1963: The Year the Beatles Found Their Voice

Having spent entirely too much of my life studying all matters Beatles-related, I sometimes like to play a parlor game with other fans. I ask them which year was the band’s best, before offering an answer of my own. Many people stump for 1967, when Sgt. Pepper came out, recasting the pop-culture zeitgeist. Others opt for 1964, the first year of stateside Beatlemania. A dark horse sometimes gets a vote, like 1965, the year the Beatles produced their first mature masterwork in Rubber Soul. But when I provide my answer—1963, all the way—I’m usually met with puzzled looks. It’s no wonder. Fifty years have passed since that magical and formative year for the band, yet most of the music the Beatles recorded throughout it remains commercially unavailable. But 1963 is the band’s annus mirabilis.

In 1963, the Beatles were exploding in England. Their debut LP, Please Please Me, came out in March, followed by their megahit single “She Loves You” in August. Their second album, With the Beatles, and another hit single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” followed in the fall. Screaming girls, throngs of fans, bushels of albums being sold—this was when it all started. But the Beatles were also a veritable human jukebox that year. One of their many commitments was to turn up semi-regularly at the BBC, horse around on air, read requests, make fun of each other, make fun of the presenter, and play live versions of whatever people wanted to hear, whether that was their own material or a vast range of covers: Elvis Presley numbers; obscure rhythm-and-blues songs by lost-to-time bands like the Jodimars; Broadway show tunes; Americana; vamps on Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry; rearrangements of girl-group cuts; torch songs. If you wanted to hear what made the Beatles the Beatles, here is where you would want to start.

John Lennon: “We’re more popular than Jesus”

The following article was published in the London Evening Standard newspaper on 4 March 1966. A fascinating portrait of John Lennon‘s home life, it was written by Maureen Cleave, a close friend to The Beatles.

The piece was headlined “How does a Beatle live? John Lennon lives like this”. It grew notorious in later months when Lennon’s comments about Christianity – “We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity” – were republished around the world.

It was this time three years ago that The Beatles first grew famous. Ever since then, observers have anxiously tried to gauge whether their fame was on the wax or on the wane; they foretold the fall of the old Beatles, they searched diligently for the new Beatles (which was as pointless as looking for the new Big Ben).

What was so important about the Beatles’ appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show?

Everybody liked this stuff back then. I remember liking it, too. That’s all there was. There was no concept of an alternative.

That’s why the Beatles were such a big deal. From the moment they strummed those electric chords, wagged their mops of hair, and smiled those beaming, ironic, isn’t-this-cool-but-also-a-bit-absurd smiles, we all knew it was something from a different galaxy. (And, given how rarefied foreign travel was then, England might as well have been in a different galaxy.)

 A slew of clueless scholars and columnists have mused, over the decades, that the Beatles caused such a sensation because they snapped us out of the gloom brought on by the Kennedy assassination, which had taken place the previous November. This is silly sociology. Look at these DVDs or at any footage of a Beatles concert or a Beatles mob. It’s extremely doubtful that any of these teenage girls were cheering, screaming, palpitating, even crying with joy as some sort of catharsis to their anguish over Lee Harvey Oswald’s deed in Dallas. Meanwhile, their parents, who were the ones more likely traumatized by the death of the president, remained tellingly immune to Beatlemania.

Meeting the Beatles

It was, my editors had assured me, a dream assignment. And I, as a 26-year-old trainee in TIME's Washington bureau, was lucky to get it. Maybe so. But then why was I shivering alone on a corner of Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on this cold February night? The subjects I was supposed to be covering were ensconced 12 floors above me in the Plaza Hotel, encircled by a cadre of security gargoyles dedicated to making sure that neither I nor anybody else got anywhere near them. I'd been tracking them all day, but even the few quotes and details I'd gleaned had also been picked up by hundreds of competing journalists. So where was the dream part?

Well, I was looking in the wrong place. The subjects, after all, were the Beatles, the sensational English rockers who currently had the No. 1 album ("Meet the Beatles") and the No. 1 single ("I Want to Hold Your Hand") on the U.S. charts. They'd arrived for their first U.S. tour on that day, Feb. 7, 1964 — the most momentous British invasion, if you believed the hype, since the War of 1812. And the point was not to make intimate contact with the Fab Four themselves — at that point, it would've been easier to line up a chat with the Pope, or even J.D. Salinger — but to enjoy the excitement, the crowds, the hysterical adolescent girls, the sheer exuberant fun that surrounded them. The Beatles certainly enjoyed it all. Ducking into limousines, waving to screeching fans across police barricades, fielding silly questions at press conferences, they mugged and clowned and gagged it up to the delight of us reporters, who quickly wore out the adjectives "cheeky" and "irreverent." (Reporter: "How many of you are bald so you have to wear those wigs?" Beatles, in unison: "Oh, we're all bald." Reporter: "What do you think about the campaign in Detroit to stamp out the Beatles?" Paul McCartney: "We've got a campaign to stamp out Detroit." Reporter: "Who writes the music?" John Lennon: "What music?")

How the Beatles Took America: Inside the New Issue of Rolling Stone

Fifty years ago, the Beatles landed in the U.S., generating the biggest explosion rock & roll has ever seen. In the new issue of Rolling Stone (on stands Friday, January 3rd), contributing editor Mikal Gilmore examines just how the Fab Four arrived in the States facing media disdain and a clueless record label in the wake of the devastating assassination of John F. Kennedy — and still managed to conquer America. 

See where your favorite tracks land on our 100 Greatest Beatles Songs

What the Beatles Meant to America

Irene Katz stood on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue with her friend Laura Jacknick. It was Saturday, Feb. 8, 1964, and they were outside the Plaza Hotel in New York. The 13-year-old Katz had told her parents she was going somewhere to study, but instead the girls hit the pavement at 7 a.m. and remained there, bubbling with anticipation, for nine hours. John, Paul, George and Ringo were in town and staying at the Plaza. Katz held up a sign she’d made: “Elvis is Dead, Long Live the Beatles.”

“It wasn’t to be mean,” Katz says now, of the sign and the Elvis pronouncement. “Elvis was the past generation and it was over. This was new music and everything was different for a new generation of people.” Katz had high hopes, too: “We were looking up, convinced they would see us with their sign. We believed they would fall in love when they saw us.” That didn’t work out, but Katz and her sign became semi-famous, as camera crews shot footage broadcast all over national TV news.

The Beatles' 50 Biggest Billboard Hits

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' American invasion, we're counting down the Fab Four's biggest Hot 100 smashes, 10 songs at a time.

 It was 50 years ago this week that the Beatles landed at New York's JFK airport and brought their iconic sound to living rooms across the America. On Feb. 9, 1964, John, Paul, George and Ringo made their stateside television debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show," an event that drew 73 million viewers (an astonishing 40% of the entire U.S. population), becoming the largest TV audience in history to that point. Since that momentous evening, the Beatles have continued to exert a massive influence on music and pop culture, their tunes remaining a consistent, indelible part of every generation's soundtrack.

Pete Best is sacked from The Beatles

George Martin was impressed enough by The Beatles’ debut session for EMI on 6 June to offer them a recording contract. However, he was less pleased with the band’s drummer, Pete Best.

Getting rid of Best was not an easy decision. The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein had asked Cavern DJ Bob Wooler if it was a good idea, but Wooler told him that the handsome Best was too popular with the fans.

Brian Epstein told me that Pete Best was going to be sacked. I could imagine it with someone who was constantly late or giving him problems, but Pete Best was not awkward and he didn’t step out of line. I was most indignant and I said, ‘Why are you doing this?’ but I didn’t get an answer.

Bob Wooler
The Cavern, Spencer Leigh

Best had been with the group since 12 August 1960. He was never given a reason for his dismissal, which took place at 10am on this day at Epstein’s NEMS record shop. Best was dropped off at 10am by the group’s driver, Neil Aspinall, who was in a relationship with Best’s mother Mona.

Neil drove me into town and dropped me off in Whitechapel. I found Brian in a very uneasy mood when I joined him in his upstairs office. He came out with a lot of pleasantries and talked anything but business, which was unlike him. These were obviously delaying tactics and something important, I knew, was on his mind. Then he mustered enough courage to drop the bombshell.

Mitch Albom: Why the Beatles are still the best

This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” There were TV specials and nostalgic articles. And if I were in my teens today, I might ask, “What’s the big deal?”

It’s a fair question. To you, young person, this must seem like your parents (more likely your grandparents) waxing on about something that is totally outdated, like rotary phones or customer service.

So let me explain why the Beatles actually are worth commemorating. Let’s start with this: Fifty years later, their music is still better than today’s.

■ The Beatles and Motown: A story that spans the decades

■ Related: Detroit music figures recall the night America met the Beatles

■ Michigan Reflections: Remembering the day the Beatles changed everything

Why The Beatles Are Still Simply The Best

This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." There were TV specials and nostalgic articles. And if I were in my teens today, I might ask, "What's the big deal?"

It's a fair question. To you, young person, this must seem like your parents (more likely your grandparents) waxing on about something that is totally outdated, like rotary phones or customer service.

So let me explain why the Beatles actually are worth commemorating. Let's start with this: Fifty years later, their music is still better than today's.

Yep. I said it. I won't take it back. If Katy Perry wants to argue, bring it on. If Lady Gaga takes exception, I'll raise it. If Justin Bieber wants to...

Forget it. That's not even fair.

April 4, 1964: The Beatles Control Entire Top Five On Billboard Hot 100

On this date in 1964, the Fab Four monopolized the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the only act ever to lock up the region in a week.

On the Billboard Hot 100 dated April 4, 1964, 49 years ago today, the Beatles made history as the only act ever to occupy the chart's top five positions in a week.

With a 27-1 second-week blast to the top for "Can't Buy Me Love," the Fab Four locked up the chart's entire top five:

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"

50 Years Ago Today: The Beatles Boast Nos. 1-5 On Billboard Hot 100

On the chart dated April 4, 1964, the Fab Four monopolized the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the only time one act has ever to locked up the region

"Just about everyone is tired of the Beatles."

So read the first line of a story on page 1 of the Billboard magazine dated April 4, 1964, exactly 50 years ago today. That was the week that the Beatles made history as the only act ever to simultaneously occupy the Billboard Hot 100 chart's entire top five positions.

So … why was Billboard printing such seeming blasphemy?

PHOTOS: The Beatles Timeline
How The Beatles Went Viral in 1964
The Beatles' American Chart Invasion: 12 Record Chart Feats

Beatles were destined for huge success in spite of Kennedy assassination

In his new book, “Changin' Times: 101 Days That Shaped a Generation,”author Al Sussman challenges the long-held belief that America's grief after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy led to the success of the Beatles and the Beatlemania explosion in early 1964 in the United States. In fact, he told Beatles Examiner in an interview Nov. 21 that it really had nothing to do with it.

“What I call the fuse to the dynamite had already been lit before President Kennedy left for Texas, 50 years ago today,” Sussman says. “The scenes of mass hysteria outside the London Palladium on the night of The Beatles’ appearance on 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium,' the Prince of Wales Theater, the night of the Royal Variety Show, and at the airport when The Beatles returned from Sweden (caught) the attention of the London bureaus of the American media.

“So small articles had already appeared in Time and Newsweek, reports had aired on NBC and, on the morning of Nov. 22, CBS, and The Beatles’ first two appearances on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' had already been booked. So the wheels were already in motion.”

Analysing the Beatles' Success

As anybody who knows me well is aware of, I'm a fan of the Beatles (or at least their music). So, for fun, I've decided to analyse the Beatles' astounding success. After all, there's never been a band like them, and there never will be another one like them, in all probability. To date, they're the only musicians ever to occupy every spot in Billboard's Top 5 in the charts. They're also the only ones to have had back-to-back-to-back (taking over from themselves twice) number ones in the Billboard charts. Not to mention that they (or their estates) are still making oodles of money off everything to do with them. But why is this?

Of course, the Beatles got themselves off the ground in Hamburg, to begin with, where they performed near brothels. (In their offstage time, they occupied themselves with, among other things, peeing on nuns and burning condoms. The latter got them deported.) They sound like a pretty hardcore band, don't they? After all, any musical act admitting that today would probably be in serious hot soup. Yet, somehow, this band evolved into that group which gave us syrupy renderings of songs like "A Taste of Honey", "Love Me Do" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand".

The Beatles (Biography)

No band has influenced pop culture the way the Beatles have. They were one of the best things to happen in the twentieth century, let alone the Sixties. They were youth personified. They were unmatched innovators who were bigger than both Jesus and rock & roll itself: During the week of April 4, 1964, the Beatles held the first five slots on the Billboard Singles chart; they went on to sell more than a billion records; and 2000's 1, a compilation of the Beatles Number One hits, hit Number One in 35 countries and went on to become the best-selling album of the 2000s.

Every record was a shock when it came out. Compared to rabid R&B evangelists like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles arrived sounding like nothing else. They had already absorbed Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry, but they were also writing their own songs. They made writing your own material expected, rather than exceptional. As musicians, the Beatles proved that rock & roll could embrace a limitless variety of harmonies, structures, and sounds; virtually every rock experiment has some precedent on Beatles records.

50 years later, we're still mad for The Beatles

On Jan. 1, 1962, The Beatles flunked an audition at Decca Records in London. Label executive Dick Rowe's brush-off: "Guitar groups are on the way out."

It was an inauspicious start for the group that would soon dominate global society and a downbeat Day 1 in the year that saw the scrappy Liverpool lads evolve into the Fab Four who forever altered the course of pop music.

No other entertainers in history have been as popular, as influential, as important or as groundbreaking. The best-selling act ever sold 600 million albums worldwide and racked up 20 No. 1 U.S. singles, a Billboard record that still stands. The band hijacked the entertainment media and transcended music to become a chapter in world history. Its members had political clout, spiritual authority, cultural sway and the ears of the planet.

·    VIDEO: The Beatles through the years

·    MORE: USA TODAY picks the 20 best Beatles songs

The Beatles Celebrated in 'The Night That Changed America': Review

The Beatles' arrival 50 years ago -- Feb. 9, 1964 -- in black and white is celebrated in musical hues of tangerine, yellow and green on "The Night That Changed America" special that airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. History weaves in and out of material from the Beatles' career in the 1960s, but it's the Fab Four's later material, worked with vigor by Pharrell Williams, Joe Walsh, Dave Grohl and Gary Clark Jr., that stands out in the interpretations.

The band's "The Ed Sullivan Show" appearance on that day -- the first live televised performance from the Beatles in the United States -- provides the show's hook as Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr revisit the Ed Sullivan Theater with David Letterman, delivering the sort of observations one might expect.

The Beatles’ American invasion begins

The day The Beatles’ American invasion began. The Beatles’ Boeing 707, Pan Am flight 101, left London Airport early on the morning of 7 February 1964, bound for New York City.

All we knew was that a couple of the records had done well in the States. We believed there was still a huge mountain to climb if The Beatles were really to make it there.

At Heathrow there was pandemonium. Thousands of fans had arrived from all over Britain and any ordinary passengers hoping to travel that day had to give up. Screaming, sobbing girls held up ‘We Love You, Beatles’ banners and hordes of police, linking arms in long chains, held them back. We were ushered into a massive press conference, where journalists, spotting me at the side of the room, demanded a picture of John and me together. To my surpirse John agreed. He was usually careful to keep Julian and me away from publicity, but this time, carried along by the momentum of the whole thing, he agreed.

The Beatles’ Difficult Journey to Success in America

Legend tells us that on February 9, 1964, the Beatles stormed to superstardom in America before a record-smashing 73 million people during a live performance on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’ But that success was anything but preordained. In fact, the Fab Four themselves wondered if they’d ever break in the U.S.

CBS variety show host Ed Sullivan had first run into the burgeoning Beatles fanbase on Halloween night in 1963, when he happened into London’s airport and found thousands of screaming fans waiting for the band’s flight back from a tour of Sweden.

“Of course, he’d never heard of the Beatles,” Jerry Bowles, who wrote ‘A Thousand Sundays: The Story of the Ed Sullivan Show,’ told NPR. “But instantly he recognized that if they could get 3,000 screaming teenagers to show up at an airport in the middle of the night, they must be somebody.”

50 Years of The Beatles: Ranking their Albums from 13 to 1

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr -- names forever etched into the world’s collective consciousness. They are the best-selling band in history both in America and worldwide. The Beatles changed everything. Over the course of 13 albums and assorted singles and EPs -- roughly 10 hours of music -- they produced the most vital and influential collection of pop/rock music in the history of the genre. All of these accomplishments were achieved despite the band’s fleeting existence as a recording entity. First single “Love Me Do” was released on October 5, 1962, and their final release as a band (after they had already broken up) was “The Long and Winding Road” on May 11, 1970. In under a decade, The Beatles forever changed music and pop culture, and in the process created a story that still fascinates and inspires. 

February 9, 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ legendary appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, widely considered to be the moment they “conquered America.” Half a century later their music is as popular as ever. Wanna know the best-selling album in America and worldwide during the first decade of the 2000s? Eminem perhaps, or Britney Spears?  Nah. It was The Beatles’ compilation “1,” a collection of their chart-topping singles which sold 11.5 million copies in the U.S. alone during that decade and has now sold approximately 31 million copies worldwide, and counting. The Beatles are untouchable, and people will be listening to their music when everyone reading this article is long gone.

Lennon was not a fan of Beatles U.S. album versions, now to be released on CD

On Thursday, Universal Music announced that they will be releasing a new set of The Beatles U.S. album versions on CD. In the 1960s, American Beatles fans never saw the first seven Beatles albums that were released in England -- at least not in the same configurations. The fact is that in the United States,Capitol Records actually released 13 different versions of Beatles albums than were released in the U.K. and this was a constant source of frustration to The Beatles themselves.

By the time The Beatles got signed to Capitol Records in late 1963, they had already released two albums in England, "Please Please Me" and "With The Beatles." Instead of releasing identical versions of the U.K. albums in the US, Capitol decided to release their own versions of Beatles albums starting with "Meet The Beatles."

Upcoming release of Beatles' 'U.S. Albums' generating controversy over source

The highly anticipated January 20/21, 2014 release of the Beatles’ “U.S. Albums” collection is just around the corner. The box set is available for pre-orders, and it was announced on January 6, 2014, that pre-orders are now available in an exclusive iTunes release as well. (See links below.) As the upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations of the Beatles’ arrival in America are in the works, this nostalgic release is generating a lot of interest. Finally American fans will have a full set of CDs of the albums they grew up with, down to the artwork.

The Beatles' US Albums: How the classics were butchered

If George Bernard Shaw was correct in asserting that Britain and America were two countries "separated by a common language", then the new box set of The US Albums by The Beatles offers the musical confirmation. Released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the group's first visit to America these albums are available in the UK for the first time, and provide a revelatory eye-opener to the differences with which the two countries regarded this musical phenomenon.

The Beatles: The US Albums

The Beatles have already celebrated 50 once, but this year will mark the 50th anniversary of their stateside introduction. From a musical standpoint, very little has approached what Beatlemania did to the USA and its citizens back in 1964. Sure, old fuddy-duddies of the day pooh-poohed the notion that these mop-topped kids from Liverpool would ever amount to a hill of beans. Oh, but they did. So much so that CBS recently aired a 50th anniversary special celebrating the cause. The American public still loves to revel in their music.

The re-issues drop Jan. 21, leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first trip to America

With the 50th anniversary of "Beatlemania" arriving early next year, Capitol Records will re-release all of 13 the Beatles' American releases in a set titled "The U.S. Albums."

The set drops Jan. 21 in North America and features reissues of the band's 13 American albums -- albums that often held different track lists, song mixes, titles, and art than their U.K. counterparts. Five of them (listed below) have never been available on CD before. Pre-orders are available.