Beatles mark 50 years since their Ed Sullivan debut

In this Feb. 9, 1964, file photo, Ed Sullivan (center) stands with The Beatles (from left) Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, during a rehearsal for the British group’s first American appearance, on The Ed Sullivan Show, in New York. CBS is planning a two-hour special on Sunday to mark the 50th anniversary.
In this Feb. 9, 1964, file photo, Ed Sullivan (center) stands with The Beatles (from left) Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, during a rehearsal for the British group’s first American appearance, on The Ed Sullivan Show, in New York. CBS is planning a two-hour special on Sunday to mark the 50th anniversary.

NEW YORK - It was inevitable, time marching on as it does, and yet it is also hard to believe: Half a century has passed since the Beatles touched down in New York for the first time, on Feb. 7, 1964, and seduced the country with three performances on The Ed Sullivan Show and a pair of concerts at the Washington Coliseum and Carnegie Hall. Everything about them - their bowl haircuts, their Cardin suits and pointed boots, their sharp, irreverent sense of humor - seemed outlandish compared with U.S. pop groups. And although their music was firmly rooted - as they were always quick to point out - in U.S. rhythm and blues, soul and rock, they produced a sound that was fresh, energetic and unmistakably their own.

The hits that resonated through America during that first visit and in the early months of 1964 - “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Please Please Me” - are not what gave the Beatles their longevity. The musical curiosity that led the group quickly and inexorably toward more complex ground on Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and onward has more to do with it.

The Beatles became a template for generations of bands whose musicians wrote their own music, dressed as they liked and said what they thought about a host of issues, musical, social or otherwise. And although you may revere songs like “Yesterday” or “Strawberry Fields Forever” but merely like “Love Me Do” or “From Me to You,” it’s hard not to have a soft spot for those fresh, seemingly innocent Beatles who hijacked popular culture, seemingly in a single bound, in 1964.It was that first explosion of Beatlemania, after all, that changed the way we thought about pop music and how it was made.

Recent months have already brought several releases, including On Air, a second volume of the Beatles’ BBC recordings and an iTunes-only compilation of unreleased studio and radio tracks, The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963. There are also several new books - including Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In, the first installment of The Beatles: All These Years, his three-part biography; and Kevin Howlett’s The Beatles: The BBC Archives 1962-1970. Below is a list of anniversary events (and a few more records and books) that will allow those obsessed with (or even merely fascinated by) the Beatles to knock themselves out.

In a way, all this, too, is a measure of how the Beatles changed the way we think about pop music. In 1964, the idea of generations of music lovers getting together to celebrate a band that became popular 50 years earlier - in 1914 - would have been inconceivable.

RECORDINGS

The Beatles’ U.S. Albums (Capitol/Universal), a 13-disc set, compiles the U.S. versions of the Beatles pre-Sgt. Pepper discs and a 1970 catchall that brought together a few tracks that hadn’t made it to the LPs. The albums’ song sequences and artwork - and, in some cases, mixes unavailable elsewhere - are retained, and mono and stereo versions are included for most of the albums.

The Smithereens Play the Beatles Washington, D.C. Feb. 11, 1964 Concert has this New Jersey band re-creating the Beatles’ first U.S. concert. (The Beatles concert itself is available on video through iTunes as part of The Beatles Box Set, with the group’s complete stereo recordings.) BOOKS

Chuck Gunderson’s Some Fun Tonight! - The Backstage Story of How The Beatles Rocked America: The Historic Tours of 1964-1966 (Gunderson Media) is a two-volume look at the Beatles’ U.S. tours, lavishly illustrated with reproductions of tickets, contracts and other documents.

EXHIBITIONS

The Morrison Hotel Gallery, in New York and West Hollywood, Calif., is presenting a photo exhibition organized by Julian Lennon (the older of John Lennon’s sons) with the works of several photographers renowned for their shots of the Beatles - among them Ken Regan, Charles Trainor, Curt Gunther, Robert Whitaker, Rowland Scherman and Terry O’Neill (Friday to Feb. 28).

Ladies and Gentlemen … The Beatles!, a traveling show assembled by the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, makes its first stop at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center, where it runs from today to May 10. Included are sections devoted to U.S. musicians who influenced the Beatles, memorabilia from the time (including guitars owned by George Harrison) and video interviews.

EVENTS

On Sunday, CBS, which carried the Beatles’ first live televised performances in the United States, on The Ed Sullivan Show, is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first Sullivan appearance with two extravaganzas.

CBS News will offer 50 Years: The Beatles, an interactive, multimedia presentation at the Ed Sullivan Theater and on the network’s Web pages from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The show, which is presented by Motown: The Musical (the Beatles were fans of Motown groups, whose songs they covered on their early albums) includes a symposium, moderated by Anthony Mason, with Pattie Boyd, George Harrison’s first wife; Andrew Loog Oldham, an early manager of the Rolling Stones (and before that, an assistant to the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein); Mick Jones, the guitarist for Foreigner; and director Julie Taymor, whose films include Across the Universe. The panel will be streamed live on cbsnews.com, and another of the network’s Web pages - cbsnewyork.com/50yearslater - will offer archival television coverage from the Beatles’ visit to New York.

After the symposium at 7 p.m., CBS will devote the time slot that was once Sullivan’s to The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles - a concert taped in Los Angeles Jan. 27 (the day after the Grammys), in which several generations of musicians - including the reunited Eurythmics, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Keith Urban, John Mayer and Maroon 5 - perform Beatles hits. The two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who performed at the Grammys, join this tribute as well.

Style, Pages 25 on 02/06/2014

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