Across the Pond: When The Beatles reached America

By the time The Beatles began recording their first album, no one could have predicted where they would go next. After being heralded as the hottest young skiffle group to make their way out of Liverpool, the Fab Four had sauntered into Abbey Road Studios to record what would make up their first album, featuring a collection of the first major Lennon/McCartney songs to be recorded. Although the band’s success in England took off like a rocket ship, it was nothing compared to when they cracked America.

Then again, the fact that the group started gaining traction overseas was almost an anomaly. Although the band were lighting up the charts on the other side of the world, Capitol Records had initially rejected any single they had for the American market, thinking it wouldn’t appeal to the demographic looking for the latest single from The Beach Boys.

As the band continued to gig across Europe, something strange happened when a radio station in Washington, DC, began getting requests from a listener who had heard this great band on a trip to England. As songs like ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ went screaming up the charts, the Fab Four were fast becoming one of the biggest names in America before they had even visited.

Although the group’s albums would be shuffled for the American market, Meet The Beatles! served as the ideal gateway drug for anyone looking to see what the Liverpool quartet were all about. Gone were the covers from the original Please Please Me and With the Beatles, instead replaced with all original Lennon/McCartney tunes, including standalone singles like ‘This Boy’ and ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.

Though the band may have been given a rapturous reaction by the American public upon arrival, it may have also had to do with where the country was when the band started to make it big. On the same day that With the Beatles was released in Europe, President John F Kennedy was gunned down in Texas, casting a dark shroud over the entire country.

Even though the entire country was still mourning their fallen leader, a beacon of hope came in when The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. In just a few short minutes, the American public had gotten a taste of everything that the group stood for, from their indelible chemistry whenever they got onstage to their different vocal styles, whether that was the authority of John Lennon’s voice or the doe-eyed look of Paul McCartney singing songs like ‘All My Loving’.

Becoming one of the highest-viewed television programs of all time, the band’s momentum had led to every single audience member wanting to either go out with The Beatles or to be one of them. Not all of the audience’s dreams were possible, though, with the band insisting on running a statement under Lennon’s name saying he was married.

Although America had gotten their first taste of rock and roll hysteria from Elvis Presley years before, this gave the world four Elvises for the price of one, with every band member having their own distinct personality. By the time they began work on their next album and first film, A Hard Day’s Night, the band had turned their schtick into a science, being able to bounce off each other and relate to the audience as if they were old friends.

From there, the rest of the British music scene would follow suit, with everyone from The Rolling Stones to The Animals having a fair shot at cracking America in The Beatles’ wake. The Fab For were not going to be stopped, though, continuing to make strides in the American market by playing the first-ever stadium gig at Shea Stadium in 1965 before having to give up the touring life after a show in San Francisco in 1966. The Beatles may have dreamed of cracking America, but after years of working to create magic onstage, they helped remind Americans about the enduring power of rock and roll.