MUSIC
When is the new Scorsese-produced Beatles ‘64 documentary out? Release date and how to stream
‘Beatles ‘64′ explores the group’s landmark first trip to America, which introduced them a whole new audience with the era-defining appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
The Beatles had barely come off stage after the first of 18 concerts at the Olympia Theatre in Paris when they heard the news. A telegram sent from Capitol Records to their manager Brian Epstein stunned the four lads from Liverpool - their single, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ had gone to No.1 in America - the land of their musical idols.
The Beatles from the Cavern to Broadway in six months
Just a few months previously, the group had made their final appearance at the Cavern - a dank, dark, scruffy cellar, located down an equally grubby backstreet right in the heart of Liverpool’s city centre. The Cavern was notorious. Condensation would trickle down the brick walls and occasionally, including on that fateful final show on 3 August 1963, short-circuit their amps.
But after that everything seemed to accelerate very quickly for the group. Regular appearances on national television and radio, along with the relentless slog of touring had generated a new phenomenon among Britain’s youth - Beatlemania.
A four-song appearance at the Royal Command Performance crowned by a cheeky quip from John Lennon even had royalty won over. By the end of 1963, the Beatles had pretty much conquered the UK. They had become a big fish in a small pond.
Epstein had already secured engagements in America - three culture-changing appearances on the prestigious CBS Ed Sullivan Show in New York and concerts in front of 8,000 fans at the Washington Coliseum on 11 February, and two shows at Carnegie Hall the following day.
John, Paul, George and Ringo were just happy to be going to America and while they hoped it would be moderately successful, the plan was to use the experience to soak up as much American culture as they could and pick up some records by their favorite artists - Marvin Gaye, the Miracles, the Exciters, Mary Wells, James Ray, the Ronettes and Arthur Alexander - original juke box-dinked 45s on labels like Tamla, Scepter, Dot... that were either impossible to find in England, or were licensed for release six months down the line.
The Beatles arrival at JFK airport in February 1964
Yet as the plane, Pan Am flight 101 made its approach to JFK Airport on 7 February, the Fabs were about to get the shock of their lives. Expecting to be ushered through a relatively empty arrivals lounge, instead they were greeted by 5,000 screaming fans waving placards and banners and around 200 reporters, photographers and cameramen.
McCartney recalled: “There were millions of kids at the airport, which nobody had expected. We heard about it in mid-air. There were journalists on the plane, and the pilot had rang ahead and said, ‘Tell the boys there’s a big crowd waiting for them.’ We thought, ‘Wow! God, we have really made it.’”
The Ed Sullivan Show appearance on 9 February was a watershed moment. A TV audience of 73 million tuned in to watch - a national record at the time. “It is still supposed to be one of the largest viewing audiences ever in the States,” says McCartney. “We came out of nowhere with funny hair, looking like marionettes or something. That was very influential. I think that was really one of the big things that broke us – the hairdo more than the music, originally”.
The Beatles first trip to America is the subject of a new documentary produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by David Tedeschi - Beatles ‘64. The film, which features never-before-seen footage of the band captures those electrifying three weeks when the group stepped up a gear or three.
Rare footage has been restored in 4K by Park Road Post while George Martin’s son Giles was brought in to demix and remaster the audio from the Washington DC concert and Ed Sullivan appearances. The surviving Beatles, Paul and Ringo, give their recollections in newly-filmed interviews - as do some of the fans who were there, their lives changed forever.
Beatles ‘64: New York story
As Tedeschi explained: “I’m a New Yorker; Scorsese is a New Yorker. It’s very much a New York story. New York, Washington, Miami – but New York. The band performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in New York, and 1964 was a key year in New York City. I basically pitched the film that you saw, in large part because I know a lot of people – including myself – on whom the Beatles really had a tremendous impact in an almost spiritual way.”
Beatles ‘64 will stream exclusively on Disney+ beginning 29 November.
Looking back to that first US trip, Paul said, “We played the clubs in Liverpool, we played Hamburg, we played ballrooms, theatres, we played Europe... We’d done quite a lot of stuff before we went to America. And although we weren’t really ready for that degree of adulation, we were ready.
“When we got off the airplane we didn’t know there was going to be amazing reception. Looking back on it, it was fabulous, but then, looking back on things is fabulous - you forget the horrors and the bad bits. We really got fed up, but my memory of it was that it was great”.