The Beatles went viral before there was viral.
In 1964, after playing to a staggering 45% of American households on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February, the band embarked upon a chaotic tour of North America in August. The dates were highlighted by a legendary Aug. 23 show at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, 60 years ago today.
“It’s hard to understand how it was before the internet, but there was a thing called word of mouth,” says Beatles historian Martin Lewis, who marked the anniversary with a discussion at The Philosophical Research Society. “The Beatles became successful because friends told friends. They said, ‘Have you heard this? It’s astonishing.’”
USA TODAY recently spoke with Lewis for The Excerpt podcast about how The Beatles went from being virtually unknown in the U.S. in 1963 to global icons in 1964. Here are a few highlights from his conversation with Dana Taylor (edited for length and clarity).
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Question: What was happening in the American music scene when The Beatles performed at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964?
Martin Lewis: The audience was still in the 1950s. They were still in that gray Eisenhower decade, but The Beatles were in 3D Technicolor … just giddy and optimistic and exuberant with their own energy, their enjoyment of music. And America was sorely in need of that authenticity and that expression of youthful vitality.
When they took the stage at the Hollywood Bowl, the fan reaction was incredible. You couldn’t actually hear the music because the fans were screaming so loudly. Of course, later The Beatles became louder than the screams.
What role did The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, play in that show selling out in four hours and just the overall rapid success of The Beatles?
On Christmas Day 1963, practically nobody in America had heard of The Beatles. And yet, by the time of “The Ed Sullivan Show” 45 days later, 73 million people tuned in. How did that happen? It was triggered mainly by Brian Epstein having secured a contract for them to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show” at a time they didn’t even have a record contract in America.
He went about convincing Capitol Records to sign The Beatles, and he did that by saying, “Hey, I’ve got them on ‘Ed Sullivan.’ ” The record was released on the day after Christmas, which was crucial because kids were at home. So instead of hearing the record on the radio maybe two or three times a day, they were hearing it 10 times a day.
By the time of “The Ed Sullivan Show” on Feb. 9, 1964, they were already No. 1. It took what was already exploding and just took it into the stratosphere.
