FASCINATION WITH BEATLES CONTINUES TO GROW LONG AFTER FAB FOUR´S INFAMOUS BREAKUP

By Jere Hester / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Some 210 million Americans weren’t alive when the Fab Four landed in New York City. More than 165 million Americans hadn’t been born when the Beatles took their final walk together across Abbey Road six world-shaking years later. But they have never stopped picking up new fans.

The Beatles wave to fans assembled below their Plaza Hotel window after they arrived in New York City on Feb. 7, 1964.

Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl penned virtual liner notes for a Beatles iTunes collection in 2012. But the ode to his favorite group focused less on the Fab Four than on his then-6-year-old daughter.

Violet Grohl, it turns out, found her own musical nirvana when her dad played for her the classic animated film, “Yellow Submarine.”

“It was her introduction to the Beatles, and she instantly shared the same fascination I felt when I was her age discovering the Beatles for the first time,” Grohl wrote.

It's a fascination that’s grown, not only in Violet’s home, but around the world as new legions of Beatle Babies are raised on the manna of a musical catalogue produced by a band who played their last note when Dave Grohl was in diapers.

The hoopla surrounding the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ U.S. arrival doesn’t represent a new wave of Beatlemania as much as resounding proof that for most of us, John, Paul, George and Ringo always have been here, there and everywhere.

Some 210 million Americans — about two-thirds of the U.S. population — weren’t alive on Feb. 7, 1964, when the four Liverpudlians landed at Kennedy Airport to the siren song of screaming teenagers. More than 165 million Americans hadn’t been born when the quartet took their final walk together across Abbey Road six world-shaking years later.

The group’s breakup may be old news, but they’ve never stopped gaining new fans.

The Beatles ended the first decade of this millennium with the century’s biggest-selling U.S. album (“1”), and 30 million album sales overall, just behind Eminem for tops. Their iTunes debut in late 2010 has spurred a reported 3.5 million album and singles sales, and November’s release of “On Air — Live at the BBC Volume 2” marked the 31st Beatles set to hit Billboard’s top 10. Signs of their enduring youth appeal also stretch from kids in Beatles T-shirts to viral videos of the guitar-slinging, “Hey Jude”-singing Korean toddler and the Brazilian “Don’t Let Me Down” boy to The Beatles: Rock Band game. Ken Dashow, host of Q104.3 FM’s popular Sunday “Breakfast with the Beatles,” reports half the show's audience is under 25.

(SETH WENIG/REUTERS Paul McCartney signs one of his books for Ella Hester, 8, during a book signing in NYC in 2005.)

A 2009 Pew Research Center survey placed the Beatles in the top four favorite music acts of Americans ages 16 to 64 — suggesting the band that helped create the 1960s Generation Gap ultimately helped us come together. Perhaps that’s the Beatles’ greatest gift: music that can be shared not only across the universe, but across generational lines.

“With the Beatles, everybody becomes one family and you forget age exists,” said Michelle Lapidos, 29, of Brooklyn.

Lapidos should know. She was named after the Beatles song by her mother, Carol, and father, Mark, who started The Fest for Beatles Fans in 1974. The Lapidoses are busily preparing for the latest fan convention, set for the Grand Hyatt New York from Feb. 7 — the British Invasion anniversary — through Feb. 9, the anniversary of the Beatles’ debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

Mark Lapidos expects 8,000 fans to pack the Fest — among them, many teenagers.

“The music has successfully been passed to the next generation and the generation after that,” the 66-year-old Bronx native said. “Young people hear the music and that’s it — they’re hooked.”

The anniversary is spurring music around town — including NYC Fab 50 concerts at the Hudson Theater, Town Hall and the Apollo Theater, with a multigenerational lineup from School of Rock to Gary U.S. Bonds. Meanwhile, Alicia Keys, John Legend and Maroon 5 are among those set for a Feb. 9 Beatles tribute on CBS.

While the songs are the heart of the Beatles’ allure, the group’s mantra of peace and love pulse with a youth-friendly message. “‘All you need is love’ — when will that never not be cool?” Dashow asked.

The Beatles’ rise from hardscrabble Liverpool, their timeless wit and their revolution-speed evolution — from the mop-top-era joy of “She Loves You” to “Sgt. Pepper” psychedelia to their “Get Back” finale atop a London roof 44 years ago this week — are inspiration to anyone who ever dared to dream of changing the world.

(Photo:'Raising a Beatle Baby: How John, Paul, George and Ringo Helped us Come Together as Family,' written by Jere Hester.)

As Dashow noted, a key lesson of the Beatles’ story is “Work hard at whatever it is you love.”

McCartney and Starr, set to play at the Grammys Sunday, work hard at keeping the music and memories of Lennon and Harrison alive. McCartney, at 71, released a Top 10-charting album (“New”) in October and ended 2013 as the year’s highest-grossing concert act. Starr, 73, recently wrapped a tour in Las Vegas, where he reunited with five fans whose picture he snapped after the Beatles landed in New York all those years ago.

The Beatles keep giving youngsters new ways to discover them, like Vegas’ long-running Cirque du Soleil “Love” show and Starr’s “Octopus’s Garden” children’s book. McCartney’s “High in the Clouds” kids’ book is being made into a movie.

It was at a 2005 Manhattan signing for “High in the Clouds” that my daughter, Ella, then 8, unexpectedly met McCartney — a story that spread around the world.

She was raised a Beatle Baby: I serenaded Ella with “Love Me Do” prenatal. Her mother and I later took her to Liverpool and Hamburg, following in Beatle footsteps.

McCartney lived up to expectations during that from-me-to-you encounter, making Ella feel like she was the only other person in the crowded bookstore — the same way many fans feel like the Beatles are singing directly to them. Ella, a vocalist from birth, asked for bass lessons after meeting McCartney. While her teenage musical exploits have expanded to progressive rock, classical music and jazz, she regularly gets back to the Beatles.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Ella sat at the piano in our Brooklyn home and floated through the Beatles songbook, from “Across the Universe” to “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.” She even let her dad play along.

Imagine the sing-alongs in Beatle households everywhere — including in the Grohl home, where dad Dave can boast he’s jammed with his pal, Paul. Grohl is headed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But he knows there’s only one band whose music is guaranteed to last — and span — the ages. “From one generation to the next, the Beatles will remain the most important rock band of all time,” Grohl wrote. “Just ask Violet.”

Or ask Michelle, Ella or any other Beatle Baby, who would agree with a resounding, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

Jere Hester, director of the NYCity News Service at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, is the author of “Raising a Beatle Baby: How John, Paul, George and Ringo Helped us Come Together as Family” (www.BeatleBaby.com).