Sunday, February 9, 1964
The Ed Sullivan Show
TV Show • By The Beatles
Last updated on December 1, 2024
Sunday, February 9, 1964
TV Show • By The Beatles
Last updated on December 1, 2024
Location: CBS Studio 50
Previous TV show Jan 12, 1964 • Sunday Night At The London Palladium
EP Feb 07, 1964 • "All My Loving" by The Beatles released in the UK
Rehearsal Feb 08, 1964 • Rehearsals for The Ed Sullivan Show
TV show Feb 09, 1964 • The Ed Sullivan Show
Interview Feb 10, 1964 • The Beatles interview for Associated Press
Interview Feb 10, 1964 • The Beatles interview for CBS News
Next TV show Feb 23, 1964 • Big Night Out
From Decades, February 9, 2016:
It’s a wonder the microphones did not malfunction. The teenage shrieks were piercing as the Beatles kicked into “All My Loving.” It was not just the opening to that evening’s Ed Sullivan Show, it was the start of the British Invasion, precisely seven years and five months to the day after Elvis made his debut in that New York theater. The Mop Tops wrapped up their opening set with “Till There Was You” and “She Loves You.” Later in the program, the quartet returned to rock “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
The world was not the same after that broadcast on February 9, 1964, broadcast. Certainly not the music world, at least. […]
Sullivan and his wife Sylvia were traveling in Heathrow Airport when they spotted a crowd of British youngsters standing in the rain to await a plane. They were hoping for a chance to spot the Beatles, who were returning from a jaunt in Sweden. Sullivan noted it was like Elvis all over again and looked to book the band for his own variety show.
The Beatles were paid $10,000.
Beatles manager Brian Epstein brilliantly bargained to have his boys play three episodes of Sullivan, and to perform as the headliner, unlike most musical acts that come later in the show. For the added exposure, he knocked down the price. Still, $10,000 is about $76,000 in today’s cash. Not bad.
50,000 seat requests came for an auditorium that held 700. […]
73 million people tuned in.
Let’s put this into perspective. Last weekend, about 112 million tuned in for the Super Bowl. Considering the growth of the American population, which grew from approximately 192 million to 320 million from 1964 to today, it is about the same level of tune-in. Sixty percent of American televisions were tuned in to Sullivan that evening
“I Want to Hold Your Hand” was one of the first “record leaks” — long before the Internet.
We have been hearing about albums leaking online since the turn of the millennium. However, premature releases to the public date back half a century. The “I Want to Hold Your Hand” single was leaked to radio in advance of its planned debut late in 1963. Capital Records attempted to legally prevent DJs from spinning the track, but finally relented and dropped the record early. By the time the Beatles played Sullivan, it had sold in the seven figures.
Paul McCartney, in the Anthology book:
Seventy-three million people were reported to have watched the first show. It is still supposed to be one of the largest viewing audiences ever in the States.
It was very important. We came out of nowhere with funny hair, looking like marionettes or something. That was very influential. I think that was really one of the big things that broke us – the hairdo more than the music, originally. A lot of people’s fathers had wanted to turn us off. They told their kids, ‘Don’t be fooled, they’re wearing wigs.’
A lot of fathers did turn it off, but a lot of mothers and children made them keep it on. All these kids are now grown-up, and telling us they remember it. It’s like, ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ I get people like Dan Aykroyd saying, ‘Oh man, I remember that Sunday night; we didn’t know what had hit us – just sitting there watching Ed Sullivan’s show.’ Up until then there were jugglers and comedians like Jerry Lewis, and then, suddenly, The Beatles!
From Anthology 1 liner notes:
As Ed introduced the group and Paul struck up his With The Beatles song All My Loving, a revolution in American popular culture occurred. Although this was not the Beatles’ debut on US television it was, all the same, the first time most Americans saw them, and it proved to be a record-breaking moment in the history of US TV – the A C Nielsen rating of 23,240,000 viewing homes meant that something like 73 million people tuned in, shattered the previous best figure and remaining the largest American viewing audience for three years.
The show went out live from 8 until 9pm, Eastern Standard Time, on Sunday 9 February 1964, and was networked across the United States by CBS from its Broadway studio in New York City. In the time that it took the Beatles to perform five songs (the other were Till There Was You, She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There and I Want To Hold Your Hand) they booked themselves a place in American cultural history.
February 9
The main event was their Sunday appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. This was the epicenter of Beatlemania. That day, London had been on the phone, hounding me to send my pictures as soon as the show was over.
As the band was leaving the Plaza to get into the limo, there was a pack of screaming people. Previously, the Beatles had always made sure to squeeze me into their car. But this was mayhem. Any other car would have just left. And yet, Paul held the door open so that I could get in with my cameras. At first I was sitting on the floor, literally. Then we started lurching down the street and I managed to get up and sit on John’s lap.
I was worried about one thing: How am I going to take photos in focus? I decided to concentrate on faces and bodies out the side windows as people peered in, surging toward us, shouting, waving. Old men in overcoats, high school girls, policemen. Click, click, click. Pictures from inside the fishbowl of the crush outside. This was a prelude to similar scenes in the movie A Hard Day’s Night, which would come out six months later in America. The pandemonium wasn’t unprecedented, of course. Fans had mobbed Valentino and Sinatra—and Elvis, in particular. I’d seen this with musicians and movie stars. But never at this level.
When we got to the theater, I stood behind the TV cameramen, taking pictures. Once it was showtime, the Beatles were all business. The audience was deafening, but these four were pros. They stuck to the set list: “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You,” “She Loves You,” and then “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
All love songs. They wanted people to like them. They also understood that they were representing their country—and the queen. Buckingham Palace had passed along a message, very quietly, that they were good ambassadors for Britain, and they wanted to assume that role.
The broadcast turned out to be a milestone in American culture—bigger than they could have ever imagined the night of the pillow fight. Seventy-three million people watched. The band’s popularity exploded. This was a magnitude of fame that had been reserved for heads of state or heavyweight boxers. Now they were the heavyweight champions of the world.
It took me many years to get it through my head. But what the Beatles had done was remarkable: taking the essence of Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers and making it global. As time went on, people began to say their songs would be played for centuries. That stuck with me. I started to realize my photographs would be valued for centuries too. I hadn’t been shooting rock stars. I’d been photographing history.
Harry Benson – From The Beatles Stormed America in 1964. I Was With Them, Day and Night | Vanity Fair, January 17, 2024
Fifty years after, on February 9, 2014, a special concert entitled “The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles” was broadcast on US TV.
This was the 1st concert played at CBS Studio 50.
A total of 2 concerts have been played there • 1964 • Feb 9• 1965 • Aug 14
Beginning of the show
Written by Meredith Willson
Album Available on The Ultimate Live Collection Vol. 03
Second half of the show
Album Available on The Ultimate Live Collection Vol. 03
Album Available on The Ultimate Live Collection Vol. 03
Notice any inaccuracies on this page? Have additional insights or ideas for new content? Or just want to share your thoughts? We value your feedback! Please use the form below to get in touch with us.
