McCartney Times

The Beatles Are Coming! Everywhere they went in the first week of February 1964, New Yorkers heard this Paul Revere-like warning of a looming British invasion. That was because Capitol Records had shelled out $50,000 to plaster the town with 5 million posters, buttons, bumper stickers and radio ads, all trumpeting the arrival of the Whatles?”A shrieking, stamping quartet” of young musicians from Liverpool, England, explained the Daily News, pretty much summing up the official grownup point of view. “Dishmop hairdos.” “An inescapable, ear-jangling pitch.” The photo was of four slender young men, in four black suits and four knit ties, with four Prince Valiant haircuts and four bemused expressions. They seemed largely indistinguishable from one another, but The News helpfully sorted things out: The oldest, 23-year-old Ringo Starr – Ringo? – “attacked the drums”; John Lennon was “the chief Beatle, who is married and has a son”; a third one, Paul McCartney, “with Lennon, writes Beatle songs,” and the last one, George Harrison, was “the lead guitar.”It seemed they had recently taken the UK by storm. “At first, British adults dismissed them, then protested, then succumbed,” the paper reported. “Finally, the whole population was swept along.” Why, the queen herself had pronounced them “young, fresh and vital.” British riot police, though, struggling to control legions of hysterical female fans, appeared to be taking a dimmer view of this “Beatlemania.”Suddenly the four shaggy Britons were exploding across the American popular music charts as well. This week they had two – two! – wild songs in the Top 10, rolling over the pleasant likes of Bobby Vinton, Bobby Rydell and the Singing Nun; their first U.S. album was just hitting the stores. Now they were en route to New York to play Ed Sullivan’s program and Carnegie Hall. The Beatles Are Coming!

Source: Mania: The Beatles take New York City – NY Daily News