Meet (what's left of) The Beatles!

Ed Sullivan warning all the 14-year-old girls in the audience that if they didn't behave he was going to "call a barber"

 As I write this blog there is less than an hour before a tribute honoring the Beatles will air on CBS.  The surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, will be in attendance. It was almost 50 years ago to the minute, February 9, 1964, that the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. I was one of 73,000,000 Americans to tune in, 72,900,000 of whom watched it on a black and white TV with a 19-inch screen.  What I could hear above the screaming that evening was good, very good.

1964, the last year of Baby Boomer births, was a pretty momentous year. I was 15, going on 16, and counting the days (literally) until I could drive.  General Douglas MacArthur, Alvin York, Herbert Hoover, Alan Ladd and Harpo Marx died in 1964.  Russell Crowe, Shepard Smith, Barry Bonds, Melissa Gilbert and Michelle Obama were born.

Here is a chronology of 1964 events that were important to me.  I didn’t realize just how important some of the events, like the build-up in Vietnam, would be to me until later:

January 20 – Meet the Beatles!, the first Beatles album in the United States, is released.

February 1 – The Beatles vault to the #1 spot on the U.S. singles charts for the first time, with "I Want to Hold Your Hand.”  The British Invasion had begun.

February 7 – The Beatles arrive in New York and are greeted with a tumultuous reception from a throng of screaming (mainly female) fans. “Beatlemania" had begun.

February 9 – The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show, their first time on TV in the United States. 

February 25 – 22-year-old Cassius Clay defeats Sonny Liston and is crowned the heavyweight champion of the world.  I listened to the broadcast on the radio. A short time later he changed his name to Muhammad Ali 

March 9 – The first Ford Mustang rolls off the line in Detroit.

April 4 – The Beatles monopolize Billboard magazine’s TOP 100

No. 1, "Can't Buy Me Love"
No. 2, "Twist and Shout"
No. 3, "She Loves You"
No. 4, "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
No. 5, "Please Please Me"

July 27 – The U.S. sends 5,000 more military advisers to South Vietnam, bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000.

August 28 – Bob Dylan turns The Beatles on to cannabis for the first time.

September 9 – I get my driver’s license, scoring 100% on the written test and 77% on the driving test after the instructor circled both “terrible” and “pathetic” when grading my attempt at parallel parking.

September 16 – Shindig! premieres on the ABC, featuring the top musical acts of the Sixties.

October 15 – The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the New York Yankees to win the World Series in 7 games.

November 13 – Bob Pettit (St. Louis Hawks) becomes the first NBA player to score 20,000 points. Note: I mention this because I got Bob Pettit’s autograph on October 7, 1963 when the then-World Champion Boston Celtics played an exhibition game against the then-St. Louis Hawks in Springfield’s Parkview High School Gym. Can you imagine that? My friend Ronnie Potter and I sneaked into the locker room after the game to get autographs. I still have the program from that night.  Among the many autographs on it are 3 players who are now in the NBA Hall of Fame, including Bob Pettit.

It was on the way home from that game with Ronnie Potter’s dad at the wheel that I heard my very first Beatles song, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, on the radio.

The rest is history.

Excuse me while I go relive it.