Nineteen sixty four was a big year for the Beatles as the Beatles '64 documentary at Disney sets out to tell.
I was just nine years old when they arrived in New York on Feb. 7 to play The Ed Sullivan Show two days later. Like the Gonzalez family in the movie, we sat around and watched the Fab Four deliver a thrilling five-song set.
Throughout Beatles '64 girls are cast as the band's chief fans but I know me and my male pals were totally into them too. Thanks to my older brother buying all of their early records and AM radio stations like WABC, it didn't take long for us to know and love all of their songs.
But it is true that girls REALLY adored the Beatles, which comes through with the usual screaming onslaught and interviews with women who were there then, some just fans and others like Ronnie Spector, writer Jane Tomkins and Jamie Bernstein, daughter of Sid who booked the Beatles at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 12 and at Shea Stadium in 1965.
Living Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Star provide fresh commentaries as do Smokey Robinson, who receives a nice section on his connection to the Beatles, and Ronald Isley who says the Isley Brothers "were so glad that they did our song," referring to "Twist and Shout."
Director David Tedeschi doesn't gloss over white artists like the Bealtes covering songs by Black artists and having greater success with them. Pat Boone did that with Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti," which Richard called "weak."
Street interviews with Blacks reveal how little they knew about the Beatles phenomenon, Even for a Motown star like Robinson, the Beatles were "the first white group" he ever heard, noting: "There was a lot of segregation at the time."
Asked why rock music received such backlash, John Lennon said, "I always thought it was because it came from Black music. And the words had a lot of double entendre in the early days. The music got to your body and the Beatles just carried it a bit further, made it more white, even more than Elvis did because we were English."
Robinson said Beatles' music was a unique blend of rock, pop and R&B.
Consider the context of the Beatles' arrival in America: Pres. John F. Kennedy had just been assassinated 10 weeks prior. The country was still in a state of shock, but there was no stopping the Beatles, who started to blow up in Europe the year before. McCartney wonders:
"Maybe America needed something like the Beatles to lift it out of mourning and just kind of say life goes on"
That's probably true, but what did I know at nine or 10? We thought they were cool and their music was awesome. I've always considered myself pretty lucky to have been a "Beatles Baby."
Much of the black & white footage comes from the Maysle Brothers' 1964 movie, What's Happening: The Beatles in the U.S.A. Tedeschi neatly shuffles old clips of train travel, hotel rooms, press conferences and even Murray the K with current talking heads.
Like I said it was a big year for the band, so big that this 1:45 length doc only really recounts the Beatles' first two weeks in America. They launched a 24-city tour in August, stopping in New York for two shows at Forest Hills Stadium on Aug. 28-29. On the 28th, they had their historic session with Bob Dylan at the Delmonico Hotel where the famous folk singer turned them on to pot. This is not mentioned in Beatles '64. The most smoking you see are a lot cigarettes by Ringo and Paul. Otherwise, it was a pretty clean-cut whirlwind East Coast debut for the lads in America.
The Soundtrack
It's fantastic. While "I Want to Hold Your Hand" appears just once below, it's repeated with snippets numerous times and there's even a Musak version of "Love Me Do" that plays for a few seconds. Many of the songs are performed live in entirety, like "Twist and Shout" on which George Harrison sings the lead.
She Loves You
Please Please Me
In My Life
I Want to Hold Your Hand
You've Really Got a Hold on Me
'Til There Was You
I Saw Her Standing There
Long Tall Sally
Baby It's You
Twist and Shout
It Won't Be Long
This Boy
Roll Over Beethoven
More Beatles Links
• The Beatles: Get Back (2021)
