Did Kennedy’s Assassination Help The Beatles Break America?

In The Beatles ’64, a new documentary that charts the impact of the band’s first U.S. tour and how it turned them into global superstars, Paul McCartney explains why they achieved so much so quickly suggestions.

“When we came, it was shortly after Kennedy was assassinated,” he said.

“Maybe America needs something like The Beatles to get over its sadness.”

Beatles scholars and cultural historians have long commented on how much the band inspired a mourning America.

But is McCartney right? Is the rise of the world’s most famous band partly down to the murder of America’s 35th president?

Did the Beatles shock America because of Kennedy’s murder?

Dr. Patrick Andlick, assistant professor of American history at Northumbria University, said it was a moment that fundamentally shook the country, in part because of Kennedy’s own pop culture image.

“In a sense, Kennedy was the first television president, which was relatively new at the time,” he said.

“By the early 1960s, 90 percent of American households had a television, so the way news and media was consumed completely changed.”

He said the president was like the Beatles, “young, handsome, witty and energetic, which translates very well to television.”

“He loved television and was perfect for it,” he said.

“This made the shock and trauma of his death all the more intense in the aftermath.

“This is the first time in 60 years that a sitting president has been killed.”

Of course, television also helped the Beatles become a phenomenon in their home country.

In 1962, the Liverpool quartet settled on the final line-up of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and in 1963 they had a hit with “Please Please Me” and “With The Beatles” “Won two championship albums.

When this success was combined with the famous Royal Variety Performance in 1963, where Lennon asked “people in the cheaper seats to clap” while others “ringed their jewels”, they became a national sensation.

Dr Holly Tessler, a senior music industry lecturer at the University of Liverpool, said it was the show that “turned them into stars overnight”.

“The Beatles were an unstoppable force in Britain at this time,” she said.

The Beatles’ youthful energy was key to their success, echoing the legions of British teenagers who began to follow them.

Dr. Andrick said that in the United States, JFK Airport has a similar appeal.

“JFK showed youth and energy, and in his inaugural address he talked about passing the torch to a new generation of Americans,” he said.

“His death cut all of that short in a shocking way.”

In the aftermath, he said, the country began “looking for something more positive, stability and peace of mind.”

“When the Beatles came, I thought they represented that.

“They are still young and full of energy, [in the footage] They got off the plane and they were silly.

“So for a country fractured by trauma, the Beatles represented an opportunity to laugh and have fun again.”

Winning over a segment of young Americans is one thing, but breaking into the national market is another.

Many British acts have tried and failed to emulate the transatlantic appeal of their American counterparts, who enjoyed huge success in the UK and failed to break into the US market.

Groups that preceded The Beatles had limited success.

Lonnie Donegan, known as the “King of Schiffle”, had two top ten hits, while Cliff Richard, Britain’s most famous performer at the time, had just one Once in the US Top 40.

Spencer Leigh, author of several books about the Beatles, said there was a trend of British acts failing to “make it” in the United States, with Capitol, one of the country’s biggest record labels, even refusing to release The Beatles out of fear Music by a jazz band.

“British artists don’t sell well in the United States, and the Capitol seems to be dismissive of British work,” he said.

The concerns at the Capitol are understandable. The singles “Please Please Me”, “From Me To You” and “She Loves You” were all released in the United States in 1963, but met with limited success, so they were reluctant to release “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.

Band manager Brian Epstein and Capitol’s parent company EMI succeeded in changing the label’s mind, and the single hit US stores on Boxing Day 1963, about a month after JFK’s assassination.

Its impact was huge, and by the first week of February it topped the US charts, where it stayed for seven weeks.

The band’s success meant that more than 3,000 fans and a large number of reporters had gathered at the airport when the band landed.

For Spencer Lee, it was what happened next, not what came before, that led to their global success.

“My point is, the people who were screaming for the Beatles at the airport were young and didn’t know much about politics,” he said.

“The turning point for me was The Ed Sullivan Show.”

The Beatles made their first appearance on the show, one of the most popular television variety shows in the United States, on February 9, 1964 at 20:00.

Ahead of the band’s visit, CBS Television Network reportedly received more than 50,000 requests to get seats at its 700-capacity studio, with those who failed to get a seat excitedly squeezing in In front of the TV at home.

“Over 70 million people watched the first series and they did really well,” Leigh said.

One of the moments that really caught the audience’s attention, he said, was when the camera turned to each band member and their names flashed on the screen.

“They put a caption on John Lennon saying ‘Sorry girls, he’s married’,” he said.

“I’m not sure how many [the band] Appreciate this.

About a month after their first three shows, the Beatles made US chart history by becoming the first band to occupy the top five simultaneously.

Beatlemania has now taken over the world and the rest is history.

For Dr. Tesler, the idea that America declined with the death of Kennedy and rose with the arrival of the Beatles is too simplistic.

For her, it was the appearance of The Ed Sullivan Show, not the aftermath of the assassination, that set the Beatles on the path to pop immortality.

“I really have a hard time accepting the idea that the Beatles’ success in the United States was due to the shooting of John F. Kennedy,” she said.

“Their manager, Brian Epstein, had already been to the United States and got them to play Sullivan’s show just weeks before JFK’s assassination, and when the band finally landed in the U.S., there was a lot of hype .

“America may have hoped to deflect from the sense of ‘what comes next’ after the assassination, but the Beatles were so quickly in the news that the connection to JFK was fleeting at best.”

The Beatles ’64 is available to watch on Disney+