boys about 18 months, with other groups before that. So that’s five years.

HK: Since you boys have gained your current popularity, have there been many other organizations trying to imitate you, or perhaps take the thunder away from you? Let’s ask John Lemmon [sic] this.

John: Well, I suppose, a couple of people have jumped on the… railway carriage. I mean, the bandwagon. But it doesn’t really matter, you know, because it’s flattery and it promotes the whole idea of us if we’re away, and there’s a few little Beatles still going to remind people of us.

HK: Paul, let’s go back to you for a moment. Whenever anyone sees your pictures, the first thing that strikes them is, naturally, your hairdo.

Ringo: Hairdon’t.

HK: Or hairdon’t! Some people have written as though you were having the sheepdog cut, or perhaps an early Caesar. What do you call it, and how come you cut it that way?

Paul: To us it just sort of seems the natural thing, really, because it all arose… we came out of the swimming baths one day, and you know how your hair, sort of, flops about after the swimming baths. Well, it stayed that way, you see, when nobody bothered to comb it. And it sort of stayed in a style. So we’ve never really called it anything, I don’t know, until the papers got ahold of it, and they called it the Beatle style. So I suppose we go along with them now, really.

HK: Do you go to the barber at all?

Paul: Well, you know, now and then. Do and don’t.

HK: Just to keep it trimmed.

Paul: Yeah, just to keep it trimmed. But sometimes we do it ourselves, you know.

John: With our feet.

Paul: The other thing is, its really only our eyebrows that are growing upwards.

HK: We’ve been told that in England today there’s this Beatlemania going on. What would you say Beatlemania is? That all the girls scream when they see you, and perhaps faint waiting in line. Let’s be immodest a moment. What is the attraction?

George: I don’t know!

John: I think it’s that dressing gown.

John: George’s dressing gown is definitely a big attraction.

Paul: No, I don’t think any of us really know what it is. We’ve been asked this question an awful lot of times, but we’ve never been able to come up with an answer yet, because I think it’s a collection of so many different things, like, happening to be there at the right time, at the right moment. [sings] ‘But the wrong face…’ No, but a little bit of originality in the songs, a little bit of a different sound. I don’t know. It’s an awful lot of things. Maybe the gimmick of the haircut, as well. The luck getting into the national press at the right time. It’s an awful lot of luck.

John: It’s all these things and more!

HK: Well, you mentioned songs. I understand you boys write your own material.

Paul: John and I write them. This is Paul speaking. John and I write.

HK: Paul, yes. How do you think up an idea? Do you get together regularly, or an idea pops in your mind and you say ‘Let’s sit down and do it’?

Paul: Erm, if an idea does pop in your mind, then you do sit down and say ‘Let’s do it,’ yeah. But if there’s no ideas, and say we’ve been told we’ve got a recording date in about two days’ time, then you have got to sit down and sort of slog it out. But you normally get, first of all, just a little idea which doesn’t seem bad. And you go on, and then it builds up from that. It varies every time though, really.

HK: Paul, we’ve seen you here at the Olympia. Can you compare the French audience with what you’re familiar with back in England?

Paul: Well, there’s a lot of difference, because in England the audiences are 75% female. Here, 75% male. And that’s the main difference, really. Because they still appreciate it, but you don’t get the full noise and the atmosphere of a place.

George: No screams.

HK: No screams and fainting. Why is it 75% boys?

George: I don’t know, but I think they don’t let the girls out at night.

John: I think it’s your dressing gown!

George: Somebody said that they still have to have chaperones, a lot of them, you see. Whereas in England they’re out. It’s funny. It’s the same in Germany, all the boys like the rock, and it’s usually the same on the continent. I don’t really know why.

HK: ’I Want To Hold Your Hand’ is number one on the hit parade, and we have a copy of it here right now, so let’s sit back for a moment and listen to it.

HK: How did you come to write that, ’I Want To Hold Your Hand’?

Paul: This was one of those songs we were told we definitely had to get down to it. We had to get working. So we went and we found an old disused house. We were sort of walking along one day. We just thought ‘We’ve got to really get this song going.’ So we got down in the basement of this disused house, and there was an old piano there. It wasn’t really disused. It was, sort of, rooms to let. We found this old piano and we started banging away there.

John: And I played organ.

Paul: Yeah. There was a little old organ there too. So we were just having this sort of informal jam session down there. And we started banging away, and suddenly just a little bit came to us. I think it was just the catch line. And so we started working on it from there. We got our pens and paper out, and we just wrote the lyrics down. And, er, eventually you know, we had some sort of a song. So we went back and we played it to our recording manager, and he seemed to like it. So we recorded it the next day.

HK: Do all your songs have a basic theme or story or message?

John: Erm, no.

Paul: That was a quick answer!

HK: That was quick.

Paul: They don’t, but there’s one thing that nearly always seems to run through our songs. People always point it out to us. That’s the ‘I’ and ‘you’ and ‘me’ always seems to be in the title. You know, I want to hold your hand, she loves you, love me do, and things like this. Well, I think the reason for that really is that we nearly always try and write songs which are a little bit more personal than others, you see. So by having these prepositions, whatever you call them, I and me and you in the titles, it makes the songs a little bit more personal. I think that’s the only sort of basic message that does run through our songs.

HK: Now, you coined this ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’. Isn’t that really sweeping England right now?

John: Yeah, well, that was sort of the main catch phrase from ’She Loves You’ But we stuck that on. We’d written the song nearly, and we suddenly needed more, so we had ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’. And it caught on, you know. They use it for… if you’re gonna be ‘with it’ or ‘hip.’

HK: It’s sort of a trademark for you boys now.

John: Yeah, we’ll have to write another song with it.

HK: Paul, what do you think of your trip to the States? I understand in about a week or 10 days you’re going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. Could you tell us about it?

Paul: Yeah, that’s right. We’re gonna do Ed Sullivan’s show in New York. And we’re taping one for later release, I think. And we’re looking forward to those, and then we go down to Florida, Miami. Can’t wait! And we do another Ed Sullivan there, but I think before that we do Carnegie Hall, don’t we?

The Beatles: Yeah.

HK: How were you selected for Ed Sullivan? Was he in England and caught your act or something?

George: When we were flying back – this is the story we heard – we were arriving from Stockholm into London Airport, and at the same time the Prime Minister and the Queen Mother were also flying out, but the airport was just overrun with teenagers. There was thousands of them waiting for us to get back. And Ed Sullivan was supposed to have arrived at that time and wondered what was going on and, you know, he found out it was us arriving. And also our manager went over to the States with another singer called Billy J Kramer, and he did a couple of TV shows over there. And while he was over there, our manager got the bookings with Ed Sullivan. But he’d also heard of us from this London Airport thing. And that’s about it.

HK: And how about a movie? Is there a movie in the future?

Paul: Mmm, yeah. We’ve been asked by United Artists to do a feature movie.

HK: Will it be dramatic, or just strictly wrap around your singing?

Paul: Oh, we don’t know yet, really, what it’s going to be like. I don’t think we’ll have to do an awful lot of acting. I think it’ll be written ’round the sort of people that we are, and there’ll be four characters in it very like us.

HK: Do you plan to compose two or three songs specifically for the film?

Paul: Actually, we’ve got to compose six songs specifically for the film. We’ve got to get down to that, too. That’s a job.

HK: And you boys really haven’t had much of a chance to see Paris, have you?

George: Not really, no.

HK: What do you think of it so far?

George: Well, it’s nice. Quite nice.

HK: How about the French girls compared to the British girls?

Ringo: Oh, we haven’t seen any yet!

HK: John?

John: Yeah well, I’m married so I didn’t notice ’em.

HK: We’ll go back to Paul, then.

Paul: I think they’re great.

HK: You’re single.

Paul: Yeah. I think the French girls are fabulous.

George: But we have seen more French boys than French girls. So I mean, you know, we can’t really tell.

HK: Well, perhaps when you get to The Ed Sullivan Show there will be more girls for you.

George: I hope so.

Ringo: Yeah.

HK: Any of you been to America before?

George: Yeah, me. I went in September just for a holiday for three weeks.

HK: Just George Harrison. Well, I see our time is up, boys. Thank you very much, Beatles, for being our guest on AFN this afternoon on Weekend World.

Frankfurt var huvudkontoret för the American Forces Network (AFN) radio service. När intervjun var slut skickade Harold bandet till huvudkontoret. Där togs det emot av en kille som hade ansvar för specialfall. Han hette Eddie Pennipecker, så vitt Harold minns. Han hade aldrig hört talas om The Beatles förut, så när han fick det här bandet lade han det bara på hyllan.

Live: Olympia Theatre, Paris

Fredagen förlöpte med två konsertframträdanden på Olympia Theatre i Paris. Nu hade man kommit till dag åtta av 16 dagar med föreställningar.

Nedanstående färgfilm är tillräckligt ovanlig för att vi gärna vill visa den. Däremot vet ingen exakt från vilken dag filmen är tagen, annat än att det är från någon av föreställningarna på Olympia Theatre i Paris. Den som berättar om det hela lär vara Micky Jones som bland annat spelar trummor under Trini Lopez framträdande i samma show som The Beatles.

Här är diverse blandade filmbilder med ljus som är tagna på The Beatles på Olympia Theatre i Paris den 16, 17 och 24 januari 1964.