THE FIRST BRITISH INVASION 1964-1966

I WANNA HOLD YOUR BAND

Every so often at unexpected moments, memories float to the surface, like long ago dream fragments. As with other intensely emotional recollections—good romances, rotten romances, family traumas, births and deaths—they remain Technicolor visions, accompanied by sounds and even smells. But these are different. They're of my parents in 1964, scurrying around to all our neighbors in the Bronx building where I was raised, advising everyone that murder was not being committed in apartment 6B. Rather, their 15-year-old only child had the black and white console tuned to Ed Sullivan, screaming to high heaven for the love of Paul McCartney. They're of a windswept afternoon in 1965, when that self-same daughter, now 16, snuck into Manhattan after school and stood for three hours in the misty damp for one 10-second glimpse of Brian Jones in his limousine.

And with much greater frequency, they are spurred by the sight of old scratchy 45s, yellowing pages of newsprint, and lip-print stained posters. The memories are overwhelming, if merely for a second, just as the era they call to mind was magnificently obsessive in its time. That so much of its music still sounds crisp, fresh and clean, long after the performers have progressed or faded is certainly remarkable. But the sound is just the tip of the iceberg. If you were a teenager, especially a female teenager, between 1964 and 1966, the British Invasion swallowed you whole, and in some way changed your life—I believe, for the better.

God knows, on the verge of the Beatles-then-British onslaught, this country needed a positive obsession. Musically, despite the wall-shattering presence of Phil Spector's girl groups, the California jolly surf movement and the ethnic urgency of Frankie Valli/Dion post-doo wop, rock had lost most of the grab-you-by-the-shirt-collar rawness of its originators. The pretty boys who paraded into American Bandstand were nice enough, with their modified pompadours and sharkskin suits, but after a while, the tunes all sounded the same. Slow songs—aka makeout music—were abundant, but how much Bobby Vinton could anyone stand? It was all so very...predictable.

On the other hand, the social climate on these shores wasn't one bit predictable. With the luxury of hindsight, we view millions of post-World War II babies, just turning into their teens and crammed with cheap, disposable dollars. Marketers had learned their lessons well since the first rock 'n' roll explosion of the mid'50s. If you make it repellent to the old folks and labeled it "teenage," it sold. And so there were capri pants, giant pink and wire hair rollers, transistor radios, Garrison belts (used to beam the opposition in a gang fight), bubble gum, bubble bath, itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka-dot bikinis, and more, more, more consumables you could part company with $1.99 or so to obtain.

And the parents wouldn't mind, not really; they had their three percent mortgages and this year's model station wagon to breeze through.

But the rapidly maturing teenage population was an accident waiting to happen. Spurred to optimism by the first U.S. president who didn't look or act like an old fart—John F. Kennedy— America's youth sure did assume they'd be doing For Their Country. Never mind that we'd grown up taught to duck under the desk if the Commies nuked our elementary schools, and had at least one narrow escape from the destiny of dust during 1962's Cuban missile crisis. Oh yes, we would survive, crewcuts a-bristling and pleated madras skirts a-rustling. Then came November 22, 1963, and as a wise man would say in a whole other context, a universe away, the dream was over.

When Kennedy was assassinated—was that word destined to haunt the Beatles forever?—American youth collapsed onto the rubble of its naive joy like a house of cards. I'm down, dontcha know I'm down...If you'd never cried before in your life, dammit, you cried now. Instead of hearing comforting fatherly disc jockey voices repeating the soothing mantra of Top 40, radio, like television, was one endless funeral cortege. My cousin had the misfortune to turn 16 on that weekend, but instead of a giggly silly normal Sweet 16 party, we guests were transformed into too-young participants at a national wake. Unspoken but enmeshed in us was the fervent hope—there has got to be some way out of here.

Doesn't there? And then, two months later, bright as a thousand sunbursts, laughing and joking, sharp and sexy, cute and cuddly, musical and magical, came the Beatles, and their million-and-one followers. The clouds lifted, the airwaves hummed with possibilities, and the present became wonderful.

Stories abound of who first played a Beatles single in America, what sharp-eyed reporter was quickest on the draw with tales of early Beatlemania in England, and which individuals deserve the most credit for the Fab Four's success in this country. Honestly, considered 20 years later, who cares? Sure, concert promoter Sid Bernstein smelled a winner, TV show host Ed Sullivan sensed an audience grabber, and executives of various record labels, many of them small compared to the band's official home, Capitol, prayed for a decent-sized hit with one or another of Lennon and McCartney's catchy tunes. Yet, possibly excepting Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who shared our unstinting devotion to the group(whatever his reasons), no one anticipated the enormity of the Beatles sweeping this country, followed in turn by the Dave Clark 5, Animals, Kinks, Rolling Stones, Hollies, Who, Herman's Hermits, etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, I distinctly remember hearing a fragment of song, which eerily evoked some Yiddish folk music, played once by a New York Top 40 station back in August, 1963. Never caught the name of the tune at the time—obviously, it was going to be a dud—but I sure recognized it the following year when "From Me To You" was released as the flip side of "Please Please Me." Invasions do take time and planning. In fact, Beatlemania was rampant in Europe for a full year before the American frenzy began.

"NU? SHE'LL GROW OUT OF IT."—a prediction, said with much hope by Sarah Weinstein, my grandmother....

However, once it started, there was no stopping the wave of invaders, with their long hair, "foony" accents, indecipherable slang, and wild accoutrements such as collarless suits. Everyone wanted to be part of the groundswell, which escalated to tidal wave proportions following the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. It was easy—you learned by doing. The moment a Beatle showed his face, you screamed—LOUD! Emerging from the TV room following a Beatle appearance, or for that matter one by any of the Britishers, with incipient laryngitis proved that a true fan dwelled within. Thanks to buttons immediately put on sale by clever entrepreneurs, America's young women draped themselves in Beatle faces: "I LOVE PAULI," "I LOVE GEORGE," "BEATLES 4-EVER!" Auugghh!

On the other hand, while wondering how fast they could grow out the crewcut to a passable pudding bowl and chuck the Continental suits, the guys wore nasty little bug-faced badges which proclaimed, "I HATE THE BEATLES!," "STAMP OUT BEATLEMANIA!" In short, as my husband readily admits, they were jealous. By spring of 1964, exactly two guys in the Bronx High School Of Science had Beatle-length hair. They did not want for dates.

Back then, there weren't any rock critics ready to spout off on the musical virtues of this British Invasion (and of that, more in a moment). What we did have, instead, were dozens of pompous psychologists, all expounding about how Beatlemania and Rolling Stonitis were manifestations of mass hysteria, kinda like the outbreak of witch trials in 17th century Salem. (Fortunately, these were more enlightened times, and the only things burned were rock records, under the direction of certain rampaging religionists.) Teenage girls screamed, they maintained, as a way to sublimate their budding sexuality. But believe me, John Lennon was a lot more of a turn-on than the nerds we sat next to in school. Unlike the American solo singers they replaced, the English were more openly sensual, yet at the same time, less sleazy. Mick Jagger used to perform in a ratty old sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers, but he blew our slicked and coiffed dudes right off the stage.

Fortunately, there was a countervailing wind against which no headshrinker could hold up for long—the radio disc jockeys. Almost alone of every adult opining about British rockers, the DJs—at least while on the air—praised them to the skies. New York's WABC, spearheaded by "Cousin" Brucie Morrow, soon became WABeatleC. On WMCA, home of the "Good Guys," fast talking B. Mitchell Reed headed the pack in dropping tidbits of news our way. But to me, the British Invasion would never have blossomed so sweetly if not for WINS's one and only Murray the "K," the Fifth Beatle. He was close to it—so close that the Boys called him Muffy The Cow. He played the songs first, and he played them often.

Remember, there were no music magazines like CREEM listing new releases back then, and no MTV either—only the staticky buzz of a local Top 40 station, falling all over itself to introduce each new disc from England the moment it secured an American outlet. No one put a limit on how many singles were aired—the station

managements knew that sooner or later, anything with the right haircut and accent would zoom onto the charts. On Murray's "Swingin' Soiree," for instance, you heard five new songs every night, then voted for your favorite. Thus was "Satisfaction," to name one I vividly recall, tipped for the top. Albums, at first, weren't important. If the radio played a new single one night, by the next morning a half-million kids in a thousand cities swarmed liked lemmings to the local platter center, to buy, and buy, and buy. For a dollar, I could grab the latest release and still have enough loose change for a copy of 16 Magazine, the fan's profusely illustrated pop Bible.

What I bought between February and July, 1964:

The Beatles: "I .Want To Hold Your Hand"

The Marketts: "Out Of Limits"

The Beatles: "She Loves You"

Jimmy Soul: "If You Want To Be Happy"

The Beatles: "Please Please Me"

The Searchers: "Needles And Pins"

The Four Seasons: "Stay"

The Beatles: "Can't Buy Me Love"

The Dave Clark Five: "Bits And Pieces"

The Beatles: "Love Me Do"

The Searchers: "Don't Throw Your Love Away"

Dionne Warwick: "Walk On By"

Cilia Black: "You're My World"

Gerry And The Pacemakers: "How Do You Do It"

Billy J. Kramer And The Dakotas: "Little Children" b/w "Bad to Me"

The Beatles: "Ain't She Sweet"

The Rolling Stones: "It's All Over Now"

The Animals: "House Of The Rising Sun"

Exactly four out of these eighteen records were by Americans. Before the Invasion, my entire British music purchases had been the Tornadoes' instrumental, "Telstar." When you got past the screaming, the British newcomers offered rock-starved young America a staggering amount of diversity. And once these English guys and girls got to speak for themselves in the fan magazines and on radio interviews, they quickly accredited the source of much inspiration. To our shock, it was right here in the good old U.S.A. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers—this unexpected "roots" music was rediscovered in a passionate frenzy never anticipated by the forerunners. Yet because we loved the recyclers' sound so much, we yearned to share in the originals' bounty. Doing so would make our heroes proud.

Besides, the wealth of music styles available was unprecedented for pop culture. First, of course, came Merseybeat, a rousing blend of four-part harmony and twangy guitars, played by the Beatles, the Searchers, the Swinging Blue Jeans. From nearby Manchester came the Hollies, named after Buddy and with a correspondingly lighter appeal. Northern England was home to its own version of vaudeville*and holiday entertainments—family fare, which was purveyed into the Top 40 by the goony dancing Freddie And The Dreamers, the ever-smiling Gerry And The Pacemakers, and cheeky Herman's Hermits. There was even a Liverpudlian pretty boy or two, most noticeably Epstein client Billy J. Kramer, two of whose first three hits were Lennon-McCartney compositions. Which brings up one huge defense mechanism we often invoked to prove that the British.Invasion wasn't just another deftly marketed trend: these lads wrote as many of their own songs as they covered. No more little wind-up toys, indeed. And with that, a chain of command was established in the U.K. that's lasted all the way to Boy Georgeone can be original, even unconventional for the time, yet remain popular in the word's truest sense—of the people.

While the melodic mainstream and four-four beat were holding court in Liverpool, other regions of the sceptered Isle began to writhe with distinctive hitmakers. The Animals, from Newcastle, howled true to their name by going straight to Number One with electrified blues standards, "The House Of The Rising Sun" and John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom." This was visceral, gut-clenching music as performed by a lead singer whose complexion looked like he'd grown to manhood down in a mineshaft. The Beatles kept you laughing, but the Animals were always...angry.

Then, as that first explosive year or 1964 gave way to the next, the London Boys—heavy laden with attitude and urban angst, dedicated to being named "the most blueswailing"—came to light. London's first offering to America, the Dave Clark 5, was an aberration of that city's dominant mode. Strapping Dave Clark was a man for the jock-lovers, a style apart from the otherwise weedy Brits. He rat-a-tatted on his drums with no subtlety, and shouted the words to "Glad All Over" and "Bits And Pieces" like so many football chants. Yet almost immediately, because they were quick on the U.S. scene, the teen mags battled: "DC5 Vs. Beatles—Who Will Win?" Actually, if they'd paid accurate attention to Britain's other headline grabbers, they'd have known where the real crisis of choice lay—with the Rolling Stones. Did you want nice guys who called their haircuts "Arthur" or surly, smart-assed louts who got arrested more than once for pissing on walls? By 1965, the Stones, and their r'n'b compadres the Yardbirds, Kinks, Manfred Mann and Who, became awfully tempting to the adventurous.

It took much more time for the London r'n'b bands to find comparable success in America, largely because they were too rough V ready for this land's still clean-cut soul. Unlike the brouhaha engulfing the Beatles' first concert in New York at Carnegie Hall, the Rolling Stones' N.Y. debut that June didn't even sell out. Only when Mick Jagger pelvic-ground his way through "Satisfaction" almost a year later, and the teenage anxiety level had already begun to climb, did the Stones get a number one hit. The Kinks did all right for themselves, assisted by numerous appearances on those important weekly TV showcases, Shindig and Hullabaloo—"You Really Got Me" launched them with ease. However, for the Yardbirds and especially the Who, Jeff Beck's impressive guitar innovations and Pete Townshend's auto-destruct act were just too hard to swallow. As strange as it may seem today, "My Generation" was actually a mini-cult anthem in the U.S., with few adherents at the time of its release. Not everything the English clamped to their chests earned an instant refuge of comparable strength on these shores.

As the number and variety of performers increased, since few ever played live on concert tours here, their TV exposure became invaluable in bringing them to life. Ed Sullivan's benevolent introduction of all "the boys" stood in marked contrast to others, who booked the bands for ratings but didn't even try to hide their contempt of them. Dean Martin sealed his fate when, as host of Hollywood Palace, he followed the Rolling Stones with a high-wire act and commented, "That man is the father of the Rolling Stones. He's been trying to kill himself ever since." If Dino felt a little prickly for a while, credit it to thousands of hastily assembled voodoo dolls.

Far better were the eagerly awaited half-hour rock shows. Between the two best known ones mentioned above and a raft of regional imitators, they offered every significant British artist of the mid-'60s the chance to showcase his or her wares. Through them we saw the beauties who set standards for mod good looks— Marianne Faithfull warbling "As Tears Go By," raven-haired Sandie Shaw, plaintively admitting "There's Always Something There To Remind Me," strident Cilia Black, proclaiming "You're My World." Whoever was on the charts got tracked down to perform their hit, even if they stood no chance on earth of matching the Beatles' or Stones' mystique.

So we saw P.J. Proby (a primeval version of Tom Jones); the wholesome duos of Peter and Gordon, and Chad and Jeremy; a brooding Van Morrison fronting Them as he madly attacked a harmonica during "Mystic Eyes"; Jamaican-born Millie Small, a harbinger of music that would remain unknown here for almost a decade—ska and reggae—singing "My Boy Lollipop"; ragtime student Ian Whitcomb, who found that heavy breathing and a refrain of that wild American expression "You Turn Me On" equalled fleeting stardom; and many, many more. England was a virtual breeding ground of talent, we believed, a nationwide amusement park dedicated to the endless permutations of rock V roll. In fact, the closer one could get to England, the nearer a fan reached her own particular door to heaven. Try the "London looks" of Yardley cosmetics, said the ads in Seventeen, while on radio, the Yardbirds merrily sang a commercial for "Great Shakes" chocolate mixer. Mary Quant invented the miniskirt in England; within a year, department stores from coast-tocoast gingerly introduced it for sale. Those same magazines proferring Fufl Color Pix of Your Faves often had pen-pal listings at the back—one way we could each grab a slice of the magic kingdom. Was there ever a girl as fortunate as American Dominy Hamilton, who moved to England and every month—sporting carefully ironed long hair and bold new fashions—described the London scene in Datebook? The newness of it all appeared unlikely ever to end.

But you know that end it did by 1967, when new forms, new realities and new stretches of the imagination made England become simply one of several extraordinary places. The establishment of FM radio and its capacity to broadcast at length and in stereo, provided a different type of forum for the newly serious bands. Three minute ditties gave way to album length messages.

For me, the occasion of spending my 18th summer in London during 1967, demanded that physical presence supplant easy dreams. And soon, the dreams themselves started to pass away-in August, 1967, when a radio in Paris blurted Brian Epstein's pill overdose; two years later, when another radio somberly announced the drowning death of Brian Jones; and in the decade that followed, as the DJs who represented that era—Murray the "K" and B. Mitchell Reed—sickened and died. Then, in one stroke, on December 8, 1980, yet another shocked radio voice said that John Lennon had been assassinated by a so-called fan, and the last vestige of incurable optimism was gone—except in fond memory.