THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED America: A GRAMMY® Salute To The Beatles is
to air on America’s CBS network on Sunday, February 9 at 8pm, precisely
50 years to the hour after The Beatles’ groundbreaking debut on The Ed
Sullivan Show. The two-hour TV special will feature performances of
Beatles songs by many of music’s biggest stars, broadcast in HDTV and
5.1 surround sound.
The February 9, 1964 Ed Sullivan broadcast is often cited as the big
bang of the so-called British Invasion, with 74 million viewers in the
U.S. and millions more in Canada tuning in to watch The Beatles make
their American television debut.
The show’s normally dry, Nixon-like host introduced them
portentously, saying, “Now, yesterday and today our theatre’s been
jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the
nation, and these veterans agreed with me that this city never has
witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool who
call themselves The Beatles.”
From the show’s New York studios, the Beatles traveled to Washington,
DC, performing their first Stateside concert on February 11 at the
Washington Coliseum to 8,000 fans in the round.
The Beatles then returned to New York for two sold-out Carnegie Hall
concerts on February 12. On February 16, they made their second
appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in a live broadcast from The
Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. Viewership for the episode was
nearly as strong as for their debut, with an estimated 70 million people
– 40 per cent of the American population -tuned in to watch.
The Beatles’ conquest of America had begun. Subsequent to their
February 1964 blitz, by April 5 they had 12 songs on the US singles
chart, including the chart’s Top 5 positions. July would inject the
Beatles into American cinemas in the form of the A Hard Day’s Night film
and August would bring a month-long, record smashing US tour.
America – still reeling from the JFK assassination of the previous November – would never be the same.
The Beatles on their second Ed Sullivan appearance, broadcast live from Miami, February 1964.
PHOTO: © Apple Corps Ltd
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