2/7/64- The Beatles Arrive in America - Marsha Albert was the spark

[Loonman]

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=CELEBRITY&oid=43678

"I(Walter Cronkite) was not entirely thrilled with it myself, to tell you the truth," he adds. "It was not a musical phenomenon to me. The phenomenon was a social one, of these rather tawdry-looking guys, we thought at the time, with their long hair and this crazy singing of theirs, this meaningless 'wah-wah-wah, wee-wee-wee' stuff they were doing."


One viewer of the broadcast, however -- a 15-year-old Silver Spring, Md., girl named Marsha Albert -- had a different point of view.


"She liked what she saw and heard," Spizer says, "and wrote a letter to her radio station, WWDC, referring to the broadcast and saying how great it was, and why can't we have music like that in America.


"Carroll James, who was a DJ with WWDC, obtained the British 45 of 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' and aired it on Dec. 17 and got immediate favorable response in the Washington area."
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Alarmed by the early airplay on its as-yet-unreleased single, Capitol initially sought a cease-and-desist order.


But, Beatles authority Martin Lewis says, " said, 'Hold on a moment. We spend all our lives hustling DJs to play our records. Now we're threatening to sue 'em. This is insane. Maybe we should change our plans.' And they hustled up the release."


Capitol moved the single's release date to December 26 -- an unusual act of timing that paid off.


High schools were still on Christmas break. Lewis says, "Kids who normally would have heard the record only in the early morning or late evening when they got home from school are hearing it all the way through the daytime ... In that period, the kids go wild, and it takes off on its own volition."


"I Want to Hold Your Hand" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 45 on Jan. 18, 1964, and hit No. 1 a mere two weeks later, on February 1.


In New York, pandemonium ensued. Thousands of shrieking teens mobbed Kennedy International Airport when the Beatles arrived February 7 on Pan Am flight 101 from London. Thousands more laid siege to the Plaza Hotel, where the group was staying.


"There was bedlam at 59th and Fifth Avenue," Livingston says. "Nobody could move, the traffic was so held up. It was practically a riot scene. The hotel said to me, 'Don't ever book those boys in here again."'

Reuters/abs-cbnNEWS.com